Wyman Microgrand - YUK!

[Andrew & Rebeca Anderson]

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment
Del,
I'm rather curious about the famed "Lothar Schell" pianos.  I understand 
that there are some good innovations in his uprights but that the execution 
is a little wanting, more so in the grands.  Is there more to beware of?

Andrew


At 08:13 AM 4/24/2004 -0800, you wrote:
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org]On 
>Behalf Of Farrell
>Sent: April 24, 2004 2:02 AM
>To: pianotech@ptg.org
>Subject: Wyman Microgrand - YUK!
>
>I tuned a Wyman Microgrand the other day. The piano is about a year old. 
>Is this a Chinese or Indonesian product? Where on earth did this thing 
>come from?
>
>A couple interesting features: A 5-ply laminated soundboard and a 5-ply 
>laminated bridge cap in the high treble. The soundboard had micro-thin 
>exterior veneers of some spruce-looking material (contact paper?) and the 
>interior three ply clearly appeared to be some type of hardwood - poplar? 
>birch? selectus garbagatum?
>
>Now the bridge cap - that thing really rocked me. The long bridge was a 
>solid piece of some kind of hardwood and the manufacturer actually notched 
>out an 8 mm or so thick chunk off the top of this fine bridge to insert 
>the laminated cap. Clearly, this was done on-purpose. Presumably there was 
>a reason to do this. What was that reason? Because they have a 
>no-compromise approach to piano building? Because the bridge otherwise 
>sounded sooooo bad - the laminated cap was an afterthought fix attempt? 
>Because they monitor this list? I don't know what the cap was made of. It 
>was not maple or beech. Could it have been ironwood (I don't think so)? I 
>hope it was not the same material the soundboard was made of - it did look 
>similar and the laminations were about the same thickness.
>
>Yeah, but how did it sound? Much like an uninspired microgrand. Small. 
>Constrained. Short sustain. Lots of false stuff up in the high treble.
>
>Oh, and did I mention the tuning pins? "CRACK!"  Many of them did the 
>jumpy thing. And all of them flagpoled enough to make a Steinway vertical 
>seem like Steinway must use half-inch diameter hardened tuning pins. If 
>you wanted to raise or lower the pitch a half-cent, you would have to go 
>20 cents up or down to get any movement. During the pitch raise, I had to 
>go 50 cents sharp to get the pitch where I wanted it after removing hammer 
>from pin. And that's the ones that were not jumpy! YIKES!
>
>Anyway, that's all I gots to say 'bout that.
>
>Terry Farrell
>
>
>So, what's your problem here, Terry? You're not used to working with 
>pianos of this fine and famed quality?
>
>Del
>
>PS. It's made in Beijing. By the same folks (Beijing Xing Hai) that bring 
>you the famed Lothar Schell grand pianos. Along with numerous other 
>Heritage Grand Pianos. I wonder if they have figured out what action 
>bedding screws are for yet?

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/37/24/e1/37/attachment.htm

---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--