Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum My Ritmuller is coming

Finally I get bank credit to buy a Ritmuller. My aural tuning lessons will continue. Its very important, although I will use Verituner even if I can tune aural only. Even imprtant than passing RPT exam. I can get Ritmuller, Hailun, Otto Meister and other piano tuning contracts.

Some good words about it, its comparable to Japan made piano with triple price. I originally want to buy Otto Meister(Hsing Hai Factory / Beijing Pinao), when I go to the shop, my mentor show me newly arrived Ritmuller, I played some chords, can't live without it.

My mentor told me from point of view of a piano technician, its out of the box playable. The tuning pin is very easy to tune.

Its arriving next Monday.

If anyone has experience about this babe, please share.

Playable? Sure. Let's see, out of the box, my GH148R had a huge depression in the fallboard. This wasn't a dent. This was a sanding defect from the factory with caused a distortion in the finish which instead of resurfacing and rebuffing they only buffed, leaving the distortion.

My harp is missing it's emblem. Is it affixed or is it part of the casting? I don't know, I'm a furniture tech, not a piano tech.

My music desk--do you call that a music rack?-- is "planking". Planking is like what your floorboards do. But on solid-stock wood it means the glue joints have sunk. The glued-up wood blanks were surfaced too soon after gluing, so that when the moisture from the glue finally left the wood at the seams, the wood seams shrank and sank, giving me nice, pronounced wood-seam lines across the length of the music desk. Planking is ok on furniture (it's not, but when you have to spin a yarn, do it well). On a pinao, that's a giant fail. The phrase "piano finish" denotes a smooth surface, no texture, no pronounced or proud or sunken joints.

Is my baby grand playable? Ask my 11-year old. It's his. He says yes. He loves it.

By the way, the house is climate controlled year-round and there's a damp chaser.

I expected more, not this stuff. My question for my dealer is, "What's next?"

Daniel: Thank you. I learn something from your post.

My new piano is an upright. The day when the container arrive to the dealer's warehouse, the humidity is nearly 100%. The tuning is stable even after huge humidity change. The tuning pin is easy to tune. Nearly no regulation needed. The Aahi with triple price, the overall quality is little bit better, but have to regulate before ship to client. But this is a piano tech's perspective.

The baby grand has very good value of money, except the planking.

***Edit***
My piano failed to delivery yesterday. It need to remove the keybed before delivery.

Here it is, four years later and the piano plays great. It stays in tune with a once-a-year tuning. It allows for greatly nuanced playing, the type that a concert pianist will spend much of their practice time giving heed to. The finish holds up well, as does the staining (no fading).

So there you have it, tuning, regulation, tone, it's all good, pleased to report.

I'm getting an upright piano with a Dampp Chaser system already installed in it. But it's installed on the backside. I have always thought that you shouldn't move a piano once it has been tuned. So how do I change the pads if it comes up?