Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Do you prefer highend upright than consumer grade grand?

I do like it a lot. But I definitely would trade it for your K132! And I'd take a K132 before a heck of a lot of Grands! I don't have the space or money (or skill to justify it) at the moment so my K500 is perfect for me. Monster upgrade over my CN-27 digital. =)

My impression is that newer upright pianos from a few high and brands I have seen are optimized for space saving, and their sound quality left something to be desired. On the other hand, antique upright pianos are larger and sound better, more competitive with the sound of middle of the road and better grand pianos, in general.

There are some large uprights made today:

Bluthner S (57.5")
Steingraeber 138 (54")
Kawai K-800 (53")

Not sure what you mean by optimized for space saving. The only thing that can change on an upright is the height not the floor space. Very few modern uprights are taller than 52". Some very old uprights are taller than 52" but they can look cumbersome unless one has high ceilings.

The depth of a Steingraeber 138 is 26". The Bluthner S is 27.5". My almost century old Schiedmayer is also 27.5". The difference between optimised for space and optimised for sound is one and a half inches.

Sounds like marketing hype to me. However the cross section of the frame posts on the Schiedmayer looķs a bit larger than the Steingraeber FWTIW.

Not if used pianos are included in the options. I say this based on experience, since I got my Yamaha C2 for a good bit less than 15K.

Because of the completely different geometries, you really can’t compare them. Is the best high end bicycle better than a cheap motorcycle? Maybe, but if I need a motorcycle I’m not buying a bicycle.

Big advantage of push bikes is they can have more gears. And you don't need a licence to ride them over here. Good fun

The intriguing thing (for me, anyway) with uprights is that the soundboard is at the back yet all of them that I have come across in people's homes (including ours) are placed with their backs against the wall. That isn't universal, I've seen pictures (well, mostly on TV actually) with the piano facing into the room (with folk gathered around singing, glass in hand!) and of course in films like Cassablanca the piano is out there able to project its sound. Certainly when we bought ours it was somewhere in the middle of a room but it's so long ago I couldn't really tell if there was a great difference, room acoustics being what they are; actually, at the time I didn't even consider the matter, to me upright pianos went against the wall, grands were allowed space.

With ours, moving it slightly further from the wall really increases the sound - quite deafening, in fact.
I don't know much about acoustics and such like, but I do wonder how much having such a large amount of sound reflected back at the soundboard (perhaps even 'out of phase'?) actually affects the tone of the piano. I suspect, though, and hope, that somebody here will know the answer!

I've never had my uprights against the wall. It's incredible the difference you get in sound and perceived weight of the action as you move them around a room. Reflection and out of phase bounceback is a real concern, though, as I've experienced.

I left a few inches between upright and the wall and then my pen keeps falling off the gap :P

Yeah used changes things up. The same principle would be true at much less than your 15k price point, but I'm not sure exactly where I'd consider the average breaking point for used markets. Probably varies market to market. Probably 5-8k? I don't see too many really solid grands under 10k here in Portland.

Try leaving a good five or six inches as a gap. The piano will probably sound better and you can get at your pen more easily :-)

And not completely parallel to the wall. Break things up a bit by skewing it a few inches.

Yes! This is never brought up enough.

It is best to keep an upright about 6 to 8" away from the wall for a better sound

I think my current setup is less than 6 inches (maybe 4?) but the new one coming up definitely will allow more space.

I used to put a small pencil holder on the piano top but for the recording, I remove all items on top (only the mic) and now I have my pen just free rolling on top of piano...and so it falls.

You can also open the lid of an upright when playing and have it 3-4" from the wall. Also traditional music rests often pull out from the case some do that the case is not fully closed when the fallboard is tucked away, whence opening the lid is less of a concern.

The first time I played my upright with the lid open, I forgot, and threw my pencil up there... it ended up in the guts of the piano. Then I had to google how to open the front panel to get it out .. quite easy as it turned out. 😂