[CAUT] New Upright Pianos

[Richard Adkins]

Barbara,
 
    The college I work for used to buy Steinway 45's (1098s) every
couple years if funds were available.
For the most part, though, for practice rooms they bought Everetts.
 We had quite a few of each. We still have most of the Steiwnay 45s I
believe our oldest now is from the 1950s. We'd probably buy new ones if
we could afford it. 
 
 Anyhow,we did replace our Everetts with newer P-22 Yamahas. We did buy
Yamaha U1s for some the non-piano majors' practice rooms and as a second
piano in an adjuct piano teaching studio. Our most recent U1 is not as
well made as our older ones. The tone is not as deep or consistent,
though certainly not bad. Students who are using the practice  rooms
want the space to practice cello, bass, tuba, trombone, and whatnot.
They do have to pass keyboard proficiency, to be sure, but they are not
pianists. Mostly
they want a piano there for the A or Bflat to tune to, and perhaps
plunk out the notes they are
trying to learn, if there's some problem.
 
 
 None of our Steinway 45s we own exhibited the problems Mr. Sambell
writes about, and our institution did not humidify the building to give
special care to any of our pianos until I got here and made some
changes. By rights, they should have cracked apart. Pinblocks are still
sold as rocks.  However, I believe all our Steinway 45's were built
prior to CBS management.  I have to say, that unlike  our other Yamaha 
U1s, the old Steinway 45s we owned did not crack the sound boards. Our
U-1's sound boards cracked in less than 5 years. Our Steinway boards are
still crack free after 40 years.  Yamaha may have fixed that problem, as
the newer one has not cracked yet, but it has a couple more years to go
to be 5. The newer Yamahas are not comming in as nice as the first ones
we bought. I think they are cutting corners. But I wouldn't say our
oldest Yamahas are junk or bad pianos, or any worse than the Steinways
as far as playing goes.
 
 I would say, though that after all, we're talking about uprights. New
Steinway uprights are cost prohibitive
unless you've budgeted for them. We can buy 2 or 3 or 4!!! P-22
uprights for one Steinway
with the discounts and then trade them off and get new ones easier than
managing the Steinway
inventory for longer periods of time. 
 
OK, so, yeah, Yamaha P-22s do the job here for non-majors and
instrumental teachers, but they really do not have the Steinway tone. 
 
Well, if you are able to come up with $26K or so per upright, you might
look at the Bechstein.
 
Also,  I wonder if  the Mason and Hamlin "50" Upright might be an
alternative. I've not had a chance to see or try one. You might look
into them. 
 
I shouldn't think that people who buy uprights would expect them to
feel/or play like a grand piano.
 
 The public schools here bought a lot of Charles Walter 45" Studio
uprights, but have not
been all that happy with them. On the other hand, they don't do much
maintenance, so they
are getting what they pay for (which ain't much). I think they just
tune 'em. 
 
I'm not a fan of the Boston Upright. I had trouble with Boston Upright
tuning pins "flagpoling" and it was terrible to try to set the pins and
fine tune. Very "touchy". If as some say, they come off the same line as
Kawai's that would eliminate the Kawai from my consideration right
there! I'd want to examine and tune a few before I made the decision to
go with Kawai. Perhaps Boston has solved the flagpole problem, but I
don't care to revisit it. I haven't had the pleasure ofl tuning a Kawai
studio upright yet. 
 I don't have this problem with Yamaha, OR Steinway.
 
Looking down the road, re: maintenance, are you prepared to replace the
hammer flange cords on all your P-22s and U1s as has been discussed on
this board in the not too recent past? I'm not looking forward to this,
and some of our U1s are now 28 years old. [You won't be having to do
this with a Steinway.]
 
Perhaps a brand that does not use this in the action should be looked
at as a candidate.
 
I do cannot  agree w/Mr. Sambel that Steinway uprights  are "bad
pianos". It is true, I don't much enjoy tuning the 1098s, and prefer the
P-22 and U-1s as far fast easy tuning goes. But it is not all about me,
is it?
 
Lastly, I'd just like to say, that when I tried out some new 1098s and
a new K they that were carefully prepped and voiced, they played and
sounded WONDERFUL, but they were still uprights. 
 
 I'm just not sure that the expense is appropriate for where the pianos
will be placed in most situations. In heavy use situations, you may be
wanting to continually rotate, and upgrade every 10 -- 15 years; very
doable w/the P-22, but not so doable @ $25K (plus inflation) w/ a
Steinway upright.
 
Just thought I'd "chime in"...
 
Richard Adkins
Coe College
 
 

> Barbara, I would urge you on no account to recommend Steinway 1098's;
they
> are simply bad pianos. Back in 1970 the university I worked for
underwent
> rapid expansion of their faculty of music and purchased a number of
these,
> principally for the offices of non performance professors, such as
> musicologists, composers, and historians, whose demands for a piano
were
> fairly low, and in fact were not necessarily pianists at all. Aside
from
> poor tone and excessive false beats, and  generally mediocre
workmanship
> the touch quality was slow and stodgy feeling. But far more serious
was
> that EVERY ONE of them had the pinblock in the bass separate.Other
> technicians I knew had similar experiences Admittedly, I am sure that
this
> design flaw has been corrected in more recent years. But the few I
have
> seen since then have been less than impressive.
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