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Just wondering, has anyone owned or played on a Sauter Ambiente? I'll appreciate any feedback or appraisal. I understand from my dealer that it is a Peter Mayle designed piano that is based on the Omega and it supposedly sounds more impressive than the Omega. Is that true?

Hi Barnaby,

I played a new Ambiente the last time I was at the factory. Yes, the case is designed by Peter Maly and the piano is a Sauter based model 220. Fantastic piano.

Dear Michael,

Thanks for the reply. I was beginning to think that the Ambiente was an extremly rare piano that few users on pianoworld have had the chance to see or experience since no one has replied so far.

In your experience, did you manage to get a chance to play the Omega alongside the Ambiente? How would you characterise their differences in terms of the touch and the sound? Which would you choose?

I am considering buying the Omega but my local distributor suggested going for the Ambiente; his reasons being that not only were the aesthetics of the design outstanding but the sound was also better as compared to the Omega.

What do you think?

Thanks for your time and input.

Dear Barnaby,

Yes, I've played several Omegas (in addition to building the Ravenscroft pianos, I am also a Sauter dealer). The Ambiente is an Omega with a different cabinet, so as far as the "piano" aspect, the design is identical. Like any high-end piano, each is going to offer subtle differences in performance, although a really good technician can work wonders to make two of the same models of pianos sound and feel almost identical (barring any material or workmanship errors). Personally however, I would choose which of the two I found to be superior in performance and the one that I felt I could best connect with on several levels. That's just me; it very well may be that one would choose based on aesthetics. What's most important to you when selecting a piano? Ultimately, you are the one that has to fall in love with the instrument,,not the salesman.

Played them both.

Wouldn't be able to make a balanced choice because I'm biased by Maly's design.

Wim

Dear Wim,

Would you be for or against Maly's design? When you played both the Omega and the Ambiente, which do you personally prefer and why? I'm curious to know.

Barnaby

Hi Barnaby,

The answer given by Michael Spreeman says it all.

I would in the end choose for Maly's design, because I prefer a modern design rather than a more 'classic' design. Problem is I don't have the bucks...yet.

Wim

Dear all,

I made my choice; I chose the Sauter Ambiente. Follow this link to read Singapore's Business Times' interview with me about my experience with my purchase.

http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/sub/whatsin/story/0,4574,368285,00.html

congratulations on your purchase!!!!

happy playing!

I'd love to read that report, but your link doesn't seem to link.

Sorrry, it was a paid subscription site. It was assessible only on last night. Anyway, here's the article minus the pictures.


Published January 16, 2010


Sound investment
Dr Gilbert Er's customised Sauter semi-grand piano is the only one of its kind in Singapore. By Cheah Ui-Hoon
Gilbert Er
Doctor and Avid Piano Player



FROM popular ballads to light jazz; from gospel songs to making up his own compositions, playing the piano is Gilbert Er's way of unwinding at home. These days though, there's even more reason to tinkle the piano keys, especially when he's got a one-of-a-kind customised Sauter semi-grand piano taking up half of his living room.
'I play whenever I can. Since my work schedule is rather erratic,' says the doctor at a private hospital's accident and emergency department, while running his hands lovingly over his gleaming new baby.
In fact, Dr Er might have to peel himself away from his Ambiente these days, as it's the only designer Sauter piano of its kind in Singapore, and one of fewer than 20 in the world. 'Even the piano movers whipped out their phone cameras to take a picture of it when it was assembled! They'd never seen a piano like this,' he says.
Sauter is a German piano manufacturer which specialises in customised pianos and makes only about three to four units of its Peter Maly-designed Ambientes a year since the design was launched in 2006.
The 230cm-long, 540kg piano is shaped like a baby grand, but minus the part which curves in as it's rounded all the way, like a parabola. It has a mahogany black exterior, but parts are inlaid with reddish brown bubinga wood - upon Dr Er's request.
The 40-year-old bachelor describes himself as more of a hobby pianist, with pop and light music rather than classical as his repertoire. 'I'd gone through the Yamaha school of playing, so improvisation is very much what I'm used to,' he says.
Music was put on the backburner when he started his career, but when he decided that he wanted to brush up his playing skills a few years ago, he decided that he might as well do so with a good piano.
He had pretty much 'outgrown' his small Yamaha grand piano which he had for more than 20 years now, he says, so he decided to do away with it. The quality of Sauter's handmade pianos and the personalised service so impressed him, he says, and he put in an order for one in 2008. Even an upright still takes about six to seven months to be made, so when it came time for him to view it, he flew to Sauter's showroom in Germany - where they'd also tune and adjust it to his liking.
'Since there were all these other different kinds of Sauter pianos there as well, and no one else was in the showroom, I took my time 'testing' out the pianos,' he relates.
He finally got to the Ambiente, and it took just one run of his hands over the keyboard when he knew he was in 'trouble'. He might have flown over to the Sauter showroom in Germany to check out his customised upright, but here he was, falling in love with a semi-grand instead.
'I knew this was the right one when I played it, so I was already thinking to myself, oh no . . . what have I got myself into!' he recalls.
He spent the next day just playing on the Ambiente (which had been made for a piano fair that season). 'I ran through all the tunes I knew!' he says. It was the quality of the sound that he liked, not its unique look or the fact that it's a designer model.
The Ambiente's low notes are rich and rounded, while the higher register notes are clear but not shrill, and most of all, the piano can really 'communicate', he feels, rather than being the standard-issue piano with little life in it.
But he'd have to find the space for it in his family house in the Upper Bukit Timah area, and also wait another six to seven months for the company to customise a few things, not to mention the major bump up in cost - to go from an upright to a semi-grand.
With these thoughts milling around in his head, Dr Er took the plunge as he was leaving Germany. 'In fact, I called from the airport, to confirm that I wanted it!' he says. He'd just been there for four days.
But it was a decision he doesn't regret, he says. 'It might be around the cost of a luxury car, but it's definitely something that will go up in value in the future, unlike a car! And if I didn't buy it now, it'll only cost more later, seeing as things like wood are becoming a scarce commodity,' he justifies. The soundboard for example is made from Ciresa wood, the type of wood used for the Stradivarius violin which comes from Italian forests.
The Ambiente finally arrived at his house last September, and he had to rearrange his furniture around it as it takes up half of the living room now. He also had to buy two dehumidifiers for the room, so that the humidity level is kept below 60 per cent, for the piano's sake. 'It's not good to heat up the piano from within as that can crack the wood,' he explains.
He's now playing the piano daily - in anticipation of what it'll sound like in five years, which is about when the piano would have 'settled in' in its new Singapore home, and become fully matured. 'The piano is a living thing,' the musical doctor declares.

Congrats !
Congrats !
Congrats !

I don't often envy people for what they have, but now you've got me to it ...

Wim

Dear all,

the article finally with pictures.

http://www.plushasia.com/article/7095

barnaby

The article calls his piano a semi-grand but I think they mean semi concert grand.

WOW!

Just HOW DO YOU steal yourself away?



What a piano. Congratulations and thanks for sharing your purchase with us.

LL

How gorgeous is that!

Congratulations.

They later in the article call it a "baby grand." Hardly at seven and a half feet. I guess the "plush" author didn't know. Sigh!

While I congratulate Gilbert on his great piano, I think the plate on the cheek block is a bit cheesy for my taste. But that's just me. Anyway, that is a great piano, and I am glad you picked it because of its sound and not of its looks.

Dear Seilerfan,

Indeed I chose the Ambiente for the sound rather than the design. There were 2 brand new Omegas side by side in the Sauter factory showroom when I was there and none of them sounded as good as the Ambiente. I surmise that the design and weight must have something to do with it. The Ambiente weighs another 200kg more than the Omega and the resonance chamber in the side of the piano that makes up the parabola shape must have something to do with it sounding better. The bass in the Ambiente is a lot more rounded and resounding. My only complaint that the piano cover is quite heavy and it's a quite a struggle to lift and prop it up each time.

Hope you guys get a chance to try an Ambiente wherever you are!

Happy music-making!

Barnaby

You make some interesting points about the Ambiente's design improving the sound of the instrument. But I would think that the Ambiente's design is based more on aesthetic appeal than sound. It's a great looking piano and I'm sure a company as reputable as Sauter wouldn't make any sacrifices in sound production in favour of design. But I hardly think that the Ambiente's somewhat radical design does anything to 'improve' upon the time tested more traditional design of the classic grand. Otherwise other (and arguably more innovative)
piano builders would have already followed suit.
Congrats on the beautiful instrument by the way....

Adrean,

You may be right that the parabola does not improve the sound, but it's possible that you are wrong. There are really only a handful of historic makers who dare to be innovative. Sauter is one of them. One reason for that is that in terms of production technology they are miles ahead of other small production German makers. Thus, they have the manufacturing capability to be innovative that others lack. I think that Sauter is now the oldest continuous family-operated piano maker in the world, but they give no appearance of the usual "this is the way we've always done it" complacency.