Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum What are Seiler and Samick doing?

List prices are pure fantasy in the US, except for the Steinways. Steinway will stick to their guns on price, annoyingly so. The others can be negotiated, based on local market conditions.

Seiler still exist and they manufacture a line of pianos in Germany and in the Samick factory but I can't for the life of me remember if it's Indonesia or Korea. Their German pianos are very sweet and refined sounding, although they have power if you need it. The uprights are extremely beautiful as well.

This thread didn't age well really, although it does have some posts from Minnesota Marty who sadly died a while back, but it's nice to have him come to mind again! Hey Marty!

Indonesia.

We have lost more than we have gained by banning persons such as Mike Carr, Stephen, oh he.l.l., even PianoMadam. And possibly Turandot.

There have been others. I think it would benefit the forum to rethink the policies that lead to this. I could be wrong, but a more elastic editorial policy could be for the better. A twisted genius is still... a genius. They don't all belong in the ashcan because they get carried away with their own fantasies. Even masters and mistresses of dishonesty can give up the truth without realizing it. In fact, they usually get caught when they step on their own tongue.

The post claiming that Steinway stands pat on its consumer pricing stood out to me. I unwittingly stepped into a crossfire some years back, when I stepped into a conversation about this. A person who said he had just bought a Steinway at a steep discount from a well-known commercial dealer in the New England area called up a thirty-page firestorm. There were many unbelievers; he posted a scan of the invoice, and sure enough....

Agree 100%

If you believe forum policy should be changed, why don’t you send Frank a PM with the rationale for the request?

Thinking more of it, I think we have to respect the moderators, who have their own lives and cannot deal with multiple issues a day from one member. I was probably wrong to write that I agree. I have moderated a group with 30000 plus people, and it isn’t obvious to everyone what is actually going on behind the scenes.

Indeed, the forum I once moderated was I think easier than here as there was virtually no commercial interest involved - although there were a lot of members with strong opinions. What wasn't visible was all the discussions between the mods to reach a consensus before anyone was suspended or banned. What was visible was the post in the relevant thread from the mod stating what actions had been taken and why, I think this helped a lot in making policies clear and encouraging good behavior on the forum as well as making the views of the moderators clear (and accountable).

To judge a person is no less difficult than choosing one's favorite piano. People hold different ideas from different standpoints. To me it is really a pity having to say goodbye to a fan I just become acquainted with, who shares many ideas and interests in common with me. But I think she is happy and more concentrated playing her piano now.

Windjammer, Seiler is still around and making great pianos. I recently bought one in fact (their premium German SE line, 6 foot 10 SE 208). As far as pricing I can't tell you what the difference is now compared to 10 years ago, but I CAN tell you that these pianos deserve to be ranked in the very top couple of tiers (As Larry fine does have them. In same category as Schimmel Konzert, Yamaha CF series, Shigeru Kawai, etc...) So having said that, the high price of the German models seem fair since they are in line with many of the pianos in this tier.

And speaking purely from comparing all of the pianos here in Houston, TX, the Seiler SE 208 is the best-sounding one I found. I took a small group of professional pianists and we all played Shigeru's, Steinway B's, Schimmel Konzert's, Yamaha's, and Seilers. We unanimously agreed that the German Seiler was our favorite. So I bought it. If they were dramatically cheaper 10 years ago and of THIS quality, then they were just a total steal before.

And even with their price currently, they are still miles below an outrageously priced piano like the Steinway B, which again, my group preferred the Seiler to.

Re: losing certain forum members, there's an interesting parallel to another forum I used to frequent a lot, Boardgamegeek. Very, very sophisticated and though it's about a seemingly childish hobby, boardgames esp. so-called Eurogames have drawn a lot of sophistication at the production and design end in recent years. Which raised the question, as about any commercial product: what kind of review level and criticism does the discerning consumer want (on online exchange platforms)?

There was this person on Boardgamegeek, Michael Barnes, who pressed for higher quality standards in how new designs would be reviewed; he came out of journalism and wanted to see more precision, discernment, and accuracy - and less deference to industry titans and retailers and dealers - in how new product was discussed. Barnes ended up making lots of enemies and created his own forum.

There's plenty to read up on the episodes surrounding the fall-out between the old BGG forum and the years since, if you're interested.

Boardgames have zero relevance to pianos, but the episode taught me a couple of things about internet fora that, I suspect, aren't entirely irrelevant to the kind of fall-outs and shitstorms the people on here have periodically seen over the years.

One, even when fora are run by private people for private people, they can stave off industry pressures only for so long and to a certain extent. The reasons are manifold, and they range from having to pay for a website to not wanting to alienate a core demographic of your readership, aka hoping you can maintain a semi-amicable triangular relation of seller, buyer, critic.

Two, even if you leave aside the people moderating and paying for an internet forum, most customers aren't interested in harsh, honest, and sometimes downright hurtful feedback on whatever crap the industry paddles and shovels down the throats of customers. Ignorance is bliss, and internet fora are for lots of people of place of escapism and delectation, not a place for erudition and critical engagement. In the long run, this causes a drift away of intelligentsia and oddballs, and leaves the fora more bland but also safer - what in recent years has been called "safe spaces."

Applied to my initial and superficial impressions of PianoWorld, it seems like a good place for smart people to exchange ideas, but I also get the unnerving sense that a lot of rough edges have come off since the early 2000s. Just my impression, and reactions and corrections welcome.


Thanks, dusty, I actually replied to your own thread re your new piano before I saw your response over here.

I think Seilers are fine instruments but like Schimmel totally, totally overpriced in this country. I'll share my own Seiler story and thoughts on Seiler pricing when my instrument arrives in late February. I find it telling that you use Schimmel as a comparison point (another line of instruments shockingly overpriced in the US when compared to Europe) and that you use Larry Fine as a benchmark of discussing piano pricing.

I think Fine accurately mirrors the piano pricing industry in this country - but what if what if he mirrors is warped?
There's this thing philosophers call the naturalist fallacy - you can't infer how things ought to be, in a reasonable world, from how they actually are in our world.

PS. Sorry, typo: "What if [the thing that] Larry Fine mirrors is [itself] warped?" (can't edit)

Windjammer, there's probably plenty of truth in that. I'm sure compared to Europe we're getting drastically worse pricing. I guess my point was that it's comparably priced to a lot of the piano brands that are a step below the exorbitantly-price "brand names" like Steinway, Bosendorfer, Fazioli... I wasn't even in the ballpark of that kind of pricing. So pricing in line with the Shigeru Kawai, Schimmel, Yamaha SX. While sounding as good as virtually any of the top-tier pianos. (I mean listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x-7rOweOOs) Wow... So the 2nd best thing to living in Germany and buying will be to just take my medicine and the markup and pay to get this incredible piano in my home.

It's always odd to ignore a "new" thread for a while, only to discover that you've already posted in it!




Man, I miss Minnesota Marty.

And Turandot, too, who was mentioned above. I don't think Turandot was banned, at least not permanently, because the back door way to check a ban doesn't indicate it. And I've looked before and I don't think there's anything in his last few posts that would have earned a ban (unless they were so horrific that they were deleted).

Turandot seemed very knowledgeable about the industry, and pretty much all things piano. I enjoyed sparring with him, but he usually ran me over like a steam roller!


Obviously, we should all play nicely. But an echo chamber that only and always dishes up the same advice to the same questions gets boring. Variety is the spice of life. I'd actually hope that there'd be some diversity in our opinions and ideas. If not, there's no need for a forum. Somebody just post a static page with all the "right" answers on it.


I think it's ironic that Minnesota Marty and Turandot both stopped with the exact same post count (although Marty had previously posted as Marty in Minnesota, and I don't know if Turandot ever had a different ID).

We know Marty is in piano heaven. We don't know where Turandot is. Both make me sad.


Not to be morbid, but after losing my wife, and also having had cancer myself, I realized that I have to consider my earthly "affairs". Part of mine is instructions on how to mop up my online presences. FB allows you to appoint an official "legacy contact." I have the dubious honor of filling that role for my late wife. But most places have no such provisions. So, if and when something happens to me, one of my awesome daughters will come here to make a notice, even if I'm banned**. A couple people may wonder what happened to me, and I don't want to leave them hanging.

** I've been banned here multiple times. The 2nd to last time, I deserved it. Decidedly. The last time... well, let's just say that I still think disagreement is ok.


It's sad to lose people. We shouldn't push them away just because they disagree, wound our pride, or hurt our feelings. Same holds true if they respond to us hurting theirs, or even overreact. Things tend to settle down after a while. Ironically, about half of the friend's I've made here on PW are relationships that got off on the wrong foot. It's not hard to get back on the good foot.

As a relative newcomer, reading this thread this is the line that jumped out to me the most.


From now on when people are arguing about pianos this is all they need to read.

Obviously this is not restricted to just those three brands.

Yeah, at a certain point, they're not more or less good, they're just different. Each has its characteristics.

Here is Mike Carr's Background: https://www.carrspiano.com/about.php

As you can see, Mike was a consultant for Hailun, and as such, knew a lot about Chinese building practices.

Mike was brought it to clean up issues that arose for Hailun dealers.

Sad to hear he was banned. However, if he hated Chinese piano builders, it was probably merited...

Since a link was given for rather old used Schimmel uprights (in Europe) above, I thought I would show the price on Klaviano for new K series Schimmels.


https://www.klaviano.com/pianos-for-sale/schimmel/schimmel-k132.html

This is a good looking one (interesting woodwork):

Retsacnal I cannot open the link to the image you suggested.So I do not know which one you mean? I like polished ebony uprights as long as they are very nice instruments.To me finish comes second.Of course some these
vintage pianos have a charm of thier own.