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I am a few months into my journey of trying to find a piano. I do not play but play other instruments. I have always wanted to play piano and have two young girls who are showing an interest as well. I actually spent a lot of time considering restoring a Chickering Console in the family and have decided against it. I have looked at a lot of pianos and learned a fair amount in the process.

I have been to 3 of the 4 remaining piano dealers in my area. (11 have closed over the past decade per a recent newspaper article). They all feel like they are businesses that are struggling, and this concerns me as a potential buyer. I would prefer to buy and am willing to pay more from a dealer and get a warranty. However, 2 of the three I have visited have most of their pianos out of tune. Almost all of the pianos sound metallic in the treble and weak in the bass and the actions are inconsistent in feel across a keyboard to my uneducated hands. Now almost all of these pianos are 20-40 year old pianos under 3K.

Am I right that this is just poor prep? I know I could pay for someone to prep a piano.....but why should I pay the dealership premium for un-prepped pianos? What does this say about their warranty, even if the manage to stay in business? Would it be rude for me to point this out? Is it typically expected to have to spend significant money on regulation and voicing, even after buying from a dealer?

The last "dealer" I visited is actually an RPT who has a small showroom. He has an extremely limited inventory but his pianos (mostly under 4K uprights), fly off the shelves, because he selects pianos in good condition and preps them. But I could be waiting forever for a piano of my liking to come along, and if its any good, it will likely be out of his inventory within a week. I would not hesitate to but a piano from this dealer.

I have one more store locally to check out, a new "branch" of another large national retailer that just opened.

What is reasonable to expect? I have a budget of 4-7K. Looking for a satin walnut, mahogany, or cherry upright. Love the sound of Petrofs. Like Charles Walter also. Could live with a new Kawai or a good condition and refurbished Sohmer, Everett, or Baldwin Studio. My wife needs it to look near new and I and my daughters need it to be "a player". From my experience learning other instruments, I know having a consistent action and pleasing tone are important to avoid frustration and inspire a young player.

This is radically different than buying a used guitar in my experience. Most of the guitars in good shops are "set-up" and often restrung. I know its costly to restring, but tuning and some voicing and regulation would seem to make sense if you are marketing to anyone but complete novices.

Any other piano brands I should be checking out?

I'm also looking to get a piano at a distance, given the state of my local market. Any advice on how to go about that would be appreciated, too.....

Thanks

At a budget of 4k-7k there are many quality 'new' pianos you could be looking at. The satin natural wood finish will add 2k-3k to the price.

Hope you're jamming with your daughters soon.

Enjoy

It doesn't usually add anywhere near that much in an upright. $300-$500 is typical.

I thought "prep" was more of a term used for new pianos.

For used pianos, it's probably about how much parts they're going to replace or the level of servicing. Voicing or regulation runs maybe around $500-$1000 retail, if it requires him to. Maybe he can sell them just fine by doing a little dusting and cosmetic work and maybe most buyers don't have an ear like yours.

Restringing, I think, is somewhere around $3000-$5000. So you can see it starts to not make much sense to do this much work on a piano where a new one runs about $5000-$7000. These pianos are starting to seem like a lot of the electronics made these days where it doesn't make sense to do any type of repair. Cheaper to toss it and get a new one. Yeah, it's messed up but it that's the way it is in this price range. And definitely not like guitars where I remember back in the day you could get a 3-pack of D'Addario's for $9. Then again, you change guitar strings every couple of weeks, but still would take a long time to get in the $3000's!!

I've seen Petrof and Charles Walter uprights in your price range used on Craigslist in the SF market, but it depends on your market, and even in SF you don't see them that often.

If you like and trust that RPT (and I infer from your comments that you do), but you don't want to wait for a piano to pass through his inventory, then I'd suggest you take a proactive approach: start hunting used models that you're interested in, and when you find a good candidate, hire the RPT to inspect it and tell you also what he'd charge for any work it might need, like voicing, regulation, etc. Good luck with your search.

Thanks Everyone. I know from my experience looking into getting a piano restored how much time and money is needed to repair a piano. The piano market just seems to be flooded with used, neglected, and worn out instruments due to this compared to say, guitars. A guitar usually takes 30 minutes and 20 bucks to restring and tune, max. Action adjustment takes a couple of hours of a techs time max in most cases. Pianos are just really mechanically so complex and time consuming. I am still in awe of their complexity.

I thinking that unless I find a gently used Petrof or Walter and then spend an additional $1K or so for voicing/regulation, I probably need to look at new pianos seriously to meet my expectations.

I did find another store within driving distance. The two stores I have not visited seem to be the largest. The new piano brands in my price range available to look at are:

Yamaha
Kawai
Baldwin
Knabe
Kohler + Campbell
Essex
Brodmann
Palatino
Pramburger
Ritmiller
Weber

I am very biased against Chinese intruments just from my experience with Chinese guitars. Quality is not good. Have no experience with Korean or Indonesian instruments.....perhaps I need to keep a more open mind. It seems almost no American, European,or Japanese pianos are in my price range new.

Any thoughts of the brands you would target from the above list? I tend to like a more medium to mellow sound. I have not found a Yamaha I liked the sound on yet, too bright/focused.....on the other hand I have not heard Petrof that I didn't like the sound on. The room I will have the piano in has hardwood floors, so I anticipate that might make the sound even brighter compared to a carpeted showroom.

I think you can drop the bias
Anyway, the current Baldwins are good. You might also like Kawai as they are typically more mellow then Yamaha. The rest is pretty much Chinese. Ritmuller is a good piano so is Weber, the rest is not bad either.

You are probably right that I need to get rid of my bias. The Indonesian Samicks, Kawais, and Yamahas and their associated brands seem to have a decent reputation as well and have somewhat of a track record at this point. As do the Pearl River based lines. Those Ritmullers sound and look nice on video, I definitely need to see some in person.

I just don't want to have a piano that wears out quickly. One of my first guitars was a new Korean "Montanna" guitar that I spent $400 15 years ago (decent amount for a guitar at that time) that sounded and played good in the shop but completely wore out within a year of heavy play. (Frets were made of soft metal and wore very quickly and the neck became loose from the body within a year, rendering it unplayable). Don't want to repeat that experience with a 5-7K piano. I don't feel confident that I would be avoiding that experience with any of the above brands except Kawai and Yamaha......but maybe I am wrong. I must not be the only one that feels this way seeing as Samick is using a bunch of American and European brand names to sell pianos. Perhaps this is unfair bias on the part of customers.

The key is to find a manufacturer with good quality control, more than worrying about location (this is also true when building electronics). Rumors are that a certain NY piano maker had trouble with quality control back in the late 70s.

Which city are you in? Street prices vary quite a bit depending on where you are. In my market you can get a Yamaha U1 or Kawai K3-K5 for about $7K, but that's polished ebony. Not sure about the wood finishes. I think basically for under $10K you're looking at Japanese and Chinese pianos, American & European seem to start around 10K.

If you can find a Charles Walter, at least in SF they seem to go used for pretty cheap. My guess is they're a relatively unknown brand to non-players or novices. Here's one for $1800.
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/msg/4575278431.html

There are a lot of threads here about Chinese pianos which I participated in several of them. Your initial bias is pretty common. I started out in that boat too. I still prefer Japanese pianos over them, but I at least now appreciate the part they play in the market.

This is my concern exactly. I really don't care what country its from but would strongly prefer a piano manufactured at a site known to have decent quality control for a decade or more. There are certain vintages of Steinways and Baldwins that would be on that list if I was buying during those times of questionable QC. However, to me, one of the big advantages of buying a slightly used instrument besides price, is that it tends to make any "lemons" readily apparent. Another advantage to a slightly used instrument/piano is that the sharp depreciation has already occurred in value and if we grow out of it or don't like it a used Kawai or Yamaha or to a lesser extent a Walter or Petrof would be easier to unload.

I am in NE Ohio.

Are the Kawai K-2/K-200s made in Indonesia then?

A K-3/300 may be within my range, the others, I think are out of it.

Bill, to some extent, this is true. Other than S&S, the Yammy has the highest name recognition.

Something which might be an ingredient in the choice process would be the satisfaction derived from a Walter or Petrof vs. a Kawai or Yamaha. To my mind, it is better to choose the best playing experience available to you, rather than considering a possible resale in the future.

Marty, I agree....especially if I had some experience, I would know what I want, as a complete novice I don't. For example, as a guitarist, I know I like a full length ebony scale with medium weight phosphur bronze strings and tend to like Taylor and Breedlove guitars with spruce tops. I don't know what I want really in pianos. Prices were $500 to $1000 more in general than the other shops I had gone to.....defnitely worth it to me for the tuning, regulation, and voicing.

I did get to go to another piano shop and I was pleased with the experience but not the selection. The first good sign was that their was a tech working on a piano when I walked in. The pianos were all in tune, with even actions and consistent tone, even the 70s and 80s used pianos. PLots of Yamahas and Knabes in terms of uprights. I think I prefer a heavier touch. More control over volume and attack. I did find two more mellow Yamahas I liked the sound of somewhat....a M450 and a new YUS3 (out of my price range). Liked the consistency of the touch on the Yamahas. I also liked the sound of the Knabe uprights in general. I did find a 1980s S&S Console that I loved the sound for $4400, but their were some inconsistencies in the touch. The S&S just had such a unique sound, more rounded, more harmonics, more melodic.....the rest of the pianos seemed like they were trying to sound like concert grands while the console seemed comfortable in its own skin as a living room piano. I would also like to get at least a studio sized piano with a full sized action.

The one thing that was disappointing to me was how many black pianos there were and of the newer wood finished pianos, how much the quality of the cabinetry has gone down, even compared to a say a 1990s Baldwin Hamilton. The Steinway definitely stuck out as the quality furniture piece in the room.

Bill, are you in the SF Bay Area? If so, Japanese pianos tend to have lower prices there then elsewere..
@michaelha might be able to help you with some prices.

I get this is the "Piano" forum; however, for $4K-$7K, you could get a REALLY nice digital piano (gasp!), with a really close acoustic grand piano action.

For a $2K to $3K digital, you would probably make your money back in tuning costs over 5 years. Of course there are other pros. Of course, you will have cons too.

A lot of the upper end digitals however come in a polished ebony type cabinet which should satisfy the wife, and the actions and sounds of a grand piano (and other sounds too!) could help keep young players inspired and engaged.

My intent here is not an acoustic vs digital, but simply to offer other solutions for that price range.

Bill - You might tell the store that you are interested in the S&S, but before deciding, you would like the action regulated. It may make all the difference.

I wholeheartedly agree.

While their were a few keys that were a bit inconsistent with the others on the Steinway, the biggest difference was that the action felt firm but "snappy" wheras most of the Yamaha actions felt firm but smooth. Much harder to play softly on the Steiway. It was the only console I played.....I assumed this "snappy" action was due to it not being a full sized action. Can you generally tell the difference between a console and studio action?

Bill,


The simple answer is 'No.' The big difference is between a spinet and a console.

But .....

Each manufacturer has their own designs and that tends to create a 'brand identification' of the 'feel' of their actions. Kawai has a different 'feel' than Yamaha.

But, you throw out the "concepts" when judging used pianos, especially past 10 years of age, when evaluating the action. They are subject to wear, and any mechanical parts which are so complex, will need periodic adjustment. Regulating and action on a piano doesn't relate at all to the adjustments which can be made to a guitar.

It is difficult to identify "brand characteristics" of an action with used instruments, unless they are of very recent build. S&S is known to have a very good vertical action, and what you describe is a need for maintenance, rather than some intrinsic design unique to Steinway verticals.

Since you are new to piano shopping, it is best not to make assumptions in reference to experience with other non-piano instruments. In other words, don't assume that something cannot be corrected on the used pianos you are looking at.

You seemed to like the S&S but ...

Ask for the action to be regulated rather than making an assumption concerning the outcome.

Cheers,