Yeah man, good times, the good ol' walkman. My parents bought me one in about 1985 or 1986, it also had the "anti jog" functionality on it which actually worked!

Memories of the music slowing down when the batteries ran out, and also using a pencil to wind the tape back in when it screwed up.

I had a Schubert Impromptus tape, a Prokofiev violin sonata tape, and various tapes of heavy metal that I used to get my mates to record for me off their vinyl. Iron Maiden "Live after Death" and some "Megadeth" if I remember right. I also used to hire records out from the library and tape them. Sue me!

The next step was my parents bought me one of those all in one stereo things where it had a double tape deck, record player, and radio. Ah, heaven! I was so grateful to them for that, these items got hours of use per day.

Personally I was studying classical music when I was pre-teen and during my teens, then me and a friend discovered Sgt Pepper by the Beatles when we were about 14, and Led Zeppelin about a year later (I was nicking my Dad's records) also Creedance Clearwater Revival. Then in later teen years I got in to heavy metal and Pink Floyd and stuff like that. Then in my twenties I got in to house and techno.

With each new thing I got into I didn't ditch the old things, I just added the new taste to the stack. And now I feel I reap the rewards, being able to hold my own in conversations about many different types of music.

In recent years I got in to Rockabilly and Surf and general 50's and 60's stuff, which has a certain charm to it.

I can see a common factor in all my tastes, which is they tend to be fairly romantic, yes even heavy metal - certainly your Pink Floyds and stuff, and they tend heavily towards dark and melancholy.

I don't really anymore like a "type" of music - it's a certain "sound" I like. For example, I rather took to Lana Del Ray for a while, because of the melancholy sound. I always find darker stuff a bit more musically interesting, minor keys, diminished chords and the like. So I don't think it's a matter of category, rather a matter of a certain kind of feel or sound, and one can get this from many different categories.

Thanks for your thoughtful response. In younger years I composed many piano pieces in diverse idiom. I mostly used stop/start improvisation until, over a very variable period of time, a formal composition crystallised. The actual writing out, of course, was just a cosmetic and I have to say very tiresome exercise. At around fifty-five I decided to make recorded free improvisation my sole creative medium. Many reasons lay behind this decision, which was a very difficult one to make. Among the reasons were:

1. The development of cheap, very high quality recording devices with no practical limit on the duration of a session, making a recorded improvisation a permanent work of art.
2. I have never experienced shortage of ideas; indeed, I have the opposite issue.
3. I had become intolerably weary of the traditional magisteria of classical and jazz, with their conventions and jelly-mould structures. These things no longer moved me.
4. I heard Jarrett's solo concert recordings. I didn't particularly like his actual sounds, but if it was good enough for a famous pianist to just let ideas come out freely then it was certainly all right for a nonentity like me.
5. I hate writing out music, and finding approximations to the spontaneous, felt rhythms I like was mostly impossible.
6. The piano teacher of my youth, a distinguished professional, had told me I seemed to be built for it, but being young and silly I had ignored him.

There are many other justifications for it. Of course this does not imply such a course is right for you or anyone else. I shall stop now, as I do not wish to impose a lengthy discussion on it within the recital thread.

For the prices you quote:

USD100K for a new Hamburg B: based on Piano Buyer's quote (I haven't quoted a Hamburg from my dealer; previously it would be about 10K more than NY models), ironically 100K is indeed a bargain.

USD$56.9K for a 2014 NY B: if your technician checks it out fine, that's a steal. Out of curiosity, if you are referring to this PianoMart listing: [2014 NY B], the first picture belongs to a Hamburg Steinway. So you'll have to really check it out; this might be just an incidental misplacement.

Eventually my opinion is to pick the one with touch/tone you like, with the price that you consider right, and not worry about which one is "better".

New NY Steinways have been a lot more consistent. I have been trying NY B's, side-by-side, intermittently since 2015. Last time was just a few weeks ago at Steinway Hall NY. Sometimes I got to try 5 B's next to each other. I can certainly attest that while some individual differences exist, the touch/tone has been quite pleasant.

In my 2013 NY A, the imperfection I can perceive the most is the lacquer/matte finish (some areas not completely even). The NY factory appears to push mostly high gloss (polyester polish) models these days. The ones I saw at Steinway Hall, and also recently at our local dealer, were all high-gloss models. Their finish is great.

I forgot to give an answer on your second question. I don’t use a string cover because I keep the lid closed. Humidity measurements show that their is no need for an additional string cover.

Montreal is a great city: my wife & me visited there first time last year from Vancouver B.C. Met the owner of Vertu Pianos [sorry, forget name due to old age.. ] a guy who's very much on same wave length as I am [was]. Great guy too! It's nice to meet someone who's personally involved with every single piano he sells, non-pretensive and a pianist himself! Sure knows how to prepare his pianos!! Of course can't speak about Estonias as am "hopelessly prejudiced" as dealer. However, you're not alone in your experience. It's especially funny when being visited by someone who owns a much larger, more expensive piano himself. [This, after first having some of our area's best regarded technicians work on it] And then tries to "trade" in on the spot as this guy just did. Well, not exactly 'trade'. Simply bought a new piano [you guess...] and now trying to sell his semi-concert himself.....
Norbert

I believe many of us here would always recommend an independent tech inspection for any pre-owned piano..,

I remember that video, and I remember letting the forum know that that rep was mistaken.

Jay

Well it would be easy for you to ask your tech staff about it.

Fun stuff, CG. When I started this thread I hadn't given any thought to the connection between Mac and Thunderbolt.
Anyway ... the network came back on line yesterday at "only" 70 Mbps. Then it dropped to 8 Mbps. Then it went out completely. And the TV went to patchwork-speckle mode.

The goog-dude came out today, replaced the network box, and all's well.

I use the right hand fingering of A, the left hand fingering of B and my own pedaling to make legato without overlap.

Agreed. I just wanted to make it clear that an answer meant for Janerik might not address your question, or vice versa.

As for "a good deal" ... Steve L says that "$2200 is a huge discount over the $5800 store price!"
And that's an understatement. The top-end CLP models have listed in around the $5000+ range for many years, but they're often sold at a considerable discount.

But for $2200 ?
That's more than amazing.

Perhaps I don't understand the retail environment in Janerik's location in Sweden?
Or perhaps there's something strange or fishy about that deal or about that piano?

I miss the "in between" difficulty ratings. I wonder why they did away with that.