Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum why there's huge price gap between different piano brands?

I think a fair price is one that has a reasonable profit for the dealer. I don't see how the fact that the price may be negotiated has anything to do with whether it's fair or not.

Surely you're not suggesting that.....



I may have told the story before, but at the risk o creating boredom, about 6 years ago I needed a piano and I didn't have much money to put into it. I had been living pretty much for years on this and that -- on loan, borrowed, etc. At the time I was babysitting a Yammaha G for a friend who was working the jazz circuit in and around Switzerland. The arrangement ended abruptly when the piano was written into a divorce settlement.

I visited a place that stocked a headliner German brannd, a robust if a little imbalanced Czech line, and assorted Chinese 'juunk', as it was frequntly referred to at the time. Among the junk were three pianos from DongBei that had a definite appeal. It turned out that all three had been worked over by a former technician at DongBei in ner speare time. She was on hand for a year through some sort of exchange program. She had a lot of spare time because ,as I found out later, the shop didn't really let her spend any time on their 'better pianos' except as an observer.

I drove away that day thinking about those three pianos. Size for size, they cost about one-quarter of the Czech brand and about one-twelfth of the German headliner. In a certain way I liked them better than either. It wasn't that I couldn't hear the difference. I head the difference and I liked them better. A week later on my third visit (to set my head straight) I bought one of the three and got the tech's name and telephone number so that I could hire her privately during the break-in for any remediation or tweaking. She came around a couple of times, but after that I didn't call her as her visa was expiring. Also her tuning regimen drove me crazy. I've never heard such cacophony from a tuner before or since. I had to leave the house on both of her visits.

I'm sure a lot of people who read here are aware of this, and it has come up on this thread, but it's worth empahsizing that pianos from China depend greatly on the skill of the retailer's tech and the retailer's willingness to let his tech metamorphisize the ugly duckling into a swan. Retailers will without exception talk a good game of prep, but the proof is in the pudding (which is most often lumpy). Prepping the low end assiduously is not the obvious formula for retailer success. And as Keith notes, the pianos most likely will not endure in the way that a workhorse piano will. There were obvious signs of cost-cutting. but.......

DongBei is long gone now through no fault of its own, but there are other Chinese pianos with well thought-out designs, designs maybe copied, borrowed, stolen, or hit upon by accident,but nonetheless, worth the effort that is seldom afforded them.




You should ramble by more often, Keith. A nice surprise to see you out of hibernation.

Which is the quickest way of failing to be successful.

P.S. same for "high end"

Thinking "Thank you for the job opportunity"....

Norbert

Interesting story, Turandot…

Surely Piano World never gets boring??? Well, I suppose it can get boring at times.

I know this has nothing to do with pianos, but it is food for thought… I once had two maintenance technicians who worked for a large bakery company in Atlanta to take the HVACR certificate course at the community technical college where I work. The guys were really smart and were taking the course to get a pay raise with the company.

Among the many food products the company produced were canned biscuits of various types and brands. They told me that at the factory where they work, the same batch of dough goes in all the various brands of canned biscuits from the less costly store brands to the more expensive, well known name brands.

To make this relevant, yes, marketing and branding plays a major role in supporting the price structure of most any product.

So, now I buy the more economical store brands when I go grocery shopping.

What does this have to do with pianos? Nothing, but I did mention it was “food for thought”.

Rick

Actually "food for thought" may very well have to do with pianos.

Would you pay ["have to"..] as much for a Sauter or Pfeiffer as for a Fazioli or Hamburg Steinway? Chances are "no"

Yet these pianos compare to the very best there are.
[Even ever reluctant L.Fine vaguely acknowledging this..]

So, "food for thought" can come in real handy.

Especially at a time when spending $$

Norbert

Rick,

I have no problem with the biscuit story being food for thought. I had no problem with Keith's pain reliever example either. But just to be clear, I personally was not suggesting that the same pianos are being presented with different branding at vastly different prices. I don't think Keith feels that way either. There are too many sharp eyes in the industry for that strategy to fly. Mixed and matched parts content is one thing, but a whole piano - no.

A DongBei grand was far from a Hamburg Steinway, a Fazioli, a Sauter, or a Pfeiffer. However it was not something to be dismissed out of hand. The German maker whose piano I liked less than those particular Dongbei's has been in business for a long time and at least at that time seemed to be having no problems selling its limited production. It was entitled to make pianos as it saw fit, and like many of the Euro boutique brands, it operates from a philosophy that it isn't in competition with others but merely doing things the way it thinks best. There's a stubborn honesty in that philosophy that translates into a resistance to change, both in individuals and institutions. I don't have any issue with it in a manufacturing business, but I think the point that Keith has made many times here about overbuilt yet underwhelming pianos is valid.

I couldn't disagree with you more. First, can we leave out the insults?

Second, excellent pianos do depend on an excellent design and excellent (consistent AND accurate) assembly. Can a poor design and poor assembly contribute positively to a good outcome? You say, .

Of course the basis for any successful product is a matter of specification, which includes the design, and how to build the product to that design. Can anyone seriously think that a poor design poorly executed will produce a good piano? Of course not. Middle of the road piano companies are probably middle of the road because they build to a price point, and/or their designs aren't very good, and/or their build quality isn't so good either.

You say, However, good performance can only be achieved by a well executed good design. Can you think of any product of any type in which excellence doesn't start with a good design and excellent manufacturing?

You site this example,
Your example only supports my point. Listening to the props isn't the right answer, because you'd have to be listening constantly and tweaking the throttles to keep the engines in sync. What's really needed is a better syncing mechanism that could automatically and continuously adjust the engines to the desired degree of accuracy. What you describe is just a design that is inadequate or at least perceived to be inadequte--it does not at all make a case for throwing engine controls out the window. That would be a giant step backwards.

You also seem to claim that tweaking is what separates excellent from mediocre pianos. Well, the better the design and the better the execution, the less that tweaking will be necessary. In any product, the requirement for tweaking is simply a symptom of poor quality control and/or inconsistent materials.

Finally, some degree of hand optimization will probably always be required to bring the most out of any piano. However, let's all please recognize that no amount of tweaking will make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. If tweaking were so important, we should all go out and buy a cheap piano and tweak it till it becomes a Steinway.

Interesting concept... I wish it were true.

I had a Japanese made copy of a Steinway"O" once. I felt good about it and tried to use it as a selling point when I sold it, but it was not a Steinway "O", unfortunately.

Rick

Crumbs Rick! Your biscuit analogy is just crackers

The control mechanism of a piano is an inaccurately matched pair of human hands, far more troublesome than twin props to calibrate.

Would you rather listen to an excellent pianist on a mediocre piano or a mediocre pianist on an excellent piano?

It certainly seems to be what separates excellent from mediocre pianists...

"Oh, except they have no heart or soul and Beethoven can't feel a darn thing when he lays his head on them."

They`re not recommended for the deaf. But the heart and soul bit comes from the player.

You hit the nail on the head with inconsistent materials. The sound producing parts of a piano are made of steel, wood and wool. The strings can be mass produced yet the best manufacturers wrap the bass strings by hand, why? Sound board wood is carefully selected and crafted to do its job, also by hand and most important installed by hand (belly work is one of the most skilled jobs for rebuilders). Hammers are pressed by machines but voiced by hand, again why? I don't have the knowledge to answer these questions fully, but this is where the tweaking becomes most important. I'm hoping someone with piano manufacturing or rebuilding knowledge will chime in on exactly why tweaking is necessary in the aspects of piano production.

Dear Del,
thanks a lot for this friendly explanation. I've indeed meant tunable duplexes. It's not a new feature probably too, but I've seen them incorporated into the model lines at least by petrof/schimmel/bohemia in last 10 years IIRC. So that's why I suggested the development of pianos is not finished at all.
Your claim that back duplex is useless and that the only front one may work in some way is completely opposite to what I would expect intuitively: back is connected to bridge so if strings starts resonating in aliquote frequency, there is a chance vibrations are transferred through the bridge to sound-board. With front-duplex this looks to me like a dead-end. No bridge, no vibrations moved to the soundboard. So thanks for this lesson, I trust you on this...
Am I also right assuming that your new redesigned Y&C lines are not using any tuned duplex as you suggest in your last paragraph?
Thanks a lot!
Karel

All you would have to do is use some felt and try the 4 combinations, front only/back only/both duplexes/no duplexes. You would soon have your answer as to what effect the duplexes have on the sound - both to the player and to a listener seated further from the piano at a different angle. The good news is that if a duplex ever gives you trouble it's very easy to silence it with felt.

I've been away from a few days, and whence I returned, I have been labelled a troll?

I couldn't believe I've attracted so many replies, as my original motive is to vent my anger while shopping for a piano. I became rather frustrated for the past month I've been shopping for a piano, tried both high-end and low-end ones, loved Yamaha but didn't like its price.

The more I've played the more frustration I got, and I secretly felt dealer mark-up might be a huge chunk in piano sales, especially for those high-end ones.

I played a Mason and Hamlin, apart from its jaw-dropping price, nothing really impressed me, and that reinforced the idea of marketing rather than true materially superiority.

I probably will settle with a ritmuller or Hailun, which one is better in terms of touching?

You are.

ddf

Not to derail too far off subject but I simply must take issue with the statement about the audibility of duplex scales.

If a piano is designed without them then, of course we won't miss them but pianos that are designed with them are often voiced so that they are not audible.

Some pianos have more responsive duplexes than others but none are totally unresponsive.

Even on a piano voiced for mellowness will respond noticeably when the duplex is silenced. Most noticeably with a deterioration of sustain.

I can hear them clearly and my hearing cuts out at 13,000Hz. , according to a cheap iPhone tuning app.

I tune many hire pianos that are intended for large halls that have full spectrum voicing. By that, I mean full lower partials giving depth of tone balanced by a full spectrum of upper partials. The operative word being 'balanced'. Any imbalance results in a thin hard sound. I don't profess to have mastered this art, few have, but the head concert tech here certainly has. They take a lot of tonal maintenance.

Sometimes These fantastic pianos are used for recording purposes in smaller rooms. My most recent experience of one was for a jazz recording. The piano opened up into the plate glass of the recording booth and they were gloriously in evidence. Some of the back ones I put a wedge in while I tuned them and found a distinct loss of character when they were silenced. Some, I felt were a little too strong and half expected to be asked to silence them somewhat but I never was. Contrary to popular belief, the tuning of them is readily adjustable but rarely necessary.

In short, we don't hear them because they mostly get needled out at the hammer.

Concert pianists find this kind of piano easy to change the character of with their touch. I am often shouted down on this forum when I mention the ability of a precious few pianists to have a wide tonal pallet and change the sound of a piano at will. Perhaps my decriers have never heard a real concert piano with a competent pianist or perhaps they have heard one but changed it themselves by voicing trying to make it into a living room piano which is all they know or is what the average customer wants.

For years it was rarely heard on a NY piano because the hammers were intentionally soft for the mass market for smaller rooms and had to be voiced up for concert use. now, I hear, they are voiced up in the factory for commercial sale but it is the tail wagging the dog (Tuners, possibly looking to make work, dictating to or subtly bullying piano owners and then claiming that all their customers demand it, who in turn dictate to the dealer and manufacturer. I've seen it happen at street level) and is not the same thing. Nor should it be.

Listen for them. I mean really listen.

I have heard equally glorious pianos without duplexes. I would love to have heard a new Bechstein concert piano a hundred years ago and I really appreciate what Del is doing. It's a horse from a different garage. (eh, Ernie?)

I am sure that high end pianos command a premium because of a combination of better quality and market perception. Getting 1% more out of something already excellent is typically a costly affair. It also takes enormous skills to leverage that extra 1%.

Between the Rit and the Hailun, there is no absolute gauge. They are both fine pianos in their own right. You have to go and try them out to see which one matches your tastes better. Price difference is small -- so that is unlikely to be a consideration. When I was shopping, the pianos were in different stores with different acoustics, with different levels of attention to the prep. Both my daughter and myself preferred the sound of the Rit, but that could easily have been easily influenced by the factors above.

One point I would like to mention. It may be completely psychological, but I have come to believe it. For the Rits, there were two pianos that we were looking at side by side. At the store, the GH160R had a noticeably clearer singing high end, while the slightly longer GH170R sounded much darker. In fact, hearing them next to each other, the high end almost sounded muffled in the GH170R. But the mid and lows were just far more deeper and rounded for the GH170R. Russell told us that we should expect the hammers to harden and the high end to become a lot more signing as the piano was used.

After 6 months, I can confirm that the high end has become a different animal altogether. It has a beautiful singing quality. The sound for the low end also changed similarly. It is no longer the darker sound that we heard in the early days. I do not think it happened with playing. Both of us seemed to have observed that change after the first tuning. Experts here can say if these kinds of voice changes are typical or not.

I am planning to try my hand at recording the piano this weekend. If I succeed in capturing the tone, I will be happy to share some clips with you.

Your thread attracted this many responses because pricing is a sensitive issue in all quarters of the piano community. There is no logic to piano pricing except the bottom line concept -- what the market will bear. That holds true at wholesale and retail, so the member who first judged you a troll was correct in writing that you hit a nerve.

The specifics in your posts are Yamaha, Rimuller, Hailun and your frustration with a 10k price gap from high to low. Let me tell you, that doesn't in any way span the breadth of the piano market. On some pianos, 10k can be whittled away in the showroom without opening your mouth. Just sitting at the bench and looking at the thing in front of you with interest might bring a sales pro who will prop his elbow on it (or maybe on you) and mention that he can do 10k better than his regular price.

Of the three pianos mentionted, you have to understand that each maker is at a different stage of price development....

Yamaha can call the shots at wholesale and retail because it has successfully leveraged its customer satisfaction story into higher and higher prices. A Yamaha retailer will grudgingly pay up on wholesale of a C series because he can sell Yamaha pianos far more easily than others. If you balk, he can downsell you to a GC series or (heaven forbid) to a GB (if you're hard of hearing).

Hailun, for all of its advertising here and elsewhere, does not have a high-class dealer network. They've burned through two distributors in a few short years, and their marketing is haphazard. Their strategy is to move into the price territory vacated by the Japanese brands as they ascend and by the Eastern European makers who are bent on shooting themselves in the head. When Hailun first hit the market here under its own name in the US, it was a value proposition, but at current MSRP and Fine prices, much less so. And the pianos are sometimes presented poorly in showrooms where dealers are happy to use them as a motivational tool to buy higher.

Pearl River is starting over after a run of about ten years in the US market where it was the cheapest game in town but steadily lost ground to upstart competitors, service problems, and fed-up retailers. The second generation Rimullers are the company's attempt to crawl out from under by building better pianos. They offer promotional pricing at this time. In fact, their current prices are not far from where Hailun started from a few years ago. So there is a price sweetener with Rimuller, both to you and to the retailer who lets bygones be bygones and buys into the new story. Pearl River has to get it right this time because the company was recently privatized and there are no more intravenous feedings of state $upport if they make a big mistake.

My own impressions of the two Chinese brands are only casual showroom stuff. Rinkit has given you a very detailed view earlier today. I hope you've read it before you read this.

What I've noticed is that the Rits have more depth of tone. When I play a Hailun 161 or 178 with my normal touch, or even play deeper into the keys, I feel that the piano is glossing over the surface of the music, which is fine for a cocktal bar, but not what I necessarily want. When I play a Rit with my normal touch, I feel that the piano is working harder to give me output. This is a personal observation and I'm only one person, so don't fixate on it.

You asked specifically about "touching". My memory is that both actions function smoothly. However, I don't think it makes much sense to completely isolate the action from the output that it's harnessed too, so I would give the edge to Ritmuller for what it lets me get out of the piano.

If a Yamaha C1 were within 5k of a 160 Ritmuller, I would choose it because the current generation C1 is a really satisfying instrument to me (again one person). Plus I'd be assured that my tech would enjoy tuning it to my satisfaction, I would be unlikely to encounter significant break-in or later service problems, and I would recapture at least some of the 5k later if and when I sold it. Yamaha's track record is worth a premium in my view. However, that theoretical 5k difference is not in the cards now. Yamaha C prices and Hailun pricing in general in the US have gotten a little too ambitious for my taste, so I'd probably be content to "settle with" (as you wrote) the Ritmuller and take my chances.

One thing that piano companies never do is overtly cut prices on core product lines. The retail network may have to bite its mouthpiece and absorb body blows to its margins. The company may introduce lesser models to mess up the consumer's view of things, But piano companies will go nowhere with prices of core products except up.