Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Trying to decide between Kohler & Campbell and Yamaha upright

Hello, my kids have reached a level in their lessons that they need a real piano.
We only have room for an upright. The only two pianos that I have found so far that are in our budget and seem to be good pianos are from Yamaha and Kohler & Campbell. The Yamaha is the C109 (Canadian model #). The Kohler is the KC-142.

A dealer I went to today opened up and showed me all the parts of the KC-142 and explained all the parts of the piano and it all came out sounding good to me. The piano also sounded fine to my ears. I last saw the Yamaha at another dealer a few months ago and it also sounded fine.

The K&C is cheaper.

I guess my real concern is, at this level in terms of workmanship and quality should the Yamaha by default be a better piano, simply because it's a Yamaha? I don't have detailed specs on the Yamaha (they are not on their Canadian web site). But the K&C appears to have all good parts according to it's price range and from what I have read on this web site.

I would appreciate any feedback.

Thanks,

-- Sanjay

I would definately go with the Yamaha if you could afford it. K&C is a good piano, but I believe the Yamaha to be a better piano. Keep in mind this is only my oppinion. You will find that as many members here you will find a difference in oppinions. Welcome to the forum.

I know the Yamaha c110 is made in China. I wonder if the C109 is another of their Chinese offerings. We don't get their Chinese models here in the states but I know they are available in Canada. Yamaha makes their cheapest models in China (next is Indonesia, best is Japan)so I would choose carefully.

By far Yamaha has the most name recognition and likely the highest resale.

I would recommend having the kids play both (& every piano they could in your price range) as close together as possible for an accurate comparison.

I really hope someone who knows more about this model Yamaha pipes in and can give some info about it.

Have you compared the spec's for both?

Fine's price supplement doesn't show a C109 model for Yamaha. Is it a new piano? How tall is it? The K&C is 42 inches. I had that exact same model for my first upright. I can tell you that it was solid and dependable and I never had any trouble with it. It was fine as a starter piano. However (and the shoe drops), I very soon became dissatisfied with the tone. The middle octave sounded okay, but the treble quickly started to sound tinkly, and the bass...well, let's just say inadequate. I bought the K&C 142 because it was the cheapest new piano I could find in Lexington, and it was only a bit more than what the dealers were asking for their beat-up used pianos. So I went for it. In hindsight, I should've spent more and bought a taller upright.

Assuming the Yamaha is new, and taller, I would suggest going with it simply because it has better name recognition and would be an easier sale if you decide to upgrade down the road.

Thanks for the feedback. The C109 is the Canadian model #. It's on their Canadian website (yamaha.ca).
It's 109 CM tall. Apparently the dealer now has the C109B which has posts in the back and the earlier version did not.

Anyway we have pretty well decided to go with the Yamaha C113T. It's 113 CM tall and sounds better (richer), I guess because of the longer strings and better bass etc.

Both of these models are made in Indonesia and are part of the Yamaha Debut series.

I am sure the K&C is also a good piano, but I think we would have ended up always second guessing ourselves with it as opposed to having peace of mind with the Yamaha. Sure it's more money, but I guess there are more important things in life then money. :-)