Poll - Most and least favorite pianos you serviced

[Richard Brekne]

John Nguyen wrote:

> I am very interested to know from your vast experience of tuning and
> servicing many piano brands, what are your most favorite and least favorite
> pianos you have serviced. I have grouped them into 4 categories of sizes.
>
> A. 6' or longer grand piano
> B. less than 6' grand piano
> C. 45" or higher upright piano
> D. less than 45" upright piano
>
> Thanks,
>
> redfj40@worldnet.att.net

Grin.... I guess I misunderstood the question... hehe... er... (embarrassed)

Lets see..

A: Without a doubt the nicest have been a 9' Hamburg Steinway, followed closely
by a 9' Bosendorfer and a particularily nice 9' Schimmel. The conservatory has
a 7 foot Boston that is quite nice. The most pathetic excuse for a concert
grand I have ever seen was a (sorry Willem) "P" piano. Came delivered with
hairline cracks in the plate in the pinblock treble corner. Horrible bridge pin
work, wont stay tuned for more then an hour or so of good use (and there have
been several tuners who have tried..grin).. I could go on.. but I wont.

B. Actually less then 6' in a grand generally leaves a good deal to be desired.
But the Yamaha G series in this size is easy enough to work with, and holds up
well. I am not fond of S&S in this range. Dont like the bass, but other wise
they are of course stabil and high quality. Sauters are nice enough, August
Førster, and Seilers. The last couple years Schimmel has come out with a nice
sound in small grands. The worst thing I ever had to touch was something out of
China. I didnt need more then 5 or 6 minutes to decide to walk away from it.
Dont even remember the name. I dont like Young Changs (at least ones older then
8 -10 years, we dont see any new ones here anymore), and things like Zimmerman,
Rønisch, and a host of eastern European pianos are definately no fun.

C. We rarely see newer big uprights. The only ones in Bergen I service are
Petrofs. Lots of work, but they sound nice enough. Best results I have had on
one of these has been after getting a set of real bass strings made and put on,
and fixing the worst bridge pins in the treble area, along with the usual
amount of excessive action work required on these. We do get a few new Samicks
pretty close to this height, and well.. they are clean and easy to deal with,
stability varies a bit from piano to piano. I really like Sauters in this
range. Really nice smooth round sound, speaks a bit quitely but thats really
nice for a home or small studio piano. Cant say I have run into a newer "bad"
sort yet.

D. Small pianos are.. well small. One of the nicest ones I know of actually was
produced here in Bergen. Jacob Knudsen. Crystal clear treble area, mostly
single unisons in the bass (18 of them). Nice sound, a bit bright, perhaps a
bit thin in the bass, but all in all a nice balance. Easy to tune and hold up
very well. Pretty typical sound for Scandinavian piano makers actually. Of note
on that design is that the upper termination on the plate is a very very narrow
indeed "V" profile. Well under 0.5mm. Soft iron (they didnt harden this area.
The "V" angles off from the tip at about 30 degrees on both sides. I service
about 50 of these and the last one was built in 1973. The earliest of these was
in the late 50's. Absolutely none of them show any grooves in the termination,
even tho the pressure bar is rather deep for pianos.

Bad small pianos... there are tons of them.. to many to even start mentioning.
Worst case.. ??... Zimmerman perhaps..

Richard Brekne
I.C.P.T.G.  N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway