Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Young Chang's New Improved Grand Pianos

I've had a chance to meet Del Fandrich who is the piano technician they hired; I'm not a tech and have never played on the newer models. Has anyone played on these upgraded grands; and if you have, what is your opinion?
-Ryan

Welcome to the Piano Forum Ryan.

Del is somewhat of a regular here. He and others, including myself, are familiar with his work for YC over the past few years and have posted a great deal about them.

One way you could "catch up" is by 8using the Users List (top of this screen) to find Del, and then click on View Posts' A significant percentage of threads Del participates in include info and opinions on the new YC designs.

From my experience the new designs are a significant improbement to entry-level and mid-range quality pianos. In particular, the tone he is able to get from smaller grands is quite remarkable.

I tried the little Weber W150 and W114. They both sounded really nice and smooth. There were taller uprights near the W114 and I didn't like their tones as much. The next best qualities on these pianos were the prices!

The new Young Chang 4'11" has amazing clarity and sustain for such a small piano. I went to Del's all-day seminar at the PTG 2012 convention in Seattle, and he has done extensive spectrum analysis of alternate bass string and soundboard designs. These are Real World measurements, not just whether a piano has "magic" or "sparkle".

--Cy--

The taller pianos were probably the older designs. Most of the larger verticals have either just recently entered production or are about ready to. I should be signing off on the last of the new designs next month.

For the first time since this project began all of the pianos -- grands and verticals -- on display at the NAMM show (this coming January) will have the new design package. There will undoubtedly be some further refinement over the next few months/years but the heavy work is pretty much done.



That, of course, has been the biggest challenge. It is relatively easy to come up with good acoustical performance if production cost is no object. It becomes considerably more difficult when you are designing and building to a specific -- and low -- price point.

ddf

Steve,

My apologies for not getting back to you sooner. I am going to update my settings so I get notifications via email when there are replies to a post. Thank you for the feedback. After conversing with Del in person I could tell he deeply cares about the quality of his designs, and it is fantastic to hear that the actual production is bearing fruit to the value of his expertise.
-Ryan

Cy, it is a fantastic point you make regarding the difference between the psychological aspect of the "whim of the moment" experience someone may think they are feeling when the sales representative points out that "magical" moment you are referring to, in contrast to the mathematical "irrefutable" angle. In many years to come, if indeed Del's measurements become more well known, Young Chang's sales representatives will have consistent selling point. Del is very humble in my opinion; and it may take those like you who understand his findings to really hit the point home.
-Ryan

Del,
It is wonderful to see you here! I appreciated your hospitality when you came to the Portland area. And I can see you really are impacting the piano industry; your years of hard work are paying off. Congrats!
-Ryan

To have any meaningful context to quantitative "data" regarding good piano tone-you first need to define "good" in the terms you are measuring. I have never met a piano purchaser who "measures" piano tone quality with any sort of tool. I have also never heard of any one producing a credible technical definition of good piano tone and touch beyond my own basic efforts to flesh out my theory of Musical Intelligible Sound.

I wish YC and Del great success with their endeavor and Del is always an interesting and experienced voice regarding piano technology. I hope to go play the new YC's soon.

That's right - there are no 'technical' definitions.

But there *musical ones* - here's one:

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/e8ffb87c#/e8ffb87c/276

Norbert

When it comes to pianos, a good sound is in the ear of the beholder and a good touch is in the hand of the player. Taste and preference supersedes all else.

Nothing More - Nothing Less

I do not subscribe to the "random taste" theory of how the universe works.

Music is a language of emotional information. All humans share the same emotions. All human cultures use musical elements to communicate with each other about emotional intent. Good tone simply does this task better than bad tone and that is how you qualitatively differentiate between them. Good piano touch allows a pianist to do this task regularly and for a significant duration without struggle.

Tone quality is rooted in vocal practice. Touch is rooted in ergonometrics.

Culture.

We forget "culture"

Nobody can get Flamenco sound quite like the Spanish do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-CjLfu9zCk

Western sound has also grown over hundreds of years.

Some capture sound the way they see fit or "design" things

The real McCoys do it without effort - or pretense.

They "have" for very long time...

Worth thinking.

Norbert

Norbert,
The culture of piano music may have originated in europe-but like most great ideas-people all over the world want to use it. I have a historical reductionist axiom that what defines western culture as "Western"-is that any good idea from anywhere is incorporated/borrowed/stolen into the culture.

The elements that allow maximum musical expression can be defined with an engineering framework. I have done that with pianos, just not published it yet. The fundamental assumption embodied is that tone/touch is not a random taste issue.

Linguistics has proven that all spoken languages can be reduced to a set number of sound elements that are universal to all known languages. This means that humans are physically hardwired for intellectually intelligible sound. This is the reason algorithms can be constructed to synthesis speech.

Since music is emotional language-the expressive elements are also hardwired. Thus a model of piano quality can be constructed and protocols for design elements tested.

I hope you don't find this pretentious of me. I do sometimes find your double spaced posts "full of hot air" at times.

It will be a truly perfect world when the perfect piano tone, and the perfect piano touch, are codified and all pianos will conform to strict parameters.

Ah yes, perfect piano prejudice will permeate the planet.

Perfection!

Interesting - these set number of sound elements are used when a "computer" is speaking to us - as in automated phone calls / automated responses on the phone. My ears can tell the difference between a computer and a real person.

Jonathan

Yes, the computer algorithms cut a lot of corners to save processing speed-and that produces the recognizable "computer voice".

Human ears can be incredibly sensitive to some tonal elements. I am 60YO and if I meet someone on the street I haven't seen for 30 years I will almost certainly not recognize them-until they speak-then I remember their voice.

Perhaps you can give us an example of this?

Norbert

All humans share the same emotions.

To the two posters who said this: Can you back this statement up?
I don't have a degree in psychology, but I doubt that a sociopath has the same emotions as a philantropist.