[pianotech] Service bond price

[William Truitt]

Good post, Ron:

One thing I do not believe has been mentioned by anyone is that pianos are
not settled in at the factory by very many manufacturers these days.  You
know, do a rough regulation, roll the piano into the soundproof room, turn
on the banger, and run out the door.  That helps to settle in the felts and
leathers.  Then re-regulate before it goes out the door to the dealer.  Even
if the manufacturer has done a half decent regulation, it's not going to
last very long without the pounding in, and if the dealer does the prep,
that won't last long either as the piano settles in from being played at the
home.  No matter how careful the work done, it's still a moving target until
the piano settles in. I followed enough of the pianos that I prepped as a
dealer to see how quickly careful work can disappear as the piano settles in
at the home instead of at the factory.  And most pianos are probably getting
nothing more than a single rough regulation at the factories.  

I suppose a dealer could buy a banger, but that only increases the amount of
work that he is doing for the most part for free already.

Will



-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Ron Nossaman
Sent: Friday, November 27, 2009 6:11 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] Service bond price

David Love wrote:
> They could be paying 100% more and still falling way short.  

It depends on the intent. I doubt anyone (except some buyers) 
expects concert readiness for $35, even 20 years ago. It's 
always seemed to me that both manufacturers and dealers are 
typically concerned with the requirements of the average piano 
buyer, and anything beyond that doesn't particularly benefit 
them in most cases. I've had dealers who weren't at all 
concerned about prepping little Suzie's new console or that 
small grand Mom had always dreamed of, beyond moderate 
function, but were very concerned about a piano going into a 
high profile venue that had the potential to make them look 
either good, or bad.  This doesn't strike me as particularly 
evil as a means of survival, but it's difficult to read the 
tea leaves as to where to draw the line between solidly 
meeting realistic requirements, and spending the time and 
money trying to make a Mazarati for all occasions, at a Yugo 
price. I've seen dealers bankrupt trying to deliver a better 
product than the manufacturer supplied too. Nature rewards 
unnecessarily wasteful or impractical species with extinction, 
and balance with adaptability seems to have the best chance if 
sufficiently greased with rationalization. I do think it's 
interesting that Yamaha (Japanese built) used to come out of 
the crate in better shape than most pianos I've seen after 
dealer prep, and Yamaha was the only manufacturer with a 
program intending to even minimally maintain some level of 
function through the first year. Even if they only offered 
pittance toward that intent, it was an indication of intent 
missing elsewhere in the industry. These days, I'm wondering 
if Yamahas sold in other countries are in better state of prep 
out of the crate than the stuff we're getting here now. Like 
they're supplying the quality level that sells in this country 
after all those years of the Walmart marketing model. Ah well, 
I'm not above buying a cheap tool if it does what I need, so 
I'm part of that problem.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the 
precipitant.

Just rambling, mostly.
Ron N