I'm looking at Sejung grands (172 and 187 cm)with different specs for the hammers. According to the dealer they come with either Abel hammers or hammers (presumably manufactured in the Sejung factory?)with FFW felt. The latter are George Steck stencils. I forgot to ask exactly what kind of felt is used on the Abel hammers. I like the bright, focused tone of the George Stecks. The pianos with the Abel hammers have a more diffuse tone, but a bigger more complex sound. One of the George Stecks that I tried was better prepped and seasoned and had a very nice sound and feel. The other pianos had all just come out of the box.

My question is, if I got the George Steck, and if the tone were to become increasingly brighter to the point where it starts to annoy my ears, can I expect to get it voiced down successfully (and for the tone to become more focused)? Or would it be safer to get an instrument with the Abel hammer, and expect the sound to get brighter as I play it? At the moment, the George Stecks sound better, both the seasoned one as well as one that's just come out of box. I also prefer the feel of the action. The non-Stecks felt rather shallow and whimsy-whamsy.

I think the reason you're not getting any replies is that it's a tough comparison. Abel is a hammer maker. FFW is a felt maker. FFW does not make hammers, but does supply felt to hammer makers.

Most of the Abel hammers I've seen on Chinese pianos are pre-voiced. There are little machine tracks visible on the felt. That may explain the sound difference you're hearing. These Abels are probably not a premium Abel product because of cost considerations, but Chinese piano makers promote them as an upgrade in their US marketing. I was not aware that Sejung was using them.

Another problem is that Sejung pianos in KL may spec differently from those sold here in the US. What fallboard name is on the pianos with the Abels?

The pianos with the Abel hammers have the name Challen or C. Steinbert on the fallboard, both house brands of the dealer here in Kuala Lumpur and you're unlikely to find anything on them on the web. The Sejung website says very clearly that the G. Steck hammers "use FFW felt imported from Germany," which suggests that the hammers are manufactured in China. I went back a second time to have a go at the pianos and the seasoned G. Steck is beginning to sound a bit too bright, and I find this a really tough decision at the moment because I seem to be second guessing what the pianos with the Abel hammers will sound like in a year, whilst I have some inkling of what the G. Stecks will sound like from the seasoned piano in the showroom.

Challen Piano is on the web. It's just another Chinese piano using a British stencil name. I know I've seen a new one somewhere but I can't remember the location. I think it may be a Sejung brand that we don't see in the US.

http://www.challenpiano.com/products.htm

The Challen web site emits a faint musty odor.

The only German element seems to be Roslau wire for strings, but that's no big deal on Chinese pianos these days.

You should ask your salesman about the actions on the two pianos, not just the hammers. IMO, whether the hammers are Abels or Sejng's own FFW, unless you plan to play a ton, they should break in nicely and respond to light voicing when you need it.

The information on that Challen website looks outdated, which probably partly explains the musty smell. The Challens you get now come from the Sejung factory and the three sizes I tried are 172, 187 and 208 cm, exactly those you'd find on the Sejung website, and exactly like the George Steck ones.

Didn't ask too much about the action, though like I said earlier, the Challen pianos had a much lighter touch. The dealer said this can always be regulated to suit me.

I found the Sejung pianos better in terms of tone and touch than the Hailun ones that I've tried.

Oh, oh.

I guess you've been to Wagner them.

What other brands does your Sejung guy sell and what's the price difference between the Steck and the Challen?

Yes. Wagner Piano and Vienna Music (the Sejung dealer) are owned by different branches of the same family.

I think all the pianos at the Sejung dealer's come from the Sejung factory. The exceptions would be the odd reconditioned Steinway or Yamaha. The 172 and 187 cm instruments are selling for the same price irrespective of the name on the fallboard, the difference in price between the two sizes amount to a mere USD400 or so.

Oddly enough, the single 208 cm instrument in the showroom had Challen on the fallboard but hammers with FFW felt. I wasn't impressed by the instrument initially but by the time I'd gone round to play it again the next day and had warmed up to it, someone was already on the way to the showroom to pick it up.

I'm going to get either the 187 or get them to bring in another 208. The 172 has a decent tone, but I found that I could control the dynamics better on the larger instruments. I just need to decide what sort of hammers I want.

I can relate to this experience. It's happened to me. I guess that's why it's always good to make the rounds at least a couple of times.

Going back to the hammer choice, remember that FFW is a felt designation, not a hammer designation. The Abels that Sejung is using may well be made from FFW material. The terms ABel and FFW do not necessarily exclude each other. I'm sure that Abel makes some hammers that use Wurzen felt.

On the upgraded models, I can only give you second-hand information because I'm sure I've never seen one, but the best piano information in print or on the web in the US comes from Larry Fine. In his latest Piano Buyer (free link in the left column), Mr. Fine mentions an upgraded Falcone grand series. He refers to it as FG (Facone Georgian). He cites upgraded Abel hammers, better soundboard material, fancy wood veneer on the inside of grand rims, gold-plated hardware, and real ebony sharps. If all or most of that matches the Challen piano you're considering, then it's probable that the Challen you are looking at is branded here as a Falcone Georgian. Different name branding in different markets is common enough.

In Mr. Fine's price listings, the FG is priced just a tad more than the the standard Faclones, Stecks, and Hobart Cables that we get here, and have been getting for a decade.

If you trust your retailer enough to buy a piano from him, you can probably trust him that the upgraded model is worth your consideration. Just play all the pianos you're considering again (if the one awaiting delivery is still available) and choose what appeals to you most.

It's not every day that someone reports liking a Sejung more than a Hailun in this forum, but Hailun has a strong retailer and consumer loyalist following here. Sejung has no following except for one retailer who posts infrequently.

One thing I can remember from my own experience looking at Sejungs is that the larger grands were more attractive than the smaller grands and far more attractive than the verticals.

Edit/add

The retailer who puts in an occasional good word for Sejung here is Glenn Treibetz of Hollywood Piano. He also has experience selling Hailun. I sent him a PM to see if he'd join your thread. If he doesn't, you could PM him yourself to get some private information.

Thanks.

I think the title of this thread is a red herring. The names don't really tell anyone anything much. I think what I, and people I'm asking for an opinion, want to know, are the density of the felt, how much time it will take to play in and develop a stable tone, and how long before the tone gets so bright I need to get it voiced.

Apart from the hammers, I suspect there is some difference in the action between the G. Stecks and the Challens because all the G. Stecks that I played had a firmer touch, whilst the Challens were generally lighter. But the dealer assures me they can regulate the action on either of the two to produce the touch that I would be happy with.

I am leaning very strongly towards the G. Steck tone and touch but I have a niggling fear in my mind that the tone will become unbearably bright pretty quickly from 2+ hours of daily playing (anything from Frescobaldi to Rachmaninov). Besides, the piano will be in a room with very live acoustics. Needling would tone this down, but as my tech says, I'd probably have to get the hammers replaced some years after that.

I'm not so keen on the Challen tone at the moment (except the 208 instrument with the FFW felt on the hammers), or the touch, but I wonder if in the long run, they would be a wiser buy. The dealer says he can regulate the action to my liking, I expect the tone will brighten, but not by not so much as the G. Steck and voicing I suppose can be postponed or even avoided completely. On the other hand, the instrument might never develop the bright focused tone that I like in the G. Steck, and I don't like the idea of doping the felt to harden it.

Re: Hailun. It was a no-brainer. My tech was adamant I held off on my purchase of a Hailun 218 till I'd tried the Sejungs. He thinks there is far too much hype surrounding the Hailuns, the result of canny marketing. He said the QC at the Sejung factory was better and that I'd be getting a more reliable instrument. I went to the Hailun showroom twice. The first time I wasn't too impressed. The second time, the instruments had been prepped and sounded better and I found I could contemplate getting the 198 or 218 but still had niggling doubts about certain aspects of the tone and the touch. At the Sejung showroom, I found that even the 172 instruments were giving me a tone that surpassed the larger Hailuns in a few respects. Most importantly the music came alive on the Sejungs.

You are right—the names don’t really tell us anything at all. Weikert hammer felt, for example, is some of the best hammer felt available today yet given enough moisture, pressure and heat hammers made from this felt will perform very badly. On the other hand, I’ve worked with companies using relatively poor quality hammer felt and have made fairly good hammers by controlling the process well.

Abel makes a variety of different hammer types depending on the characteristics ordered by the piano maker. Some of these are among the best hammers in the world. Others I wouldn’t put on any piano under any conditions.

Unless you can talk with a technician who has first-hand (and current) information on the hammer types actually used in the pianos you are interested in you won’t really know what you are getting.




The wise buyer will not sign on the dotted line until this work is done to the buyer’s satisfaction. It’s easy to say an action can be regulated to suit your preferences; it is something else to actually do so.




All of these names are stencil names and are all technically similar. Don’t be overly impressed by any of them. Spend your time worrying about touch and tone.




On the other hand, Hailun is the only one of the bunch that thinks enough of its pianos to put its own name on them and not hide behind the stencil of some proud, old American or English piano maker.

Technician’s opinions vary, of course, based on their own personal experience but those I’ve talked to who have actually worked on Hailun pianos report that they regulate well and voice well. Their actions are reliable—a number of Chinese pianomakers use components built by Ningbo Hailun—and their hammers are pressed with a little less heat and pressure than is common to most Chinese-made hammers. This, in my opinion, is a good thing. Hammers coming out of the press a bit soft can take a while to develop a clear, clean voice—unless they are chemically hardened (don’t do this unless absolutely necessary, let them work their own way up)—but once they do they will produce a sound that cannot be matched by hammers that start out hard and need to be needled a lot to bring them down. In general hammers that start out life a little on the softer, more resilient side also tend to hold their voice longer. Yes, they will eventually brighten up—all hammers do—but it will take longer and when they do become overly bright and need to be voiced back down less voicing work is needed.

ddf

Pangor,

I just read your post and Del's reply. Please read his reply twice. He gives you far better advice than I could ever hope to.

I think you're right. It's time to get past the FFW and Abel names and just focus on the pianos as is. Del's thinking should encourage you to do that.

I don't give Hailun any points for putting the maker's name on the product because he puts (or allows to be put) a lot of other names on his products as well. And I have no problem understanding that you might like the Sejungs better than the Hailuns. That doesn't shock me at all. The Hailun tone is certainly not for everyone, despite its strong following in this forum. But I do have to wonder about your technician.



In my experience when techs are adamant about piano brands, (not individual pianos that they inspect), there is often more to it than meets the eye. KL is a big city, but piano dealers are limited. I'm wondering if your tech might be steamed at Wagner Piano for some business-related reason, or might be a fan of Vienna Music for business reasons. If you've used the guy a long time, ignore my suspicion, but adamant negative opinions of factory quality control should proceed from deep knowledge of conditions at the factory, and anyone I've known who havs actually visited Ningbo has had a favorable impression.

That doesn't mean that you should buy a Hailun. Obviously, you want the piano that appeals to you most. But don't let the tech's condemnation affect the way you hear tone and feel touch.

Turandot & Del,

It's all beginning to make sense to me. Thank you both for your very helpful advice. What Del says about the Hailun hammers needing time to develop a clean tone probably explains the reservations I had about all the Hailun instruments that I tried, because I do like a clean, clear tone which allows me to hear the texture of the harmony/counterpoint properly.

The G. Stecks that I tried gave me precisely this kind of tone, whilst the Challens and C.Steinberts were muddier, but less so than the Hailuns. At the moment, it still seems to be a toss up between getting an instrument with a tone and touch that I feel happy with immediately, but might develop a tone that is too brittle some years down the road (the G. Stecks) or to get one with a mellower, but at the moment, muddier tone and wait for the hammers to play in and for the tone to grow brighter and more focused.

I've read elsewhere in this forum that Hailuns benefit from good prepping. Maybe that's the source of the other problem I had with them when I tried them last month - they weren't sufficiently/suitably prepped. However, there was a Hailun 178 that had been sitting in the showroom for a year, and is presumably already seasoned and prepped, which didn't distinguish itself much from its siblings.

Del: I will take your advice and ask the dealer to regulate a 187cm Challen for a firmer touch before I make my final decision.

Good point--you're quite right.

ddf

All pianos benefit from good prepping! You should not consider buying a piano of this type and size--regardless the name on the keycover--until it has be well-prepped and is performing to your satisfaction. It is reasonable to make some allowances for hammer voicing; they are going to change as you play the piano. The key thing here is to make sure the piano does not start out sounding overly bright. Many pianos are voiced hard and bright so they will stand out in a large, open showroom. Be aware of this; it may well sound harsh and overpowering in your home or music studio. But the action—unless you are asking for something that will require modifying the action in some way—should feel and respond the way you want it before you buy the piano.

ddf

This is another great quote from Del that every piano buyer should read 10 times then commit to memory. There have been countless threads in Pianoworld over the years from people who get their grands home and realize they're too darn loud and ask about installing sound absorbent panels in the room, foam under the soundboard, and any other trick to bring the volume level down. Many grands can be almost deafening in the home. I've found that the best way of appreciating this is to have someone else play the piano while you listen--that's more telling than trying to judge the volume level when playing yourself.

I'd also like to make a point about voicing down hard, dense hammers that are producing a loud, bright tone. Sure, they can be voiced down, but the process is never totally satisfactory. Hard hammers seem to want to get hard again pretty quickly after voicing, and the voiced tone often ends up being one dimensional, and sometimes thuddy. I believe that these effects are caused by the lack of resilience in these hard hammers, but others can speak to this point more authoritatively than I. I've experienced this with my own piano, and, ultimately, it led to changing the hammers.

Yes, indeed.

Another gem from Del in that particular post was his observation that Abel makes hammers varying considerably in quality. When you penetrate piano brands and get to the second layer -- their specs and componentry --it's always worth remembering that all the front=line component makers -- board makers, action makers, hammer makers, and even wire suppliers, have products in different quality ranges with different prices. One should never assume that the claimed Renner action on a low-cost piano has the same virtues as the one on the 100k grand.

I don't think the name-brand component sizzle game is an invention of Chinese makers either. I seem to recall low-cost Korean pianos of years gone by decked out in Ciresa boards and Renner actions. The wise shopper will not buy the name, but instead expect the piano to make the point.

Perhaps Del would indulge us with his observations on how Chinese, Korean, and Indonesian makers actually go about choosing 'appropriate' hammers for new models.

In the interest of self-preservation he may wish to avoid answering this question….

Sometimes these decisions are made with care and some consideration about which components will best fit the basic design of the pianos being built but all too often the decision is made based on which components have the best brand recognition. This seems to happen most often with the selection of hammers. It doesn’t take the technician faced with the task of voicing some of these hammers in a heroic attempt at making the piano sound less bad to figure out just how bad that decision can sometimes be.

ddf

I think my sentence should probably have read ". . . Hailuns benefit from good prepping more than other pianos to realize their true potential . . ."

The dealer is prepping a Challen 187 that's just come out of the box to my requirements for a firmer touch even as I type this, and I'll go and try it out in the afternoon. I will probably put my money down on something after I've done that and put an end to 27 long years without a piano to play on regularly.

After mulling over what I've played and heard in the showroom and what I've read in this forum over the past few days, I'm now inclined to get something with a mellower, if less focused tone. Roy123 has confirmed my fears about hard hammers being difficult to tone down satisfactorily as well as my fears about the piano overwhelming my living room (and the street!)

To respond to a point made by turandot above, Sejung offers Ciresa soundboards as an alternative to their standard sitka spruce ones. The Abel hammers on the Challens I suppose are an 'upgrade' requested by the dealer for their house brand.

Pangor,

In the Fine publication Piano Buyer that I mentioned earlier, Mr. Fine states that the upgraded series of Sejungs (branded Georgian in the US) has both Abel hammers and what the company calls "upgraded sondboard material".

I'm a little confused with your statement here. Are you thinking that pianos branded Challen are only sold by your dealer? Usually these grand old defunct company names are bought and owned by factories, not by individual dealers. Has the Vienna Music dealer told you that the Challen brand is exclusive to him?

The usual pitch made for a Ciresa board over a Sibertian or Mongolian spruce is that the Ciresa will produces a warmer more European tone. The word "refined" is often tossed about in promoting Ciresa boards and European spruce boards in general. There's a bit of irony there because some of the pricy European pianos with the so-called refined European sound are brilliant to the point of annoyance. I suspect the pitch is long on marketing values and short on reality. Although certainly s high-grade and well-made Ciresa from the Val di Fiemme might be expected to contribute a tad more toward a pleasing tone than the average Siberian or Mongolian spruce board, the more likely source of perceptible tonal differences is probably in the interaction of hammers and strings.

Also, I want you to know that I've given it a lot of thought today, and I've reached the conclusion that even though I'm not particularly fussy, I could not sit down at a piano wit the name 'Steinbert' looking up at me without feeling like an utter fool.

Steinweg, bring it on. Steingraeber, but of course. Wilh. Steinberg, no problem.
Gerh. Steinberg, well, okay. Gertrude Stein, hey! I'll give it a go for sure!

But Steinbert just goes too far. I'd rather play an Ernie&Bert or a Norbert.

Turandot: One piano you're not going to be able to play without feeling like an utter fool will be mine!

I believe the Challen company was bought over by Musical Products, which had a factory near Ipoh that manufactured pianos with, among others, the Challen name on the fallboard. My dealer is/was the MD. The factory has closed down and I think all the Challens, Barrat & Robinsons, C. Steinberts, which they used to manufacture, now appear on the fallboard of stencil pianos coming out of the Sejung factory. Wagners (another Musical Products product) on the other hand come from the Hailun factory.

Word has it that they have plans to export a special line of pianos with the name ChalLin in the fallboard to the US.

This makes my head spin, but in a way it makes sense. Barrett & Robinson was one of the owners of the Challen brand as the brand made its way through several hands from Europe to Asia. I have no idea though where the Steinbert name came from (maybe some marketing dept. brainstorming session?)

Are you saying that as of now all manufacture of pianos inside Malaysia is dead? That's a shame, but it would explain why Musical Products Sdn. Bhd might license (or sell outright) its stable of acquired brand names to Sejung and order pianos spec'd to its own '?strict?' standards for sale in Malaysia.

With Musical Products Sdn. Bhd pulling the strings for both Wagner Piano and Vienna Music, it seems that getting good information from dealers in Malaysia might be tricky.

Who has the franchise for Steinway (the authentic version ) in Malysia? Does that belong to Musical Products Sdn. Bhd as well?

I'm not sure how Wagner Music and Vienna Music are related to Musical Products (i.e. if the latter is a sort of holding company). I get the impression the two are quite autonomous and Musical Products was merely the factory that produced pianos for both.

As far as I know, no pianos are made in Malaysia anymore - it's the irresistible China factor I think.

Vienna Music were the agent for Steinway, but at some point, Bentley Music must have taken over. It's a rather incongruous marriage because the latter sell mostly electric guitars, drum sets and other electronic stuff, although they do have a glitzy showroom in a happening suburb. I went there to have a go at their Bostons but they refused to let me in to the room where all their Steinways, Bostons and Essexes are kept.

It's an odd way to sell pianos. Maybe the piano guy was on a break. A lot of MI shops keep the piano room locked unless there's someone to watch customers who enter.

Pangur,

The relationship betweenn Musical Products Sdn. Bhd and Vienna Music is quite clear. Vienna is an "associate" of MP. If all piano production in Malaysia has stopped, as you indicate, then Vienna Music is a pretty important associate since it's the main channel for selling all those assorted stenil names that MP has farmed out to Sejung and is buying back from them. The MP web site says Vienna has been "ruled" by the same Hoe family for three generations. "Ruled" is an interesting choice of words....sounds feudal .

The relationship between Wagner Piano and Musical Products Sdn. Bhd is unclear. There may not be one. Wagner is also ruled by a Hoe, but then again, Malaysia has thousands of Hoes (no double entendre intended )

The report of your tech still sticks out for me like a sore thumb. At this point, Wager is basically just Petrof/Hailun, and those two companies have their own cozy arrangement in Asia. Vienna is basically Sejung stencils. Their web site lists Samick, and says they sell professional pianos as well, but I think it's out of date. It seems to me your tech is caught up in something other than Sejung's amazing quality control.

If you can't crash the Steinway showroom to check out the Essex pianos (a good comp but probably overpriced), maybe you can find someone selling Pearl River, preferably someone who isn't named Hoe. Nothing wrong with Hoes of course, but a breath of fresh air might be nice. If nothing turns up, hop a flight to Singapore.

That Challen might be the greatest thing since salted peanuts, but you said you've been waiting 27 years, so be careful. Bearing in mind Del's comment, common sense, and the obvious, I have a hard time imagining a scenario where Sejung R&D hangs different hammers on a Challen protorype until they find the perfect match to fulfill its design, and that match turns out to be the basic Abel that Chinese pianos have been floking to in recent years.

In Singapore, most likely, you see more "Chiu" and "Wong" family in the piano industry .... many years ago, I was told the Hoe, Chiu and Wong family(s) are from Ningbo and coincidently from the same village… And somehow they have all work for the British piano factories in Shanghai!!! .... I was told some of them have been transferred to the south east asia as tuner and repairer and some came out from the factory and started their own shop, beginning to import british pianos such as knight, Kemble, J & J Hopkinson, Rogers, Bentley, John Brinsmead, Leswien and Zender and etc... those days, english pianos were very popular in the south east asia...

as for wagner and vienna... they are from the same family... before there was vienna it was just wagner piano company, setup by the founder who was attached with moutrie robinson & co, transferred to malaysia (then was known as malaya). when the robinson and moutrie close down in shanghai, the founder setup wagner piano company... started to import pianos from the UK.... later beginning to produce piano cabinet locally (import strung back from uk) to stay competitive. the elder son of the founder setup musical product factory in 1974 or 1975 with few brothers (7-8 of them i think). however, due to differences and ideas in running the business some of them came out and started on their own... and there you have vienna music, wagner piano pte ltd, wagner piano company, weng lee muzik, wagner petrof piano (singapore) pte ltd and wagner music shop. apparently the md of musical product (factory) is also the founder of vienna music. so it was only musical product that have direct relationship with vienna... (disclaimer: we were all living in same neighborhood, called campbell road)

I lived in Singapore for three years once and still have a phobia for the place. Not going there, thank you! I really need to get my piano locally so I can establish a comfortable working relationship with a good technician. In fact, I'm going to Guangzhou next month and the Pearl River HQ is just a couple of stops away from my hotel there. Importing a piano direct from Guangzhou will be a nightmare I'm sure.

I can confirm that Wagner and Vienna are owned by different branches of the same family. In fact my prospective purchase of a Steinsomething goes through both, I'm not just dealing with Vienna Music - sounds like a rather complicated arrangement.

I can spend months and years trying out different pianos. Another possibility of course is an old Yamaha or Kawai. I found a C7 selling for not much more than a new Sejung, but it was already sold. There's an establishment somewhere in Kuala Lumpur that rebuilds old Kawais and Yamahas. At the end of day, I still don't feel comfortable buying an old piano.

At the end of the day the best thing to do is trust your own judgment after you've explored all possibilities that make sense.

I certainly wasn't recommending buying an old Yamaha or Kawai out of fear of new Chinese pianos. I have no real reason to think that the options you're choosing between are not good. If there is such a thing where you are as an independent unaffiliated tech, I guess this person would be a useful resource not only after purchase, but before.

I think William is giving some good advice to trust your own judgement. Comparing new to a used Japanese, I believe strongly that a quality new Chinese piano would be a better choice than a 20,30,40,year old Yamaha or Kawai. As for the feature spec in a Sejung product, I wouldn't get too hung up on that. We were in the past a dealer for them and found both of their felts to be fine. The Abel being easier to voice.

Yes of course, in the absence of an independent technician or an experienced pianist who can give me a second opinion, I'll have to depend on my own judgment.

I've left off playing the piano regularly for 27 years and all the playing before that was on a small vertical that didn't do much to help me develop my technique or acquire a proper appreciation for piano tone and touch. So purchasing a grand brings me into unfamiliar territory and posting my query here has been very helpful and I thank everyone for your advice. You've all alerted me to things I should watch out for and given me a proper perspective on the whole enterprise.