[pianotech] Young Chang PG-185

[Paul McCloud]

Hi, Noah:
I agree with Dean.  The original Pramberger series from Y.C. was definitely a huge improvement from the G series.  There were some issues that cropped up in them a few years later, mainly in the action, like twisting hammer shanks and other things I don't remember.  Nothing really serious.  You know that Mr. Pramberger was a third generation Steinway engineer, and he incorporated many of the design features of Steinway pianos in his redesign of these Pramberger pianos.  One was the tapering of the soundboard, which Steinway does by hand.  The Pramberger design used a CNC router for this.  It really made the bass a lot clearer and deeper.  The tone across he break was very smooth.  But, you do need to check everything carefully.  I don't think these had the same heavy hammer/key lead problems that the G series seemed to have, and of course, they don't have the famous action bracket problem either.  
I think Samick got the Pramberger designs from Young Chang in their merger years ago, so I'm not sure if they're still being made and sold with the same name.
It is a shame that Joseph Pramberger died a few years ago at a relatively young age.  He was a very humble guy, down to earth.  He came to our store once, to demonstrate the new pianos he was redesigning.  He explained his philosophy and intent for his new ideas, and how he came to work for Young Chang.  He joked that he had to be careful about mentioning anything to anybody over there, because they would take every idea seriously and implement it immediately.  One of the things he said of his pianos was that he didn't want to build a camel.  Meaning, he wanted to make every feature of the piano an integrated whole, not just something that was thrown in haphazardly, as some animals like camels seem to be.  His analogy, not mine.  In his demonstration, he showed how he used a "thump" test to determine where to thin the soundboard and change other parameters to get the best sound response from the board.  It was an interesting talk, made to the local techs and any piano teachers that were interested.
Go check it out.
FWIW, my take.
Paul McCloud
San Diego

----- Original Message -----
From: "Noah Frere" <noahfrere at gmail.com>
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 7:13:12 AM
Subject: [pianotech] Young Chang PG-185

First, an apology for having lost my Pierce Piano Atlas. 

My research online indicates that the PG-185 was designed by Pramberger, and therefore must be a 1995 or later model. However, another tech dated this piano with serial #G054761 as a 1990. 

Furthermore, is this model significantly better than the G series? Is this a good piano? I know someone who may want to buy it, but it's in another city 3hours away so I don't want to just hop over there just yet. 

Thanks,