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Pianists in the US know what a Bosendorfer is (particularly the Imperial), even if they haven't played one. Most of them have heard of a Fazioli as well (some combination of the largest production model available in the market and the price). Bechstein and Bluthner, not as much, unless they have a more international background.

Wasn't this about non-pianists who didn't know different piano brands? As a cellist, I must say I've played with pianists who couldn't keep time either, and many who couldn't tell their piano was out of tune. Let's not bash the other musicians!

Hi Steve! Just curious, are you implying that Steinway artists, in general, are endorsing the piano against their will? We all know of the Lourtie/Ohlsson stories, but I mean overall. Steinway artists aren't like Tiger Woods endorsing Nike for millions of dollars. They make zero $ from the agreement. The contract is simple: it asks artists to own a Steinway and to perform on a Steinway. In turn, the artist can count on having a prepped Steinway to play on. More importantly, Steinway artists are realistic and reasonable people; if you were to ask if they've played on Skigeru Kawais or Bosendorfers, they will most likely say yes and agree they're fine pianos. Point is, the artist's agenda is the most pure: tone/touch. If Angela Hewitt sees fit to endorse Fazioli, I'd at least consider the brand because of her performing abilities. She's unlikely to endorse a lemon piano because her career and reputation depend on it.

Researching pianos is fine, pardon the pun, but to research sound you have to get out there and play these lovely beasts. If customers don't know anything about pianos, or what to listen for, they need guidance, and I'd rather that guidance come from someone who doesn't make their money building or selling pianos. That's not to say dealers/makers aren't universally untrustworthy...anyway, you get my point.

BTW, Steinway's a great choice if you want to play softly too

Hello joe80. I'd like to borrow your words for a moment and substitute piano brands with prestige timepieces:

I think it's true the world over that Vacheron Constantin, Patek Philippe, and Audemars Piguet are lesser known brands unless you're a horologist.

Even people with nice watches who are not true aficionados don't really know the other brands all that well.

So, they carry prestige and people recognise them as quality brands, but only amongst those who know about timepieces.

For everyone else, Rolex carries the prestige. In fact now, because Omega is so [heavily advertised in movies & in print], Omega is carrying quite a lot of prestige too.
....
(For the record, I enjoy my Citizen & Casio watches )

You are right. There's much more to it. Name recognition can be quantified. Poll 100 random shoppers at a mall to sample their recognition of five brand names ranging in familiarity from Burger King to Bösendorfer. Burger King will most likely lead the brand recognition parade, but be at or near the bottom if the shoppers are then asked to order the five brands in terms of prestige.

Presitge cannot be quantified. It can't even be isolated from the perception of the viewer. It exists in the viewer, not in the object viewed.

Making the leap from brand recognition to prestige is utterly impossible if there's no recognition to start with. Some products categories can be marketed on the basis of prestige – real estate, colleges, cars, hotels, clothing, even upscale cooking ranges and sunglasses. There's so little interest in pianos in the US that you would need a very focused target consumer group to get anything useful out of your effort to find prestige. Without that narrow target, at best you'd get a small collection of data points insufficient to indicate a pattern.

Back in his Piano Book days, Larry assigned a value to each piano brand for information. Information referred to how much information he had available to support his judgments. In the last edition of Piano Book, Yamaha received five stars, Bechstein, 2.5 stars, Sauter 2 stars, and Haessler 1.5.This rating was far more useful to the reader than attempts to quantify prestige in a ratings chart. But the Piano Book days are gone, and the purpose of Piano Buyer is quite different. I suppose he doesn't feel it necessary to indicate what kind of information and how much of it he has from ouside the piano industry itself to support his judgments of prestige.

Yes indeed, fair point. Let's put it this way, what the dealer will cherry pick and show the customer is typically technical in nature, or things along the lines of the "prestige" chart. If customers have actually read the entire Piano Buyer, they will have read those reviews from players. Again, it's a fantastic resource. Love it.

No, I didn't want to imply that pianists are endorsing the pianos against their will. I wouldn't say that the endorsements are necessarily out of their pure love of Steinways. I think the reality is a combination of factors.

Let me first say, Steinway pianos, particularly the C&A pianos are very good pianos. That's definitely a major factor.

However, I think that a major concern for an artist is the availability of good pianos where they perform. If you're performing in NYC, that's not a problem, but if you're performing in a smaller market, Steinway may be the only company that has concert-level pianos available for performing, because they have the largest and deepest fleet of C&A pianos in the industry. The way you guarantee that you have access to these pianos is to be a Steinway artist. If you aren't, or if you are an artist who has fallen in disfavor of Steinway, you may not get access to those pianos.

So if I'm a concert artist who, say, really loves Steingraeber pianos, am I going to throw my hat into the Steingraeber ring and endorse them? Well, they can't provide pianos except for in the large markets. On the other hand, if I become a Steinway artist, I get a good piano practically everywhere. Now let's say I'm playing in a city where I could get a fantastic Steingraeber piano to play in a concert, and I'm a Steinway artist. Steinway does not take very lightly their artists playing on competing pianos if a Steinway piano is available.

If I'm a big name artist, I can probably get away with playing what I want when I want sometimes if I'm a Steinway artist. For the majority of concert pianists, I run the very real risk of not having an adequate piano available to me when I play in Schenectady, NY, and that's terrifying to me.

This is not in any way a knock on Steinway pianos, and isn't to say that there aren't a lot of artists that love them. Steinways have some very nice qualities that many artists look for. But we can't count the likelihood that at least some of these pianists chose Steinway for pragmatic reasons as well as (and for some instead of) artistic reasons.

Reality is, Steinway has cornered the market on concert pianos. They use their market power to control this market. This isn't evil, or bad, but it means that we should understand that some of this market position isn't necessarily a statement of the overwhelming superiority of Steinway, which is what Steinway would want us to think.



No question of that. A Steinway in the home is a great choice. But the ability to cut through a concert hall, or the availability of C&A pianos all over the world don't impact the consumer a whit.

Although the Fine rankings for sometime have been according to him mostly a picture of how makers position their piano in the market(price), he has also said that price generally corresponds to quality.

In addition, the rankings from the time when the pianos were specifically ranked on quality(or sometimes specifically on several subcategories of quality)are extremely close to the present rankings at least in what is now called performance grade pianos.

So I think it is a mistake to say, as some in this thread seem to have implied, that the present rankings have little or nothing to do with quality.

Of course prestige can be quantified, as can any opinion or perception. Pollsters, opinion surveyers, and market researchers do it every day. Which is precisely what Larry Fine's new treatment of Steinway (NY) reflects. Correctly, in my opinion.

Larry.

If 25,000 pianists endorsed Steinway, I might buy that, but as of today there are only about 1500, not exactly a conspiracy-inducing number. The idea that 1500 people would endorse Steinway based on love of the product is not a stretch. Again, if the number were upwards of 25,000, maybe I'd grant you the point.

Moreover, if you preferred Steingraeber, and can't get them in smaller markets, why would you care which other piano you got, be it Steinway, Kawai, Yamaha, etc.? Why endorse Steinway? (again, which means you have to own one). Seems like a lot of trouble to go to just for pragmatic reasons.

Full disclosure: I'm married to a Steinway artist and am friends with about 20 of them.

Sam,

I don't have much background in this, and I really didn't even know what a horologist was until I looked it up. I was thinking maybe it was some high-class kind of pimp. But now that I've got that straightened out in my head and read your post again, I think I want to get tuned in to horology.

The thing is, I want to ease in slowly at the entry level. Then whenever my time telling skills improve, I can upgrade. Do any of these fine makers you mention have an entry-level performance grade timepiece in the near luxury segment? No Chinese action part though please.

All I need is a stainless steel case and a sturdy leather strap. I don't want one of those gaudy diamond-littered Piaget jobs attracting the wrong kind of attention at airports and European train stations. Those pickpockets can leave you in your undershorts.

What I have now is a Timex Expedition, so even a Casio would be an upgrade I guess. The thing hasn't failed me yet, but I know one day it will. It's sure to have some Chinese parts. Actually the whole thing was probably made in China.

Let me know what you'd recommend for me.

too d**m funny. Are you sure you shouldn't be writing for T.V.?
Kurt

I recommend a digital....

...or maybe one of those newfangled analog/digital hybrids.

It's funny how Sam made that fine timepiece analogy! In high-end watches, almost everyone knows the Rolex name, but those other fine Swiss watch makers, like many high quality European piano makers would draw a blank on the face of an average American consumer. I got drawn into watch collecting a couple of years after I bought my piano. Just as a digital piano will not go out of tune, unlike a Steinway D, a $10 digital watch will keep better time over the course of a month than all but the most highly-regulated Rolex. Tune ups and oilings for the Rolex every five years or so, run about $500.

If you want a decent, non-digital watch may I suggest Orient. They make mostly mechanical, self-winding models and are a part of Seiko-Epson. Look at their diver styled watches for a non-formal watch (the Orient Mako or Orient Ray) and for a more formal dress watch, the Orient Bambino models are nice. All Orient watches have Japanese mechanical components and are assembled in Japan, Singapore and Korea. Those models are available for a little over $100. They are analogous in the piano world to buying a Hailun or Brodmann or Ritmuller. Sometimes in life when you want that Steinway or Rolex, you have to compromise a bit. It's no different for us amateur horologists and pianists.

PS - There are $2000 Casio watches that are very collectable!!!

Couldn't agree more,

Sorry, folks, but I really don't see how any classification with a "one item group" would make any sense at all...

Why not?