Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Yamaha c109 or M425?Which one is better?

I want to buy a piano for my 5 years old daughter within these 2 days. New C109 is CAD$4,000 and New M425 is CAD$4,500. The price includes delivery, one tuning. I visited two dealers and both of them won't do pre-delivery prep (only 2 dealers in my area). I like the furniture look of M425 but the sales said it's difficult to maintain and the re-sale value is lower than C109. Is it right? Please help.

Can anyone help?

You should figure the salesman knocking done the M425 is full of nonsense. The C109 made in Indonesia has a plywood soundboard which would be considered inferior soundwise to a solid soundboard as in the M425. No rollers for moving around in the C109.

asd123321,
Thanks for your opinion. M425 sounds like a better piano. How about grey market U3? 21 years old. $4.5k same as M425. Which one is better?I like the U3 sound. Very beautiful.

The U3 would be fundamentally better with a lot more bass but would need to be checked by a technician.

asd123321,I will try to deal with a big dealer with 5 years warranty and also ask a technician to check the piano. Thanks

U3 is inherently superior to the model M425, but the 21 yo age concerns me. IMO this is likely 2/3 of the useful musical life expectancy of an Asian piano from that area.

Oh...I was told that the life of piano usually is more than 60-80 years. Did you mean grey market piano can't last that long in North America? It's hard to find U1 or U3 less than 20 years old in grey market.

60 - 80 years could be the soundboard life but over 20 years could need action repairs in the thousands, for example, $800 for new hammers. A local technician listed a complete upright restoration of $6000 in a price list 10 years ago.

In Colorado, pianos last 80-100 years, but in the Bahamas, you'll get about 10 years before a restringing is needed.

If the U3 is well-seasoned to your environment, then you can get an accurate read of it's condition. Otherwise, you may end up with a piano that is in a rapid state of deterioration and not know it until it's too late.

In our area, grey market pianos will come with a 2 - 5 year warranty.

If you get a stable U3, that is the preferred model from Yamaha to aim for.

My comment was not directed to Grey Market pianos, but to Asian pianos in general.
IMO Asian pianos do not have the legs of the
American made pianos of the past like Steinway, Mason Hamlin, Chickering, Knabe, Baldwin etc. These American pianos were made of sterner stuff in the backs and plate castings and rims.
I am talking about durability here at years 25+, not performance of new pianos in comparison.
IMO Asian piano have a useful musical life of about 30 years, give or take a few.
asd123321 spoke of complete upright restorations of being $6k. This is probably accurate, but who would spend that restoring an upright? Certainly not an Asian upright.