Hi Michale. I respectfully must disagree with your conclusion below. Both Wapin and Stanwood can indeed compete, as can Nossaman, Overs, Fandrich and the RC&S supporters, and everyone else. Indeed they are doing just fine... tho indeed the road is slow. Still, the word is spreading that there are very credible and viable alternatives to Steinways, and / or enhancements / modifications that can be made to Steinways. Steinway plays the market as it must... but thats the world for you. We see more and more Stanwood over here and in increasingly sensible approaches. The last Nordic convention quite effectively planted and enthused 60 or so technicians in the North of Europe. Even a couple of the big skeptics such as the head of Sauter were stirred in a direction they have completely resisted before. Wapin is still unknown over here... but then the kind of total rebuilding done so often in the states is quite a bit less frequent here in Europe... tho that too is changing. Tho in a given competition such as an isolated purchasing process for a big school players like Stanwood and Wapin may not even be on the board, their arena of competition lies elsewhere. I do not see any threat from Steinway that limits innovation myself. Rather... I see this coming from an alarming increase in production of entry level pianos (to put it politely) being passed off as high quality instruments.... and the average Joe and Martha on the street... or Kari and Ole if you will... being increasingly duped into believing the lines of sales folks. Again... we are in a very complicated discussion with many many sides. The all Steinway school thing itself has many implications both positive and negative for the entire industry. Cheers RicB Hello, I would like to add my two cents to the discussion, as a former technician at CCM and inventor of the Wapin. Steinway does what it does best and that is promote itself. What happens to innovation when there is a monopoly? There is no question it will disappear. I am happy for Eric and his success at CCM but I also know that it means that the 1929 Steinway D is being mothballed. For those of you who are unaware, this stellar instrument has an incredible history that I won't go into here. This was the first Wapin concert grand and is still to this day a superior instrument but now it as well as other Wapin instruments will no longer be available at CCM for performance. I can see that the faculty's eyes are coated with $$$$$. There is no way Wapin, and for that matter Stanwood, can compete. Some will veiw this as a good thing. For my part I am deeply saddened. Michael Wathen Former Piano Tech CCM Former PTG member 29 years Presently mathematics high school teacher
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