something you might not know?

[johnmar78]

Do you know that the back to many years that Yamaha bought a steinway piano from Europe to Japan and did a research on it and came out with a better Yamaha and Kawai. Yamaha and Kawai USED to be TOGETHER. of couse they also bought the patent at that time.

These days, You noticed that Kawai and Yamaha made a very fine touch piano that I could not tell the differnce in terms of its action as compared to Steinway...

Can you????

[Jeliness2]

yes, I can... with kawai's all plastic design.... haha and I'm not fond of yamahas...

[johnmar78]

haaaaa haaa, very funny indeed.
I thought plastic is beetr than wood interms of corrosion....bionic piano....

[PJF]

Kawai =
Steinway =
Mason & Hamilin =
Yamaha =
Baldwin

[MindenBlues]

I can't understand that some find Kawaii that good. I played on a Kawaii Grand several times and had hard time to get used to the action - heavy, stiff, sluggish. Sound was not bad however. I have a Kawaii MP9500 digital piano for practising purposes (if the living room cannot be used for playing on my grand) - some like it because of it's action - me not. It has almost the same sluggish action as the Kawaii Grand had.

I do not care much about brand names, what counts to me more is
a) the sound for soft and heavy attack
b) the sustain of the tone
c) the brilliance of the tone
d) the eveness of the action
e) the responsivity of the action
f) the length of the piano as it determines the bass sounds the most

I would prefer by far a 100 year old no name long grand piano with new high quality action and new intonated hammers before a brand new "cheap quality" baby grand, if the price is the same. Because I expect better sound and easier accustoming to the action in this case.

I do not regret that I had restaured my 70 year old Steinway O two years ago, with new Renner action, new strings, intonation, soundboard restauration (acoustic restauration cost about 10.000 Euro). It sounds not like a new Steinway to me, it sounds even better.

In my theory, the sound wood can produce gets rounder and with longer sustain (for me: nicer) the older the wood is. Lock at vintage guitars and violins. They are in much more demand than new guitars. I am sure, the same works for piano - beside the mechanical things, what can be replaced. I have heard that the sound changes if the wood ages, because the resin in the wood gets first hard, next starts to crumble. Because of this, the wood can vibrate more intense.

Conclusion: Long and old piano, new action, if you like new strings too, and you have the best sound for a given price you can get.

Just my personal opinion...

[johnmar78]

Thanks all,
I have played and practised on yamaha clp250 digital piano, its has three settings for key touch..light /medium /heavy. I did almost one week. And my conclusion is there is a still a very fine gap between the digital piano vs my own yamaha.

When you find the Kawai touch is heavy, I found it rather supprised. I found Kawai grand(I am talking about the new one not the 10 years old).
The touch is just a friction ligter than mine. The Chinese one used the old german name_company went broken. And " Berlin" was one of them. The touch and tone is GOOD enough for mine use only the pedals needs to be more tensioned(it felt too light).

The Bosondova(spelt wrong) had there wood half the thickness as compared to yamaha and the wood is incontact with the steel frame which is differnt to yamaha. The theory behind this is to vibrate the wood while the piano is sounded.the same principale as Violin/???/ My old friend Piano tunner told me this(78 years old).he is the one taught me tuning.

I also looked a old german piano it has 2 crowns --means better than one crown. And the touch is so light but too light. I played the polonaise on it...very fine sound but my finger get caught in between the keys due to its "shorter" keys....I laughted. It was 5 mm shorter.

[Isis]

I remember watching a performance of Valentina Lisitsa where she played Yamaha. It is not her preferrable brand at all, and, when asked why so, she replied that event was hosted by Yamaha and they wouldn't allow her (or anyone) play an instrument of another brand As far as I know, professional pianists are into Steinway, with small exception.