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To answer the previous thread on this.
I shopped for a used D for a LONG time - over 15 years. I finally purchased one!
In my experience, the smaller used B is the most valuable USED piano in the world. A "D" is just too big for most people's home - and as such they become more difficult to sell and do not have the same demand as the home sized B's do. Don't get me wrong, in all the time I looked, even in recessions, the D's really did not budge in price much. They did not sell either in the recessions. However, they do sell eventually.
In my opinion, the D's have a far superior feeling action and a proper deep base in comparison to the B's. Most B's I played, the really nice ones, have a 'sweetness' to them. But due to the physics of a smaller piano they lack the battle ship like firepower you get with a proper D. Only the D (talking Steinway line only here) gives you power to tickle with a feather or fire a salvo of heavy notes like an Iowa class battleship gun when needed.
In my opinion, get the used D, if you have the space. The used B's will command a premium unless we are in recession.
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Fully rebuilt, like-new D's sell for quite a bit more than a B that is in equal condition.
B's are $50-60K, D's are $85-100K, all in basic black finish.
In a seemingly infinite universe-infinite human creativity is-seemingly possible. According to NASA, 93% of the earth like planets possible in the known universe have yet to be formed. Contact: toneman1@me.com
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Fully rebuilt D's are expensive. But there are several D's in reasonable but not rebuilt condition on ebay right now for ~$60k. For example: Ebay - 1997 Steinway Model DI agree with the OP that the D is the superior instrument and seems like a better deal if you can get one for $60-$80k.
Last edited by asb37; 02/25/18 09:24 AM.
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In my opinion, the D's have a far superior feeling action and a proper deep base in comparison to the B's. Most B's I played, the really nice ones, have a 'sweetness' to them. But due to the physics of a smaller piano they lack the battle ship like firepower you get with a proper D. Only the D (talking Steinway line only here) gives you power to tickle with a feather or fire a salvo of heavy notes like an Iowa class battleship gun when needed. How many people want 'battleship like firepower' in a home piano or find the bass of B inadequate? I think 99+% of pianists, including professionals, would be completely satisfied with an excellent Steinway B.
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I looked for 5 years for a 'B', and in the end bought a 'D'.
I'd agree with SF10, and it's not the Iowa class broadside, it's just the ability to shoot 16" shells, whatever the muzzle velocity, period
The English may not like music much, but they love the sound it makes ... Beecham
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Based on the opening post users handle, shouldn't he be driving a Baldwin? Also my father ran the 16 inch guns on the USS West Virginia as a warrant officer until the Japanese sunk it. Poor guys hearing loss was off the charts...RIP dad...
Last edited by Mark...; 02/25/18 01:33 PM.
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A good D actually sells quickly. One of the reasons that Steinway Ds seem to be slow to sell is that the Ds people see on the market are all over the place in terms of performance. There are lots of bad Ds out there that that just sit and don't sell. Bs are less likely to be as bad although they can certainly be quite inconsistent. Rebuilt Ds are really all over the place. Ds are the most challenging to rebuild and very few rebuilders have done enough of them to know them inside and out, especially from different periods. There is also a higher expectation with a D than a B. A mediocre B is not as disappointing as a decent D. Finally there are some special types of buyers for Ds ( concert grands actually in general ) compared with smaller pianos. Some of the D buyers are quite advanced pianists with excellent experience with Ds and they know what a good D is so they reject all of the sub standard Ds out there. Some of the D buyers are quite inexperienced with concert grands which require more than a bit of getting used to compared with non concert grands. So there is no doubt that an average B is much easier to sell compared with even an above average D, but a really good or great D is not hard to sell.
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A good D actually sells quickly. One of the reasons that Steinway Ds seem to be slow to sell is that the Ds people see on the market are all over the place in terms of performance. There are lots of bad Ds out there that that just sit and don't sell. Bs are less likely to be as bad although they can certainly be quite inconsistent. Rebuilt Ds are really all over the place. Ds are the most challenging to rebuild and very few rebuilders have done enough of them to know them inside and out, especially from different periods. There is also a higher expectation with a D than a B. A mediocre B is not as disappointing as a decent D. Finally there are some special types of buyers for Ds ( concert grands actually in general ) compared with smaller pianos. Some of the D buyers are quite advanced pianists with excellent experience with Ds and they know what a good D is so they reject all of the sub standard Ds out there. Some of the D buyers are quite inexperienced with concert grands which require more than a bit of getting used to compared with non concert grands. So there is no doubt that an average B is much easier to sell compared with even an above average D, but a really good or great D is not hard to sell. +1 I agree with Keith . I would opine that there are more "B" consumers on the market, many of whom are not discerning pianists, or even play - while I have yet to encounter a "D" consumer who does not play, or has a pianist among the committee members looking for a concert grand. Personally, I prefer a good "A2" or "A3" to most "B's".
Russell I. Kassman Technician -Consultant FORMER/Semi-Retired: USA Rep.for C.Bechstein & Sauter; Founder/R. KASSMAN Piano; Consultant - GUANGZHOU Pearl River Piano Co. www.RussellKassman.com
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A good D actually sells quickly. One of the reasons that Steinway Ds seem to be slow to sell is that the Ds people see on the market are all over the place in terms of performance. There are lots of bad Ds out there that that just sit and don't sell. Bs are less likely to be as bad although they can certainly be quite inconsistent. Rebuilt Ds are really all over the place. Ds are the most challenging to rebuild. Keith, I'm intrigued by that comment. Specifically, which aspects of rebuilding present the real challenges ?
The English may not like music much, but they love the sound it makes ... Beecham
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A good D actually sells quickly. One of the reasons that Steinway Ds seem to be slow to sell is that the Ds people see on the market are all over the place in terms of performance. There are lots of bad Ds out there that that just sit and don't sell. Bs are less likely to be as bad although they can certainly be quite inconsistent. Rebuilt Ds are really all over the place. Ds are the most challenging to rebuild. Keith, I'm intrigued by that comment. Specifically, which aspects of rebuilding present the real challenges ? The belly and the action For example, the action cavity on Ds, even from the same year, are of different sizes and this will frustrate even good rebuilders in how they adjust to it in terms of set up and balance. This is a big part of the reason why some Ds are really heavy and others from the same year are much lighter. The size of a concert grand, and concert grand expectations magnify problems as well. A rebuilder might do a terrific sounding belly on a smaller Steinway like an O or even a B for instance and when taking the same approach find themselves with an out of balance D with a weak Octave 6 and treble. If the rebuilder is sensitive enough to then realize the problems with the sound it is likely their only avenue will be hammer work to then try and camouflage the belly problems which again is an approach that works less poorly with a smaller piano. The steep learning curve for Ds is exacerbated for most rebuilders by them just simply doing less of them as well. Concert grands are extremely challenging for manufacturer and rebuilder alike.
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The belly and the action For example, the action cavity on Ds, even from the same year, are of different sizes and this will frustrate even good rebuilders in how they adjust to it in terms of set up and balance. This is a big part of the reason why some Ds are really heavy and others from the same year are much lighter. ... Hi Keith, I am intrigued too. It is hard for me, a layperson, to imagine instruments of the same model, each with several thousand parts to be put together, can have equivalent areas that have vastly different dimensions. I know someone on PW recently quoted that performance pianos are built to performance, not to specs. But I am curious: were you referring to, regarding the action cavity, a difference of depth of, say, one inch or more, or width difference of many inches? Forgive me if these figures are too wild as I have no idea at all.
1969 Hamburg Steinway B, rebuilt by PianoCraft in 2017 2013 New York Steinway A Kawai MP11
Previously: 2005 Yamaha GB1, 1992 Yamaha C5
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Hi Davdoc, The action cavity height can vary by 7 or 8 mm. The plate position will also vary in and out and can also be at slight angles! The position of the plate in or out affects the hammer placement which has to be at a very specific subdivision of string length for good sound while the key positions remain in the same spot so this affects the touch quite a bit. Every Steinway is an adventure
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...Every Steinway is an adventure Well, yeah.
"Don't let the devil fool you - Here comes a dove; Nothing cures like time and love." -- Laura Nyro
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In Steinways that were made in a hurry, one often finds the plate too high and too deep in the case. This is because the worker does not spend the time trimming the pinblock enough. Plus if the plate is not properly ground to establish proper V-bar position and elevation, this compound the workers problems because he/she can't register and reconcile critical dimension with precision.
In a seemingly infinite universe-infinite human creativity is-seemingly possible. According to NASA, 93% of the earth like planets possible in the known universe have yet to be formed. Contact: toneman1@me.com
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In Steinways that were made in a hurry, one often finds the plate too high and too deep in the case. This is because the worker does not spend the time trimming the pinblock enough. Plus if the plate is not properly ground to establish proper V-bar position and elevation, this compound the workers problems because he/she can't register and reconcile critical dimension with precision.
As an engineer, I find it quite astonishing that a product that has been essentially unchanged for 100 years, and is supposed to be the 'best-in-the-world" lacks elementary quality control during manufacture. Given Steinway's claim to have a measurement for just about everything, I'm doubly amazed.
The English may not like music much, but they love the sound it makes ... Beecham
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Both Keith and Ed are correct, but have not mentioned that Steinway has a unique way of fitting the pinblock that lead to the large errors of which they speak.
The pinblock is glued to the stretcher, and then the two of them are glued to the sides of the rim. The keybed is glued into place. So the pinblock is in the piano before any fitting beyond the initial cutting takes place. A piano rebuilder knows that all plate castings vary in the amount of and shape of warping that takes place as the plate cools from casting. They are still fitting the face of the pinblock to mate it to the front flange. But the plate is going in and out of the case, and a little johnnie bar that sits on the keybed pushes the plate up and down to mark the high spots on the pinblock that will be ground off. The job is done when all the high spots are ground away and no voids remain.
Unlike many pianos, the top of the pinblock is fitted to the shape of the underside of the plate, using a pantographic tracing router to grind off the high spots. The job is done when no voids remain. Sometimes the plate sits higher or lower at one end relative to the other. This can mean that, when setting downbearing at the bridges, the bridge height will be higher or lower to get the correct distance bearing. Likewise, for string height variability.
Since all plates vary in their warpage, the end result is that the fore-aft position of the plate can vary widely: thus the location of the action's depth into the cavity is adjusted to accommodate the plate location. Steinway locates the stack variably fore-aft to fit the plate location, this means the key ratios will differ from piano to piano. No accommodation is made for the quite variable plate height, as Steinway uses a standard bore hammer. The result is that the hammers can understrike or overstrike by surprisingly large amounts. I rebuilt the action of a 2004 D a couple of years ago, whereby the hammers were overstriking by 5 mm. at best. In the middle of the scale, the error was 8 mm.! I always custom bore my hammers on overlong hammer stock, this piano surely needed that attention.
Keith mentioned the variable entrance height at the stretcher (cornice as Steinway calls it). Not only does that height vary, but it can be high at one end and lower on the other. Further, on the B's and D's the entrance is quite shallow relative to the height of the stack. We see many pianos where the tops of the drop screws on new and old Steinways are dragging on the underside of the pinblock.
Lest some readers think that Keith, Ed, and myself are snotty rebuilders with our noses in the air, I will simply say that is the world that every Steinway rebuilder lives in from day 1. We fit blocks by the traditional method. The plate is out and upside down, the pinblock is ground at the top and front by various means until no voids remain. But our pinblocks are oversize in thickness, height, and width when we begin, and are trimmed to properly fit at the end. Our particular means of locating the plate may vary, but the results will be the same. We can locate the piano in the same positions or vary it to correct for factory errors.
As a result, Steinways most benefit from fully custom action work where the rebuilder takes many measurements and analyzes what they have, often using piano action geometry software. Capstans can be moved, hammers custom bored, many leads removed to reduce inertia, and so on.
When a Steinway action is done really right, it is a beautiful thing to play. Many don't come from the factory that way, and action rebuilders who simply hang the parts on the rails and go from there will reproduce the factory errors and wonder why the result is less than they had hoped for.
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Well there's nothing like making work for yourself ...
Why don't Steinway (or presumably any other manufacturer) make over-thick castings and then use CNC machines to create uniform plates, exact to size, and repeatably so?
Robots in car plants can achieve astonishing accuracy these days - far more than a piano plate requires.
Last edited by Fareham; 02/27/18 07:50 AM.
The English may not like music much, but they love the sound it makes ... Beecham
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Fareham, there is more warpage than you realize in modern plates. I have seen a bow in the middle of a Steinway plate as much as 5 mm., that means that we grind material away from the top of the pinblock at the ends until it fits in the middle. Realize also that the warpage of the plate that exists on the bottom in the tuning pin field also exists at the top. If we flattened only the bottom, then the thickness of the plate would be quite variable. CNC milling of the v bars is done on many pianos these days, and drilling for hitch pins and agraffes also - all for better consistency. I think it easier to simply fit the pinblock as described. The bottom line is that we have more control over where the pinblock ends up in all planes than Steinway does.
As far as I know, Steinway has fitted pinblocks their way for over 100 years.
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As far as I know, Steinway has fitted pinblocks their way for over 100 years. That says it all, really. It's the simplest thing in the world to specify a casting's measurements and provide the foundry with go / nogo gauges, so they know which castings will be accepted and which won't. I admire you guys for working with something that is so variable. To me it's just sad that much of the industry remains in the nineteenth century, causing far more problems than is ever necessary.
The English may not like music much, but they love the sound it makes ... Beecham
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