More on Samick

[PianoBook@aol.com]

In a message dated 96-02-06 00:39:07 EST, Stan Kroeker, RPT wrote:

>I'm delighted to add another perspective to the interesting bipolar
>discussion on Samick quality.  My fascination with these instrument began
>before my 7 year tenure as Service Manager with Samick Canada (R.R. Loewen
>Distributors).  Feel free to take the following with a grain of salt but
>throughout 15 years of distribution of Samick pianos in Canada, the
>percentage of warranty claims remained in the low single digits.  Reliable
>industry insiders confirmed that this figure was roughly equivalent to
>warranty claims of other major manufacturers/distributors.
>
>I know what you are thinking;  this has little to do with the type of
>qualitive analysis to which we technicians enjoy subjecting pianos.  Or
>does it?  There must be some corelation.  Believe me, if there is a problem
>in the field, dealers are usually most anxious to burn up the phone lines
>passing responsibility back to the guarantor, and rightly so.  Further,
>more than fifty percent of claims received were for cosmetic defects
>(polyester flaws) and most of the remaining mechanical and resonant
>structure problems could be attributed to factory goof-ups (Friday
>afternoon pianos).  So once you take into account the tremendous negative
>influence of Canada's weather extremes, this leave a very small number of
>pianos with inexplicable gremlins. This summary is based on many thousands
>of Samick pianos sold in Canada over the past 15 years.
>


In my experience, there is little correlation between piano quality and the
percentage of warranty claims, except in extreme cases, for several reasons.
 In lower-quality pianos, most of the problems are usually in the form of
small inconsistencies, minor annoyances, small repairs, general sloppiness,
and the like, which the customer may not notice.  The technician, often
representing the dealer, will not usually tell the customer about these
things if the customer isn't complaining, and may not even fix them.  If the
technician does fix something, it's often too small to be worth calling or
writing the manufacturer about it.  Sometimes the dealer is told and billed,
sometimes not.  The dealer may not pass on the cost to the manufacturer if
the item is small.  After the initial tunings that come with the sale, the
technician called to service the piano may have no relation to the dealer and
so is even less likely to report small problems, inconsistencies, and general
sloppiness of construction.  My own informal survey indicates that only a
small percentage of problems technicians notice ever get reported to the
manufacturer.

Many piano problems the customer does notice are labeled "regular
maintenance" or "customer responsibility" by the dealer.  In fact, with the
exception of really major structural problems, it's possible to label almost
any piano problem this way.  I recall one Kohler & Campbell piano (made by
Samick) that had severely sluggish flanges after only a few months through no
fault of the customer.  The technician tried to no avail to get warranty
service for it from the dealer and from Samick.  Since the customer lived in
San Francisco, which is often humid, he was told the sluggishness was his
responsibility.

The same thing is true with problems that arise through use of the piano over
time.  When rattles and buzzes start to occur, the customer can be told that
fixing these is part of regular maintenance.  And of course to some extent it
is.  But we all know that some pianos hold up better under vigorous use and
varied conditions than others.  Just where the line is to be drawn between
maintenance and warranty repair is not always clear.  My point is that the
greater maintenance needs of lower-quality pianos may not show up in the
warranty claim statistics.  Indeed, some of the differences between greater
and lesser pianos will not show up for many, many years, long after the
warranty has expired.

All this is not to criticize Samick, which makes a decent instrument these
days at a very good price.  The same things could be pointed out about most
manufacturers' warranty claim data: it only tells part of the story, and
perhaps the lesser part.


>As far as 'junk woods don't sing' and 'lack of tonal color variation', I'm
>having some difficulty believing we are talking about the same instruments.
>I don't claim to be a master voicer, far from it, but I have never
>experienced difficulty optimising the tone on a Samick (my playing skills
>could be described as surprisingly mediocre for such an advanced pianist).
>Obviously, the larger the instrument, the greater the potential for this
>type of improvement.  I believe that superior tone is greater than the sum
>of the physical components which generate it.  I don't listen to the rim,
>or the hammers, or any individual component when qualifying the musical
>tone of the piano.

>As an aside, I have a great deal of respect for our colleagues in the
>province of Quebec who undertook a brave experiment at the Northeast Region
>Seminar a few years ago in Quebec City.  With great trepidation, those of
>us exhibiting pianos from the major manufacturers each agreed to allow one
>of our grand pianos to be used in what was billed as a 'Piano Tone
>Tasting'.  The exact number escapes me, but roughly seven instruments were
>placed on stage, separated from the audience by portable screens.  Each
>piano had its identifying marks, names, etc. covered with tape and several
>local artists proceeded to play short exerpts from their 'bread and butter'
>repertoire, on each piano.  In my discussions with these artists after
>their performances, eyebrows were raised when they learned that one of
>their preferred instruments had been a Samick.
>

I, too, have heard some favorable comments about the tone of Samick pianos,
even from technicians who found technical fault with them -- particularly
about the 5'1" and 5'9" grands (the latter under the Kohler & Campbell
label).  Most of the negative comments were about the 4'7" grand
(understandable) and to a much lesser extent about the largest pianos, which
were simply very unexciting for their size.  Of course, the amount of prep
will heavily influence how the piano comes across.  I would imagine that the
pianos in your Piano Tone Tasting were probably prepped to the hilt -- not
very representative of the average Samick in the home.  But it does indicate
that some of the Korean pianos have more potential than they are given credit
for, if only the work were put into them to bring out that potential.

Larry Fine