Just a reminder our good friend Mark Wisner is Pearl River's USA service manager....he's famous...picture in the Journal ads... David I. ----- Original message ---------------------------------------- From: "Ric Brekne" <ricbrek@broadpark.no> To: pianotech <pianotech@ptg.org> Received: 9/30/2005 12:39:43 PM Subject: Chinese Pianos >I sure as heck do. >The japanese pianos worked. They sounded tubby as hell, but they worked >and were dependable. The majority of instruments coming out of China, >Indonesia, Russia, and Malaysia just plain dont work. I was in a store >a while back whilst a so called Nordiska was unpacked. It had been >sitting on the floor for a few hours and litterally exploded. We were >drinking coffee chit chatting and heard this huge KaBooonggg... (yes I >remember the horse) Upon investigation we found that the entire left >hand lower corner of the soundboard had popped loose and cracked >severely. Great stuff. Actions that simply dont function and can not >be made to function, Tuning pins that break off because they are too >cheaply made in too tight a fit, pinblocks splitting, pedals that fall >off... just about every bizarre event you can imagine. >I never ever saw either Kawaii or Yamaha instruments do any of these >kinds of things. For that matter not Young Changs or Samicks either... >tho I have experienced a much hyppiger quantity of dead Koreans >soundboards then Japanese after 10 years or so of use. >Understand me correctly tho... Give the Chinese a few years experience >under their tofu bellies... and they will get it right. Or right >enough. But for now... I remain unimpressed... big time. >Cheers >RicB >-------------- >I don't see much difference between the Japanese pianos exported into >the USA 40 years ago and the Chinese pianos exported to us within the >last ten years. Both were of dubious durability. But the Japanese >piano makers quickly improved the manufacturing process, materials and >workmanship and now we all benefit from their pianos. The Chinese have >been following the same path the Japanese did (and making some of the >same mistakes), and now there are some pretty respectable pianos being >made in China, and they are getting better every year. >For many consumer products, including pianos, manufacturing moves to >cheap, skilled, labor. And when the labor gets too expensive, it moves >again. My personal opinion is that a future generation of piano techs >will complain about the poor pianos being made in India (and perhaps >refusing to work on them) and comparing them to the great, but more >expensive pianos being built in China. >Mark Wisner >_______________________________________________ >pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
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