> > An older student here has asked me about the Petrof & Samick pianos. I > searched the archives but couldn't come up with anything except the bass > string breakage on Samick thread. > Does anyone have some experience servicing these pianos? How is their > overall quality, tuning stability, action? She was told that the Petrof > has a Renner action. > She is hoping to buy a grand in the near future, so I would appreciate > any information, on the list or private, that anyone could share with me. I > have no experience with the Petrof and have only tuned a couple of Samick's > (not too impressed). > Thanks. > > Avery Todd, RPT > University of Houston > atodd@uh.edu My perspective when looking at a Samick is different from most in that my early training was for a career as a concert pianist. By the same token, I spent 10 of the the 12 years as the head tuner/tech for one of the largest rebuilders in NY state, who just happens to also be a Samick dealer. I thus have seen alot of Samicks from both sides of the keyboard, so to speak: as a pianist, and as a technician. Samicks are much improved in recent years. Some of you may remember when they first started coming into this country under the name Horugel and quickly established a reputation for cracked sounboards, bad pinblocks, sticking, unresponsive actions, warped case parts and the inability to hold a tune. Those were really bad instruments, similar in quality to the Pearl River jumkers now coming out of mainland China. Samick, however, proved to be a quick study, and their newer instruments are much improved over those early ones. In terms of quality they are much superior to their country cousin Young-Chang, and certainly better than anything Aeolian Corp. cranked out the last quarter of a century or so of their existence. That said, however, to paraphrase "Dirty Harry" a piano has to know it's limitations. The Samick is a well-made, attractive-looking, fairly priced piano suitable for in-home use by amateur pianists of limited technical ability and a not-too-discerning ear. By no stretch of imagination are these instruments for serious advanced students or professional pianists. To be blunt their tone-quality is absolutely terrible and no amount of voicing or tone-regulating work can do much to improve it. Classical music--Chopin, Liszt, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, etc--sounds simply dreadful on these pianos. The tone quality and color necessary for such works just isn't present in the Samick piano. So if you're advising a serious studen of such music, tell them to look elsewhere. Personally, to such as student, assuming they had $10,000 or so to spend, I would advise looking for a vintage S&S, or M&H in good condition. I would have it tuned, regulated and voiced and then start saving up for the rebuild. On the otherhand, if you're talking to a somewhat less accomplished pianist who is merely looking for something that looks good and plays okay and re- presents a good value for the dollar, you might suggest that they look at a Samick. Les Smith lessmith@buffnet.net
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