Are the pianos are made in China, Korea and Indonesia only ?

andrewf · Post by **andrewf** » 11 Oct 2004, 03:51

I recently visited www.pianosonline.co.uk and I am suprised how many different brans of pianos are made in China ,Korea or Indonesia.
I will just name a few of them: Albrecht, Baldwin,Beale, Elysian, Essex, Fandrich & Sons, Gebr. Perzina, Steinberg,George Steck,Haintzman, Kawai, Knabe, Ofenbach,Yamaha, Otto Meister, Ritmuller,Strauss, Steiner, Weber, Wurlitzer, Waldstein, A. Steinbach, Bechstein,Kohler & Campbell, etc.
I am sure that there are no 50 pianos factories in those three countries so I guess thay coming out from the same 3 or 4 factories sharing same components to reduce production cost.
That is a fine from the business point of view.I am not saying that pianos from Asia are lower quality comparing to those from the Germany or UK , but question is are they are the almost same pianos with idential tonal quality and should we pay higher price just for the brand name.
Audi, Sony, Grundig ,Telefunken, Bosh etc are made in China so I am not suprised that even pianos manufacturers aiming for high profit.
What is your opinion about those pianos ?

Regards,

Post by **Barrie Heaton** » 11 Oct 2004, 20:00

What they are doing is nothing new Take Kembles up to 2002 they made Kemble, Chapple, Brinsmead and Yamaha they now only make Kemble and Yamaha. WMC made about 10 makes

In the UK they used different backs and in some cases different actions, as well some of the pianos form China they are same pianos just with a different badge and price tag

A few weeks ago I tuned 7 new grands for a retailer all the grand had the same fault in the dampers all the grands were QC passed by the same guy in the factory but there were 4 different makes today I tuned 2 more for the same factory but they had made some changes one of them had Able hammers on which did make a big difference so now you could say that they are not the same piano like they were a few weeks ago

Barrie,