improvements

[John Musselwhite]

At 11:55 AM 06/05/02 -0700, Del wrote:


>Many. To rely just on the marketing of an existing design -- regardless of
>how good it may have been originally -- strikes me as dangerous.

Yeah... but with all due respect you're a designer so I'd expect no 
less.  <g>  I would think that in a company that is extremely traditional 
that changing the designs might be dangerous.

>Consider
>the example of Rolls-Royce.

Yes indeed. A company so traditional that Sir Henry Royce is quoted as 
saying that when they began the company he wanted the cars to have a 
household name associated with quality like Steinway's was with pianos.

They were saved by a foreign company. I'm sure if Yamaha (for example) had 
bought Steinway things might be different... maybe much different,

>Or Steinway, for that. There have been several
>periods in recent (by industry standards) history when the survival of the
>company was in serious doubt.

Absolutely. They've come a long way too.

> > There are two obvious directions that have been
> > very successful for other musical instrument manufacturers while retaining

<deleted>

>Or they could start slowly and incrementally improving the performance of
>their existing products without jeopardizing the multiple millions already
>poured into one of the best marketing departments the industry has yet seen.

Well... they have done exactly that, just not at the speed some of us might 
desire. How long did it take them to fix/change the plate on the B... 100 
years?

>They could fill in some of the gaps in their product line; how about
>bringing back the long A and the C with some appropriate updates to the
>scaling, etc.?

I still fail to see why everyone is so hot on having the factory update and 
modernize them. There are lots of piano makers around who do that all the 
time. Isn't it nice to have one that can be used as a "standard" against 
which to compare others?

>In fact, CBS bailed out a company on the verge of bankruptcy, pouring in
>millions along the way. How does this qualify as CBS bleeding Steinway dry?

My apologies for that statement as it was out of line. On the other hand, 
CBS did capitalize on the name (bled the name dry) though just as they are 
being accused of now and didn't succeed in keeping the quality up to 
"standard".

>It may be that some of the decisions made by CBS weren't always the best for
>Steinway, but they did keep Steinway alive. One could make a pretty good
>argument that in doing so Steinway was bleeding CBS dry.

I've actually heard that argument since I think it's what made them put it 
up for sale. Admittedly, Steinway would probably not have survived had CBS 
not gotten involved.

> > we can restore, detail or customize at will. We should salute them for
> > that, not berate them because their instruments have been basically the
> > same for a hundred years.
>
>They have, indeed. And I love to see them with an evolving product line
>helping to insure their survival for at least another hundred years.

In that we differ as I'd like to see them continue to make the "standard" 
hand-made pianos with all its faults under their marque just as they've 
always done, with evolving product lines being constructed overseas where 
its cheaper to do it.

I'll give an example. I just returned from tuning a 7 year old 1098 
belonging to a new customer that hadn't been tuned (apparently) since new. 
It was 100 cents flat and most of the dip was lost motion. I thought about 
this message (started before I left for the job) while I was tuning it and 
thinking of all the possibilities for change and you know, if they changed 
it the piano wouldn't be a 1098 anymore. Sure it's a tough piano to tune, 
but I'll take the challenge over breezing through an easy piano. 
Incidentally, it got three and a half tunings and the lost motion taken up 
and it was beautiful when it was done. I know I had way more fun than I did 
with the newish U1 that was 75 cents flat last week and much easier to tune.

>Criticism isn't always a bad thing, sometimes it can be quite helpful.

Indeed it can, and I think it is helpful. All the major manufacturers have 
representatives that monitor this list and I'm sure they're not unaware of 
the criticism their instruments get from time to time.

Regards...

                 John


John Musselwhite, RPT    -     Calgary, Alberta Canada
http://www.musselwhite.com  http://canadianpianopage.com/calgary
Pianotech IRC chats Tuesday and Thursday nights and Sunday Mornings
http://www.bigfoot.com/~kmvander/ircpiano.html