<HTML><HEAD> <META charset=US-ASCII http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; cha= rset=US-ASCII"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1170" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #fffff= f"> <DIV>I thought I would tell you about our piano purchase odyssey.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I asked for, and got bids for four medium sized grand pianos (Petr= of, Yamaha, Boston and  Kawai, with an old decrepit Steinway L for= trade). Since we could afford any of the of the pianos, we all agreed = that we were going to pick the best piano for the school regardless of price= . </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>On Friday we (three piano faculty and I) went to four different st= ores to look at 5 different pianos. Each one of us were supposed mark a shee= t indicating, on a scale of 1-10, four areas, tone quality, dynamic range, r= esponsiveness of action and overall impression. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>After we left each store, I kept asking the teachers to fill out t= heir forms. But they had a hard time doing it. They wanted to hear all the p= ianos first. When we got done, some of them had filled out the for= ms, but not all of them. I could see that my efforts to get them to fil= l out the forms was not going to get done. So, instead I asked each one of t= hem which piano they liked the best, and which one they liked the least= . </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>When we got done, it seemed like the Yamaha came out ahead, and the Kaw= ai was the least liked pianos. (I do need to say that the difference between= the five pianos was very close, and any one of them would have be= en acceptable.) </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Before they inspected the pianos, I did not tell them the prices o= f the pianos. But at the end, when I did tell them the prices= , they changed their opinions. The Kawai was not only the lowest priced pian= o, the dealer also gave the highest trade in allowance for our L. = The Yamaha, on the other hand, was the highest priced piano, even with the t= rade. In fact, we could buy two Kawai's for the same price as one Yamaha. </= DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>That made a big difference in how they felt about the pianos. In the en= d we decided to buy two Kawai's instead of one Yamaha. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Wim</DIV> <DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"= >Willem Blees, RPT<BR>Piano tuner/technician<BR>School of Music<BR>Universit= y of Alabama<BR></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>