The new, Fall 2012 edition of Piano Buyer will be posted at www.pianobuyer.com in the next day or so.

[carnival barker mode]

New Ratings!!! New feature articles!!! Updated prices and manufacturer profiles!!!

[/carnival barker mode]

Thanks for the heads up Steve -

LOOKING FORWARD TO READING IT - SUCH A WONDERFUL RESOURCE !!!!!!!!!!!

Ditto

Steve, Is there a direct link to purchase hard copies?

Now THAT is good news!

Thanks and look forward to!

Wait a few days then go to http://www.pianobuyer.com/buybooks.html.

Now I'm craving a candied apple and cotton candy!

No changes, as far as I can tell, to the "Highest Quality" list. And U.S. Steinway isn't on it! (p.44)

I pre-ordered mine from Amazon last night.

I very much enjoyed the articles on boutique pianos and on regulation/voicing of performance pianos.

I have a question about navigating on each page. I have always had this problem for every online edition and I'm guessing it's due to some lack in basic computer skill.(I'm using the Flash version not that I know what that means.)

Anyway, when I enlarge the page to read it and am scrolling up and down to read the page, the page always seems to shrink back to its smaller size. So the result is while I'm reading a page I have to enlarge it several times while reading the page.

Can you tell what I'm doing wrong?

Hot off the press! Gotta love it!

PLU - Once you have enlarged the page, don't click on the wheel or you will change the page size. Just roll (scroll) the wheel and it will raise or lower the page without a change in size.

It seems to me that most makers wish to go out of business.

The price increases are breathtakingly absurd especially considering that most people have lower disposable income, not greater, with each successive year due to stagnant salaries and rising costs of food, utilities, gas, health care, and education.

Also it looks as if Larry Fine is backing away from the concept of SMP.

If you are having trouble with the flash version, try the HTML version, a.k.a. normal webpage.

You lose some of the cool flash features, but it navigates fine. On the HTML version, enlarging the size is "command +" on my mac and I think "control +" on my PC.

I just finished reading through the new edition, including re-reading a lot of the parts I have studied before. Nice job, Larry!

I also got the impression that the price increases were greater than usual although this was just a general impression.

I got an even stronger impression that many makers are using MSRPs that are much higher than the SMPs.

Did he write something specific about that in the latest issue? If not, I see zero evidence of any backing away from SMP. It's listed on every page of the piano pricing section.

Thanks !
Is the SMP the suggested maximum price for the wholesaler or retailer ?

For the customer. To get the benefit from the SMP you should read the very clearly worded explanation on the pages before the SMPs for particular pianos are listed.

Stee,

I notice that the "profesional" category of pianos had a short shelf life. Maybe the tables should be marked with an expiration date like dairy products.

It would seem that Pianobuyer is now trying to tell me that Bohemia, W. Hoffmann (Tradition), Irmler (Professional)* Seiler (ES)*, Wilh. Steinberg (AC). and Vogel are better pianos than a Yamaha C or Kawai RX grand. "Good", "better", and "best" are fighting words, but I'm not sure they're in accordance with a snapshot of the market today.

I can only begin to imagine the tremendous effort that went into finding numerous samples of all these "Best" Intermediate grade rare birdss and the extensive hands-on testing that must have taken place before awarding them a "Best" designation.

Tur,

The "Professional Grade" category didn't have a short shelf life. I suggested to Larry that "Intermediate Grade" was a more descriptive name and it didn't carry the baggage of the word "professional". He agreed and the change was made.