Yamahahaha

[Ron Nossaman]

> I think most manufacturers reaches a point where they need to have a 
> price-point instrument to feel competitive.
> 
> Alan, you have to admit..Yamaha's been a solid company for both the 
> consumer and the techs for many years. I think we can let a model or 2 
> of lesser quality go in exchange for their C-series beauties.
> 
> just my .02,
> 
> -Phil Bondi(Fl)

I disagree. They went from the GH1 to the GA1 and the piano 
actually got worse. Either of these pianos could have sounded 
much better costing no more to build. These weren't "lesser 
quality" pianos. These were very badly designed pianos, and I 
doubt they were designed that way out of incompetence. I think 
the GH1 was intended as aversion leverage to get people to buy 
the more expensive models after hearing how truly awful the 
cheap one sounded. Only it didn't work. People bought the 
cheap nasty sounding one anyway. Yamaha, seeing the alarming 
number of cheap nasty sounding pianos going out there to 
represent them, made an even nastier sounding piano thinking 
"There, now they'll get the message". Incredibly, they didn't, 
and the number of small cheap and even nastier Yamahas sold 
continued to climb. Some (too many) of these things were 
Disklaviers too, presumably to apply the same aversion 
leverage toward buying the more expensive Disklaviers, but 
nnnooooooo. People loved getting an automatically playing 
small nasty sounding piano so much cheaper that GH1 Disklavier 
sales went up too. I think the CG1 is an admission of defeat, 
and a compromise. They want a piano out there with their name 
on it that they aren't entirely ashamed of, and still get as 
much money as possible out of the low end market of what 
people will actually buy in this Wal-Mart age.

Or not.

Ron N