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Thanks again everyone. Your insights are very, very helpful.

I will certainly keep my mind and eyes open for opportunities that come my way.

horowitz' steinway had a heavily modified action, as did gould's. there are some details of the extra attention both pianists received in the book "A Romance on Three Legs". if you order and put a deposit down for a bespoke top tier concert grand, you'd probably get similar treatment in the set up of your instrument. should older instruments come under consideration, it then comes down to finding a technician/rebuilder you trust to completely understand what you want and can make it real. many top pianists who could own any brand new instrument they like, choose otherwise for their personal instruments.

if you wish to try out hamburger steinways, you needn't go to Deutschland necessarily, if that doesn't appeal to you. (for a long part of A.Rubenstein's career he played steinways but would not visit their home country.) they're found in any big steinway dealers in the major cities of the u.k. and western europa, but you'd need to ascertain how many model D's a particular dealer has for you to test.

I think you should be shopping for a technician before you shop for a piano.

Hello MJAB -
There is a significant amount of information above that is less than accurate; I will contact you privately in hopes of completely clarifying and answering whatever questions you have about the use of our New York selection room. You are also welcome to contact me via email if you'd like to.

If there is significant misinformation in this thread, why don't you correct it here for all to read? As it stands, this is the information that any future reader will get regarding the selection room process,

I was thinking the same thing, dogperson. But when you're Steinway, you don't have to be or need to be transparent. If a piano shopper wants to buy a Steinway, they just need lots of money, not only to buy, but just to look as well, apparently.

Of course, as Sally Phillips said, if there is a 2 month waiting period just to get an appointment for the factory-selection, they (Steinway) must be doing pretty well.

Rick

Rickster - your comment and implied accusation is not at all fair. If I wasn't transparent - I'd be hiding behind some handle, and I certainly wouldn't use my real name of email address.

I have chosen to not get drawn into arguments and debates on this forum. I've also gone out of my way to never post or respond in a way that will draw a predicable chorus of "he's just a salesman for Steinway - disregard anything he says". Whether or not there is a bias on this forum is a question to which participants will draw their own conclusions.

Bob, you have a point, and it was well stated. And, I do apologize if my comments were construed as an implied accusation that Steinway, or you, as Steinway's representative here on the PW forum, are not transparent; quite frankly, I'm not sure if you are or not, and it was pure speculation on my part, based on what I have read in this thread. But there are two sides to every story/argument/equation.

You say/imply that the reason you do not wish to divulge or elaborate on the inaccurate information that you say is stated in this thread, is that you wish to discuss these things via PM or private mail rather than openly in this forum. That is indeed your prerogative and your right. But you would have to admit that it does leave everyone else guessing as to what the inaccurate information is; hence, my rational/logic for making the statement about transparency.

Steinway is a private company, and a very well known one at that; you absolutely have the right to share more or less information about your sales policies, or none at all. But that still leaves everyone here guessing exactly what information here is inaccurate. You say there is inaccurate information in this thread, but you don't say what it is...

Again, I do apologize if my comments were in any way offensive. I certainly meant no offense toward you or Steinway.

Best regards,

Rick

Most of the time I find I am in agreement with Rick's comments, as his comments
are always backed by a lot of experience and common sense. I have to say that in
this case, I don't see Steinway's process to be one that smacks of arrogance.

As a retired sales professional, I see a difference between the services you should
should expect for free in a bricks-and-mortar store vs those being offered in Steinway's
selection room. Expecting a show room to be stocked with product, being able to
try out those products, and interacting with the store's sales staff and technicians -
those are part of doing business and should be free. A "selection room" seems to me
to be downstream to the store, and thus one's expectations of which services should
be free should not be the same as with a store.

Set aside for the moment the non-refundable deposit, and you see that Steinway is
providing a service with their selection room rather than it being a sales channel.
The room likely has been accoustically treated to enable optimal listening; it's been
populated with a million dollars of hard-to-get inventory; technical services have
been expended to prep the pianos to the guest's preferences; technicians are on
hand to make further adjustments during the visit; you'll have a guide/escort
throughout your visit. In effect, you are getting a mini-concert hall plus its personnel
for your personal use. If you tried to put something together like that on your own,
how many thousands of dollars per hour would you charge for someone to use it?

Back to the deposit, I might not agree that that is a wonderful thing to impose on
my prospective customers. It's probably Steinway's way of sales qualifying persons
who want access to a very costly asset. While this is a business decision on
on their part, it is also causes the sales process to be slightly intermingled with
what otherwise is just a pure customer service. And that co-mingling can tempt
us to think: this should be free, and if it is not, then Steinway must be being arrogant.

John

If Sally is right and there is a waiting list for these appointments, the armchair economist in me believes that Steinway is requesting a non-refundable deposit that is too low.

Hello, John,

Your post was very articulate and well written. Not only so, but you make some good points. As for my poetic rant about arrogance, no, I am not always right, but I can be a good poet when I'm in the mood (at least in my opinion).

Perhaps arrogant was too strong a word to begin with. How about "Snobbish"?

Snobbish:

Snobbish is a human trait that is easy to recognize

Okay, well, there is no need to go there...

As I said in my original post in this thread, the concept of buying such an expensive luxury item is way out of my league and well beyond anything I could ever afford. But I am capable of reading this thread and drawing a conclusion based on what I have read; and, it seems to me that having to pay a non-refundable fee to merely look at a Steinway piano is something I have difficulty comprehending.

Maybe the world of the rich and famous is so far above and beyond the scope of the world in which I live has something to do with my thoughts and ideas here.

Sorry about that...

I won't post anymore to this thread. I don't think I have enough money in the bank.

All the best!

Rick

Video of Rubinstein trying out his repaired D with factory technicians. If you don't speak German you can click on CC to get the subtitles.

Steinway does not have a "non-refundable deposit" policy with regard to the use of our selection room.

I've seen the selection room and played the pianos within. The selection room is for those folks that have already made the decision to buy a Steinway, and want to choose the Steinway that best suites them. It's not for casual browsing. That's what piano dealers are for. One of our University professors used the selection room to choose his Steinway B for his office with great results.

I don't think anyone in retail sales in the USA is allowed to require non-refundable payment.

Bob Snyder has nothing to gain by debating the rest of us here in a public forum, his posts strike me as him trying to represent his employer well. Which is a job well done.

If I'm not mistaken, I've heard there is a waiting list specifically for the polished ebony finish D. I believe the satin grand finishes are in greater supply (source: anecdotal from managers at 3 different S&S dealers).

Sr.Rey, gracias for that video, have seen it. i.i.r.c. that was the first visit to the federal republik of deutschland (still split into to entities of course at that time, the demokratische republik deutchland the other side) rubenstein had made to any part of the country since well before the war. natuerlich he's treated like royalty by los germanos. his german pronunciation has less of his polish accent than what english speakers hear in his english, and of course he slips a few french words in as well, again without a polish accent. just a guess, english might have been one of the western european languages he acquired about midway through his total of seven or eight, counting yiddish of course as a separate tongue.

rubinstein moved to Berlin at age ten to study, performed with the Berlin Phiharmoniker at 13, and moved to Paris at 17. the area in Poland of his earlier childhood was politically part of Russia at the time. he began refusing engagements in Germany as early as 1914.

I suppose they are trying to get rid of the "tyre kickers" who must be a plague with a product such as theirs.

Here is a recent forum post where OP was requested by his Dealer to pay upfront prior an appointment

Quiet NY Steinway D

Yes, dogperson. That was me saying that. And I also related part of that story earlier in this thread. I quote myself:

My dealer telling me that I would own a new D one way or another after the factory selection process was further explained to me: no refund would be possible after I went to the factory selection room.