The Grandest Pianos: Oriental Makers
One of the reasons the American pianos experienced such a downfall was due to the invasion and steady rise of cheaper-made & priced Japanese instruments. Leading the charge were two brands, Yamaha, and to a lesser extent, Kawai, both made in the industrial city of Hamamatsu.
Both of these instruments were “production line” pianos, taking advantage of ever-improving Japanese technology and machinery, and being built to repeatable tolerances by machine, rather than by hand. This made them cheaper to manufacture, and inexpensive for the vast drove of “average” piano players who couldn’t tell too much difference between these machine-made pianos and handmade instruments. Whereas Steinway and other handmade brands could barely produce 100 grand pianos each year, Yamaha could roll out that many pianos in a couple months.
The result was that they infiltrated homes, schools and other institutions and soon became the largest selling pianos in America, and eventually, the world.
Not satisfied simply to produce the best selling piano, Yamaha dreamed of producing pianos equal to the finest instruments, ones that would be welcomed on major concert hall stages. As a result, they worked hard to constantly improve their instruments, and it shows. Currently, Yamaha makes a great grand and upright piano, endorsed by many celebrities like Elton John, Paul McCarteny and David Foster (all “pop” artists…you won’t see many top classical pianists endorsing Yamaha over Steinway or Bosendorfer.) Their U1, U3 and U5 uprights are among the best you can find, and all their grands over 6’ (models C3 – C7 and SF concert grand) are fine sounding, easy playing pianos.
Kawai of Japan has produced a very similar line of instruments, and followed Yamaha in both their approach and their infiltration of America. They still lag way behind Yamaha in sales, stage and recording studio installations, and celebrity endorsements, but some of their larger grands are very nice to hear and play. As a technician, I find Kawai’s to be a little more shrill sounding in the upper half of their high-tension scale, with significantly more “false beats” (errant vibrations) than Yamaha, whose overall sound is much purer.
To the accomplished concert pianist, the finest European and American handmade pianos are still preferable to production pianos; they have that extra finesse to the touch and clear bell-like purity to the tone that production pianos simply cannot match. But it’s safe to say that of all the production line instruments, Yamaha pianos are the best.
Korean Pianos:
If you ‘ve watched a Samsung flat-screen TV or seen Hyundai cars on the road, you know that Korea has been making huge inroads into heavy-industry products sold in the West, and pianos are no exception. Currently, Young Chang & Samick make pianos bearing their own names and dozens of “stencil” names, for the US market. A stencil piano is a now-defunct famous brand name, like Knabe or Chickering, that was licensed by someone rich for it’s well-known reputation, then affixed to the front of the cheap-labor insruments out of Korea or China, to capitalize on the name and make lots of money. Once you own the name, you can do what you want with it, and many oriental piano factories are only too happy to build you a knock-off of the original brand’s design, cheaply enough to fetch a nice profit from unwary buyers stateside. But keep in mind, these “famous name” pianos are by no means up the quality or sound level of their earlier incarnations. Many are really poor. One exception is the Wm. Knabe grand pianos currently being made by Samick, a vast improvement over Samick’s former poor quality instruments, and worthy of consideration.
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