I recently purchased a Kawai RX-2 piano. I ignored the the quality of its tone in my home until after its first tuning. The tone has an almost "twangy" quality to it. I called another tech. after about a month to look at the piano. He said that the piano was flat and out of tune, although it was tuned less than a month earlier. He spent a lot of time, compared to to first tech, tuning the piano. A friend of mine who has a Nordiska, played my Kawai after the second tuning. She said it sounded "tin-nee" to her. I could not disagree. Please give me some suggestions as to what might be the problem and what I might do to fix it. I live in a small town in NC and piano and have limited access to piano techs. Frankly, I'm sorry that I didn't buy a Nordiska. I could have saved a lot of money, and now, concern and dissatisfaction.

The Kawai RX-2 is a good piano. Don't worry about that part of it.

Typically, dealers ilke to pay their own technicians a pultry sum of money to do the free tuning for them. So, their tuners like to be in and out ASAP. Although this isn't always the case, I've found that many times too, those tuners will tune the piano at whatever pitch they find it.

Despite popular belief, new pianos go tune and pitch much MUCH quicker than an older piano will so that is something you will have to put up with for a couple of years anyway.

If your 2nd tech has a good relationship with that dealer, then he should be able to voice the piano for you and bill the dealer for it. If not then, you'll have to discuss this with the dealer yourself. In all likelihood, the piano
just needs a good voicing. That should solve your problem with the "tin-nee" sound.

Thanks, I've been in touch with Kawai. They said let the piano settle and then find a good voicing tech., if required. From previous experience, I don't think the dealer will do anything to help. Kawai gave me the name of a tech that they trust and is an expert at voicing, but he lives a good distance away.

Just curious, should a new piano need voicing?

My RX-2 tends to sound "twangy" if unisons are out of tune, particularly in the treble area. And it doesn't take much either. It was sounding like that a couple weeks after I got it, so I had my free tuning after only a month. It sounded beautiful after that. When fall was turning into winter and the humidity was dropping, the twanginess came and went. When the humidity settled down, so did the unisons, and it sounded better again.

I'm definitely thinking of getting a dammp-chaser for mine!

Another thing I've been thinking of trying is muting the duplex scale, to see what that sounds like. I don't think it could cause a tinny quality, but it might be making the sound brighter. I love the sound as it is, I'm just curious what tonal quality the duplex adds.

This piano was delivered on Jan 12. It was tuned on Jan. 22 and then again last week. The twanginess stayed after both tunings.

As Jerry said, the RX2 is an excellent instrument. And Kawai has tech support as good or better than anyone in the industry, imho.

If there are humidity fluctuations in your home, the piano could easily go out of tune that quickly, even in a matter of hours. They do stabilize after several tunings, but they're all different.

When new, there are a couple of factors at work:

1). the strings are quite elastic

2). the soundboards seem to be more prone to rising and falling with the changes in humidity. These fluctuations will cause changes in bridge heighth, which causes the pitch to rise and fall.

At this point in your piano's life, the unisons will go out of tune as well, in part because of the elasiticity in the strings. After awhile, the humidity changes will cause the piano to go # or flat, but the unisons will be more stable and less whiny.

I hope this helps. I gotta get outta here. My next job is in 20 minutes, on guess what? An RX2 that's six months old!

Thanks, everything helps since I know so little about this subject. I'm seriously thinking of purchasing a book on piano tuning, not that I intend to ever do it. But just for the knowledge so that I have some sense of what is going on. Anybody know any good books?

If I were going to do the tuning, first thing I would do is seat the strings to the bridges. I think that makes a ton of difference and it's easier to tune. Not all dealers do that in prepping the piano. That might make a big improvement in the thing if it hasn't been done since arriving to the store.

The tone you hear at the store with a zillion other pianos around it will always be different from the tone in your home. The acoustics
are different from room to room. So no, it's not uncommon for it to need a little voicing but, I do agree with Kawai.

1. Get the tuner they recommended no matter if it is further away and you need to pay more. You'll be happier in the long run.

2. Let it set a little longer to get acclimated to your surroundings.

3. Have him seat the strings and then tune it. If it needs voicing after that, go for it.

4. ENJOY IT!!!! :-)

I think if you research this forum you will find most everything you need to know about piano tuning. There are books suggested.

Always let a new piano settle in before judging the tone. Piano players can make a piano sound bad. This happened with some top piano players and a $150,000 grand. Took one player 20 mintutes to dial in the touch/voice.

Side note: I just visited an RX2 that I'd tuned in August. The piano still sounded pretty decent--non-twangy, if you will. But the whole thing had gone 7-10 cents flat, but all at more or less the same rate, so the unisons weren't nasty sounding. I live in a pretty non-piano-hostile environment. We enjoy stable humidity much of the time. North Carolina is a different case altogether.

For books, check out PTG.org. They should have suggestions. I'm not sure if non-members can shop at the PTG store, but if not, I think you can at least get some titles and look for them elsewhere.

Would the Reblitz book be good for someone who just wants to know more about the process, but not necessarily do it? Then you also get a lot of information about other repair jobs.

http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Servicing-Tuning-Rebuilding-Second/dp/1879511037

Yes, Reblitz would be a good choice to get an overview of piano technology.

I just bought a Kawai RX2 also. It's a great piano. Mine has a nice sophisticated tone. Its a little bright, but not too bright. Some of my bass notes are inconsistent in tone and some of them are sounding loud higher partials. Some of the bass notes sound really full and deep, while their neighbours sound a bit weak and lacking in tone. I have been told this is a tuning voicing issue. I hope it can be fixed - and I am quite optimistic. I am sure your RX2 can be improved with some voicing. Also the unisons issue. Mine is also going out of tune mainly in the unisons. But this is to be expexted,as the strings are new and still moving and stretching. A few years will be needed before tuning stability will take place. Don't worry about this. Just get the piano tuned at least every six months. I know I will.
You can learn the basics of tuning by using the Reblitz book. Maybe just tune out the offending unisons yourself but leave the whole tuning to the professionals!
That "tinnee" sound you mention is just the upper treble unisons being out of tune. Nothing to worry about. They WILL settle. The short upper treble strings are prone to going out first. Just get your tuner to tune them again. The RX series pianos are high quality instruments with 4 stars in the Larry Fine piano book - and that says something!