What would Steinway do

[Ron Overs]

Richard B wrote:

>In anycase.... another point strikes me as true.  IF what you folks 
>are saying is true to the extent it seems claimed here on Pianotech. 
>Then you all neednt worry a bit. No matter that Steinway has 
>achieved a greater market share then any branch of any industry in 
>history.... such  quality will sooner or later spell "demise".  That 
>of course can mean either a turnaround.... or a dissapearance.


Rich and all,

I don't believe that it will spell "demise" or disappearance just yet . . .

A few weeks ago there was a thread going on another list about 
scaling when I wrote the following;

"This topic of scaling inadequacies in shorter pianos has interested 
me since very early in my concert tuning career, during the late 
70's. It has taken three decades for the world of mainstream piano 
design to make a move. The pace of change remains painfully slow. I 
believe this is a consequence of the market dominance of one company, 
which refuses to change their product because they are so successful 
that they don't have to change a thing. There remains considerably 
more to be achieved in the area of scaling, if we allow ourselves to 
move the goal posts to wherever they need to be for best performance. 
The evolution of the acoustic piano is not yet complete."

I think the above has some relevance to your comment Rich, because I 
believe that the S&S marketing strategy has been so successful that 
they have found themselves able to continue doing very well, building 
instruments which are no longer leading edge. Nevertheless, they do 
seem to know where to draw the line (in Hamburg at least). Baldwin 
had a similar artist programme to S&S, but they would seem to have 
taken their casual approach to standards are little too far to keep 
the balance sheet the right color.

I predict, that when the new raft of thinking piano designers from 
around the planet start to gain some traction, we'll very likely see 
S&S respond with an upgraded range, just like Harley did with the 
V-rod. Eventually, Harley came to the realisation that quality chrome 
and paint alone wasn't quite enough.

At present though, in piano-land, for some it remains 'steady as she goes'.

Best,
Ron O.

-- 
OVERS PIANOS - SYDNEY
    Grand Piano Manufacturers
_______________________

Web http://overspianos.com.au
mailto:ron at overspianos.com.au
_______________________
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20070306/4ebd8d9d/attachment.html