New Pianos At The 2010 NAMM Show, Part 2

The Young Chang company, owner of Kurzweil and makers of fine mid-level grands, is shipping to America again after years of entanglement with the Samick piano company. I tried many of their pianos and was impressed with the Young Changs as an excellent aternative for cost-conscious grand piano buyers. Young Chang also owns and produces the Albert Weber grand pianos, and these are truly fine instruments.

In the category of pianos that have improved there overall touch & tone, I was particularly impressed with the newest Mason & Hamlins and Knabes. The new Wm. Knabes have achieved one of the fastest actions I’ve played on any grand piano, and I spoke with their head action designer, who talked of better counter-weighting in the keys and a super-fast upward return of each key. If you are an accomplished pianist and you live somewhere where Wm. Knabes are sold, you gotta check these out.

Kawai demonstrated there super-light-but-strong graphite-core action parts, and showcased their top-of-the-line Shigeru Kawai grands, that played and sounded delicious. For those with unlimited pockets, there was a stunningly beautiful Shigeru Kawai in Bubinga, Burl and Rosewood that retailed for $200,000. The same piano was available in plain black for a mere $80,000.

The Schimmels were, once again, all uniformly excellent, a must-try for any serious piano player, and if you’ve got the coin, the larger Fazioli grands were heavenly, as impressive as any grand I’ve ever played. If you want to see a cool 360 degree view of Fazioli’s concert grand, click here to go to Fazioli’s site, then click Products, their Model 308, and then choose 360-view.

One of my greatest surprises on the piano floor was a grand and an upright made by Ritmuller, which is the high end line of China’s largest piano manufacturer, Pearl River. Now, I’ve serviced a lot of the inexpensive, low-end Pearl Rivers because one of my dealers carried them as his bottom line piano. To say they are crap is being generous. So I wasn’t expecting much from the “higher-end” models of a truly awful PSO (piano-shaped object.) But the Renner-hammered Ritmullers were surprisingly well-mannered in both touch and tone, and their impressive upright retails for under $4,000, unheard of for a piano that sounds like this.

Perhaps my favorite piano at the show was, surprise, a Yamaha. Now don’t get me wrong, Yamahas are uniformly solid in tone and touch, and consistent from piano to piano in the way that only a production line instrument can be. As I said in an earlier post, they are the best production piano available, with a price that still maked them one of the most affordable fine pianos. But normally I would never expect even their top of the line concert grand to approach the touch and tone of a more expensive hand-crafted instrument like a Fazioli, Schimmel, Steinway or Bosendorfer.

But this year Yamaha debuted it’s CF series, to replace it’s former upper-end S-series grands, and several of us crowded around their new flagship, the top-secretly researched, fully hand-crafted, Bavarian soundboarded CFX. We each took turns playing and listening, and I’ve got to tell you, we simply couldn’t pull away. Although other great instruments were beckoning from other rooms, we kept coming back to the CFX, absolutely stunned by it’s rich, monstrous bass, it’s singing middle register, and a top two octaves where each note sounded like a bell ringing, right up to the highest C! For piano fanatics, it was pure piano bliss! I played it as long as I could before I was literally pulled off. The action was superb, though I still preferred the even-more-buttery actions in the Bosendorfer and Fazioli, but it was damn close. And the sound, that sound, I’ve just never heard a piano sound like that. Goose bumps!

Want to see this amazing instrument explained & demoed at the 2010 NAMM ? Click here to see videos on Yamahas own website. Just open the menu called Keyboard Division Product Demos, in the left sidebar, and choose the first & last video pictured.

Naturally, I want one. But when they are finally released this summer, I think there going to retail for well over $100,000, and I’m a bit short this year. Well we’ll see. If you get a chance to demo one of these later this year (only in top Yamaha dealerships like Keyboard Concepts in L.A.), be prepared. You may never want to play any other piano again.

For more check out these related posts

• New Pianos At The 2010 NAMM Show, Part 1!