I'm glad you other posters live in London or the eastern metroplex where you have hot and cold running techs. The $50 spinet is dull enough sounding for you but the bass, as all spinets, is nothing to write home about. The 195? $50 Wurlitzer spinnet from DeKalb IL I bought last month at SA, the action is very consistent. I played an imported nineties "wurlitzer" (general music) at a students home, the soft touch was so inconsistent as to be unusable. If you want to buy a modern import for dull sound, be sure to check the consistency of the action playing very soft notes. the 82 Sohmer needs tuning yearly or more if I don't aircondition in the summer. The 41 Steinway has a solid maple pin block, after I got the tuning up to pitch (6 passes) in 2011 the pitch was okay until 2014 winter. Watch out for laminated pin blocks if you like dull tone, I find my 1982 sohmer 39 has a laminated pinblock and is very bright sounding, whereas the 1941 Steinway 40 is a little less loud but the tuning is very stable. You'll see Kid rock's band (at Graceland, PBS) playing a plain twenties upright for the bright tone, whereas the pricier uprights at Salvation Army resale have 100 lb of decorative woodwork on the front and a much duller tone. Most of those old uprights hold tune like the pins were welded in. Some had great actions some had ****, you have to sort out the 100's of brands yourself by playing repeated notes to see how fast they are, and play soft to see if the action is consistent. Brand name doesn't matter much for quality, they were built from kits from wholesalers before the depression. These uprights tend to weigh 400-500 lb and piano movers charge extra to move them around. The heavier the better, the more wood they stuffed in, the duller the tone is. My mother's 1947 Everett 40 console held tune very well, but the tone was really understated.įor superior bass and a dull tone, at the $50 to $100 price, look for a 1910-1938 upright piano, the 44 to 48" tall ones. Before Yamaha, there were Everetts, that tended to have a good action but a dull and boring tone.
The 2007 Yamaha 44 studio piano at church is dull and insipid enough for you, but the bass is puke sounding also. A fifties baldwin hamilton, I can tune it effectively in octaves by ear from the pitch stable bass notes. You hear the fundamental over 61 keys and 24 pedals, I can tune to it accurately. I tuned the bargain Wurlitzer in the fellowship hall downtown, to an extension speaker off the Allen organ.
The short string scales are harder to tune by ear in octaves, the overtones don't match up like the longer string units. Cheap console pianos have more missing dampers on the treble and the strings don't go above the hammers on treble much. some of the cheap Wurlitzers are a little dull sounding but the scales are not all that good. You won't like any of these, they are bright pianos. I like Baldwin Acrosonic, Baldwin Hamilton, Sohmer, Mason & Hamlin, Steinway, Wurlitzer, Cable Nelson, Grinnell Bros. There are dozens of brands from the fifties and sixties that can be had for $1000 or less, but the quality brands tend to be bright. I've bought a piano from a home (steinway 40) and a $50 spinette from Salvation Army resale, I do the inspection myself.
You could also look at Pearl River models in that price range, used Kawai, etc - they'd make much better pianos and you'd be much happier than if you were to buy a so-so piano for $1000. My U1 would equate to around $4000 but it's grey market so you'd probably find them much cheaper in the US. However they were from private homes and if I were you, looking to spend $1000, (which is a lot of money but probably won't buy you a whole lot of piano) I'd save up until I could buy something from a dealer that was warrantied. When I was searching for pianos I did see used Baldwin uprights for around £500 which could suit your purpose. I paid roughly £3000 for my (used) Yamaha U1. Quote from: schubert960 on July 14, 2015, 09:57:28 PM I'm not in the US so a lot of this probably won't apply but here it's very difficult to get a quality upright for anything less than £2000 (around $3100.) What you will find at that price point are Yamaha B1s, Chinese makes like Steinmayer, Waldstein, Weber, maybe Kemble.