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Dear Sir,

I don't know who you are or what your agenda is by using the Blüthner name in this way. I would hope the administrators of this site would try and determine if you are a dealer or other piano industry professional. I think your stated rephrasing would have served your stated purpose without planting the seed of an unfounded rumor.

As an industry professional with 35 years of experience let me share what I have learned on this subject. If Brand A gave materials to Brand X to build a piano the result would be a brand x piano.

I would also like to share this link which I feel is a service for those here looking for the truth in origin of any prospective purchase claiming a German pedigree.

http://www.pianos.de/en/bvk_certificate/index.php?id=2

Isn't the question in the OP being answered by the changes that piano manufacturers are making guided by American and European designers. For example, Young Chang new models designed by Del Fandrich?

... So, while it might be possible for Mr Chen’s factory to someday build a high-end piano in the manner of some traditional Germany (or wherever) factory it would not be wise of him to attempt doing so. In my opinion, at least, it would be much wiser to start from scratch and design a new instrument that is conceived to take full advantage of the skills and technologies that already exist in a manufacturing company such as Hailun....

Dear Sir,

I don't know who you are or what your agenda is by using the Blüthner name in this way. I would hope the administrators of this site would try and determine if you are a dealer or other piano industry professional. I think your stated rephrasing would have served your stated purpose without planting the seed of an unfounded rumor.

By the way, I am NOT affiliated with the piano industry in any way. I am simply a piano player and enthusiast.

And a good researcher!

There is no easy or simple answer to any of this. Nothing is all that clear cut.

Can a company like Hailun build a piano like one of those mentioned in the OP? Yes, given enough time and a sufficient commitment of money. Would it be wise for them to do so? Probably not. Which begs the question, “Why not?” Most of the so-called “modern performance-grade” pianos are not modern at all and at least some of them are unnecessarily complex for their level of performance. Hence the closing performance gap between them and the more mass-produced instruments built by manufacturers whose heavy investments in automated and semi-automated machinery are paying off in pianos that play quite nicely for very modest sums of money. To be sure, a performance gap still does exist but it is a much smaller one than existed 20 to 40 years ago.

Most, if not all of the mass-produced pianos of today had their start as “performance-grade” instruments some decades—centuries?— back. Their designs and sometimes the antique machinery used to make them were shipped en masse from closed or nearly closed factories in America or Europe to some Asian country where—after some translation—they were put into production as pseudo-clones of their original glory complete with photocopied artwork and long defunct family histories.

It has only been fairly recently that people with any real piano design knowledge and skills have been brought in to try to make some sense of it all. And what has been going on these past few years has been the optimization of those old designs to accommodate the modern reality of mass-production techniques and modern materials at least some of which would have been discarded as scrap by the original builders but which is now used as a matter of necessity since all the “good stuff” is mostly long gone. The trick has been to figure out how to work with the declining quality of materials and the rapidly developing numerical- and computer-controlled equipment that is replacing the work of those skilled artisans and sometimes doing their tasks better and more precisely than they ever dreamed possible. The result is a whole new concept of piano building technology.

So, while it might be possible for Mr Chen’s factory to someday build a high-end piano in the manner of some traditional Germany (or wherever) factory it would not be wise of him to attempt doing so. In my opinion, at least, it would be much wiser to start from scratch and design a new instrument that is conceived to take full advantage of the skills and technologies that already exist in a manufacturing company such as Hailun.

And were I one of those high-end builders of a traditional piano I’d be some concerned of the prospect. Just the thought of some new very high performance instrument coming on the market, optimized to be built on the modern manufacturing equipment—again, this equipment is already in place in the modern Asian factory—to a quality standard at least as good as that possible using traditional techniques and performing at least as well as anything available from either Europe or America and selling for half to two-thirds the price would keep me awake at night. The whole industry is poised, I think, on the edge of the next big step in the ongoing evolution of the piano. It remains to be seen whether anyone has the vision and courage to take that step.

ddf

Short Answer: They can get as good as a Brodmann (until now at least).

Can a performance grade piano be built in a Chinese factory? Performance grade as defined in the current issue of PB rankings?
Yes.
Why?

Because it's already been done.

Never sold to the public, the piano was a one-off, done by the best workers employed by the Chinese factory. People who test drove the piano could not tell the difference between it and its siblings.

Folks,

Reckless rumor mongering is not something that should go by unaddressed regardless of one's good intentions. Nice to meet you OP.

I would encourage any person posing a hypothetical to be responsible in their examples.

We do make a Chinese piano, it's called an Irmler. Though Irmler pianos shipped to the States contain sufficient parts and finishing to be shipped as German made we don't trade on that and maintain total transparency regarding its Chinese origins.

Jolly,

I think it's hilarious that somebody would call me a chicken while using an alias.
Other then that I always enjoy your contributions and I hope all is well with you.