Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum I'm renting a brand new Young Chang Y175!

There's a tech in my area renting out pianos and he has a few brand new Young Changs he bought directly from the company for the purposes of rentals. This is the 5' 9" model and is fresh out of the crate (which I know isn't necessarily good) into his workshop. We spent a few hours together going over it and making sure everything played well.

He said most people don't notice issues with the pianos right out of the box (after tuning and basic regulation), but he made sure to spend some time with me to make the action much smoother. This involved lubricating the pin centers (the keys were a little stiff for playing pp or softer). Some dampers for the outer string were leaking a little bit in the middle section. I believe these should be standard things to prep for pianos fresh out of the box. I think even dealers might not bother with too much prep work for an inexpensive piano, but I think a little bit of attention can make any new piano feel great (the sound is a little harder to fix).

We played around with the hammer starting point and I noticed that bringing the hammers closer to the strings slightly dulled the sound a bit too much, but didn't notice much action lightening. So the default setup was decent, just required more lubrication to smoothen it.

It does sound pretty great. There are some voicing issues but I'll have to play it for a while to break it in first. It sounds much better than a Y157 which was side by side. Not just for bass, but the sound was overall more "full". I know this is the lowest end model Young Chang. But I've been to every piano shop in the area and played a ton of grands and this probably has the best sound-to-dollars ratio for new pianos. I believe all of the new models have the Fandrich design in them which has improved the sound compared to older Young Changs.

The action was stamped "G157".. which was their older series and the 5' 2" model. I guess it's similar to Yamaha pianos with actions stamped with a smaller model.

Rental works out pretty well for me because I don't need to worry about selling the piano once I move in a few years. The rate was $110/month with $400 insurance and some moving costs. I think it's reasonable, considering my local piano store is renting out 45" uprights for $75/month.

I've decided to jump straight into learning La Campanella so I'll be giving the piano quite a workout.

It's not in my home yet but it's coming later this week. Here's some pictures of it at his workshop though.

Picture album: http://imgur.com/a/FhsST

Congrats, looks good!

Welcome to the Club! I got the Y185. I am not sure if that one has the Fandrich design yet. Last time I checked only the Y150 was out with it but that was a few months ago.
In any case, looks like you got some nice prep done. I had mine checked by 3 techs and the last one is a Steinway tech that did amazing things to it so it can really sound nice like you said, the price performance ratio is very high.

Congratulations!

I'll bet it sounds as good as it looks. I can see where there would be certain benefits to renting/leasing a new piano as opposed to buying... no huge depreciation for one.

Rick