I must admit I've never heard these Sonatinas by Rachmaninoff, though I do expect they sound quite a bit different from the Clementi one we're all learning at the moment.

If the S1000 is only going to be used as a controller for the PC, I'm not sure I see any advantage to choosing that over the CDP-S100.

I do something similar, but also a bit different. When a harder section is coming up, I try to think "Oh boy, I get to play this part, and I bet I can really pull it off! I can hardly wait!'. Well, depending on what is going on I may not form that complete a thought, but I do try for anticipation/happiness that this is about to happen, instead of dread/worry. It seems to help me a lot.

Ed McMorrow, could you elaborate on what prep work are more suitable to be done at a shop rather than at home? My knowledge of prep work is pretty much confined to voicing and regulation (for new pianos), so would be interested in learning more.

j&j, you made some good points. It would have been easier if I had the ear to tell a well prepped piano from an under-prepped one. But like Lady Bird suggested, being quite new to piano myself and haven't been around many pianos, I know what kind of sound I like but I don't have an idea what an un-prepped piano should sound like. So yes, this is a problem I need to face.


Despite somewhat disappointed by the "I'm your best friend" vs. "What do you need from me" type of attitude of the dealer before and after the purchase, I wouldn't say my dealer experience was necessarily that "bad". Bottom line is, the dealer kept a well maintained showroom with a large selection of piano inventory, I was able to try quite a number of pianos before finding one that I liked, delivery and set up was free as well as the first tuning after a month. Yes it would have been nice if someone called me and asked "how was the delivery" or helped me schedule the tuning, but all that is icing on the cake.

But I kept on hearing the term "dealer service" as if it were an important thing, while based on my own experience I couldn't think of how a good or bad servicing dealer could have made a difference for me, which led to my original question, what is good dealer service?

I like the "Cunningham Family" experience that Rich described. Acoustic piano is a small market, any adult wandering in the showroom trying out pianos is most likely a music lover. So yeah, I wish Rich's dealer wasn't that far away from where I am.

Would like to hear about other people's dealer experiences, whether good or bad. I still couldn't wrap my head around some of the things dealers told me face to face, many of which just laughable.

I probably explained myself wrong... playing off the jack is not an issue. Pressing the key to the let off and then accelerating the key will produce sound. On the GF1, this would not always happen as the lowest sensor was probably above or at the same level as the notch.

A limitation I find on the GF2 action is when trying to accelerate the key above the let-off as I find it hard to consistently produce sound if a key is not bottomed out. In other words, on an acoustic it is a matter of velocity, however, on the gf2 is a matter of vertical key position. So, even when the key has enough velocity above the let-off, the notch seems to be on the way of the key travel and block the movement before the sensor is activated. In the GF1 this was not an issue. So, there is a trade off between being able to play from the let-off (possible on the gf2 but not on the gf1) or to play above the let-off (easier on the gf1 than on the gf2).

By the way, how does the nv10 behave when you try to play above the escapement (not from the let-off point)?

I don't know why some don't hear that louder G.