Several months ago I promised some of the list subscribers that I would keep them up-to-date with my experiences with my new Petrof grand. I am not a piano technician, just a curious piano groupie.
The story thus far.....I purchased a new Petrof III (6' 4" grand) new from Prosser Piano and Organ in Seattle. It was delivered to my home in Portland, Oregon on 2/21. I had been told a bunch of horror stories about Petrof by several technicians, but I decided to trust my instincts and my ear and bought it anyway. I paid $16,700 for this instrument which included one free tuning and delivery to Portland. I had the advantage of hearing "fully prepped" Petrof's in Dallas, Santa Clara, and North Carolina so I knew what was possible.
Mike Reiter, at Prosser's, did a much better than average job of preparing my instrument, but I wanted it "tricked out". After going through three technicians that either would not ("I only tune for Artistes") or could not get rid of the squeak in the damper pedal or the "twangy" notes I finally found a technician that could and would do the work. Linda Scott spent several hours leveling the strings, filing the hammers so they hit all three strings at the same time, regulating the action, lubricating the front guide pins, voicing and generally "tricking out" my piano. She also installed a Dampp-Chaser dehumidification system in my instrument. In all she spent about 6 hours on my piano including the Dampp-Chaser installation.
At this point, I could not be happier with my instrument. It sounds terrific, the touch is just right, the damper pedal doesn't squeak. Now the only bad sounds that come out of the instrument are do to "pilot error".
As an extra benefit, Geneva International, the importer of Petrof sent me a check for $240 to reimburse me for the time Linda spent tracking down the pedal squeak (that turned out to be in the back action BTW) and the time she spend regulating the letoff, which was set way too close at the factory.
So I spent $265 on a Dampp-Chaser and another couple of hundred on voicing, string leveling, etc and ended up with an instrument that even my professional pianist friends love to play. It is impossible to describe in words the vast difference between the piano that arrived at my door and the one I have now.
So, I have nothing but nice things to say about Petrof, Geneva International, Alan Vincent at Geneva, and especially Linda Scott. There are persistent rumors that Geneva International is hard to work with on warranty issues. My experience is quite the opposite. At one point, before I found Linda, Alan Vincent, Geneva's customer service agent, was talking about hauling the piano back to Illinois so he could work on it. At all time, I felt like everybody from the dealer to the importer were taking my complaint very seriously.
The Petrof III uses Renner action parts assembled on a Petrof action frame at the Petrof factory. To me this sounds like a glorious opportunity for you technicians. From my experience, the Petrof actions come pretty badly regulated from the factory, but since they're essentially a Renner action the potential for greatness is there. I'm not sure why it's so popular to put down Petrof's, but from my point-of-view it's an excellent opportunity to make some money and win a loyal following.
My piano is only six month old, but the tuning is pretty stable thanks to the Dampp-Chaser and Linda's "whacking the poo out of it" to equalize the tension in the string.
I cannot respond to the negative comments about Petrof in the past, but my experience has been a uniformly positive one. From what I can tell the negative comments come mostly from the SE part of the United States. From what I've seen there, the dealerships in the Southeast are doing a superlative job of prepping the Petrofs, and charging accordingly. In-other-words, if I paid $22,000 for my instrument I might feel differently about it than I do. At $22K you're in Yamaha C3 range and that's a pretty popular piano. I don't want to start a flame war, but the sustain, and tone quality from my Petrof beats any C3 I've heard. I realize that tone quality is highly subjective, but just listen to that Petrof sustain!!!
I would recommend the Petrof III to anybody willing to talk the time to work through the small problems. I am a VERY happy Petrof owner, and from my email there are quite a few of us out there, "common thinking" to the contrary.
Jory Olson
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