Chinese Pianos

[Ric Brekne]

I sure as heck do.

The japanese pianos worked. They sounded tubby as hell, but they worked 
and were dependable.  The majority of instruments coming out of China, 
Indonesia, Russia, and Malaysia just plain dont work.  I was in a store 
a while back whilst a so called Nordiska was unpacked.  It had been 
sitting on the floor for a few hours and litterally exploded.  We were 
drinking coffee chit chatting and heard this huge KaBooonggg...  (yes I 
remember the horse) Upon investigation we found that the entire left 
hand lower corner of the soundboard had popped loose and cracked 
severely.  Great stuff.  Actions that simply dont function and can not 
be made to function, Tuning pins that break off because they are too 
cheaply made in too tight a fit, pinblocks splitting, pedals that fall 
off... just about every bizarre event you can imagine.

I never ever saw either Kawaii or Yamaha instruments do any of these 
kinds of things. For that matter not Young Changs or Samicks either... 
tho I have experienced a much hyppiger quantity of dead Koreans 
soundboards then Japanese after 10 years or so of use.

Understand me correctly tho... Give the Chinese a few years experience 
under their tofu bellies... and they will get it right.  Or right 
enough.    But for now... I remain unimpressed... big time.

Cheers
RicB

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I don't see much difference between the Japanese pianos exported into 
the USA 40 years ago and the Chinese pianos exported to us within the 
last ten years.  Both were of dubious durability.  But the Japanese 
piano makers quickly improved the manufacturing process, materials and 
workmanship and now we all benefit from their pianos.  The Chinese have 
been following the same path the Japanese did (and making some of the 
same mistakes), and now there are some pretty respectable pianos being 
made in China, and they are getting better every year.
For many consumer products, including pianos, manufacturing moves to 
cheap, skilled, labor.  And when the labor gets too expensive, it moves 
again.  My personal opinion is that a future generation of piano techs 
will complain about the poor pianos being made in India (and perhaps 
refusing to work on them) and comparing them to the great, but more 
expensive pianos being built in China.

Mark Wisner