<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> <blockquote TYPE=CITE> <blockquote TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">"Junk" is a four letter word.  Nuf' said. Rob Goodale, RPT Las Vegas, NV</blockquote> Rob, I am surprised by your reaction - it is usually logical, balanced, and fair. As I said to Wim, go see the pianos (don't depend on old opinions) and then judge them. Yours, Richard Galassini</blockquote> Sorry, sometimes I just call it as I see it.  I speak from the experience of having too many clients "stung" by pianos they were told were comparable or better than pianos costing twice as much.  Needless to say their owners ended up strongly regretting.  We have one individual here who was recently forced out of the piano business for a variety of misrepresentations and fraud schemes.  I saw for myself in an undercover video taken by a P.I. where he presented a $3,000 Chinese grand to a potential buyer as a "Steinway Knock-off".  I regrettably worked on an identical one a few weeks early and was dumbfounded how anyone could get away with building such junk, even in China! The Astonia pianos that I have encountered, (uprights mostly but a couple grands), were far below what I would consider acceptable quality.  Perhaps they are improving but I would want to go through one completely first hand before I would be able to make any recommendations. Rob Goodale, RPT Las Vegas, NV</html>