My wife and I were out looking at pianos today. She hasn’t played in years, and the one we currently own is not good for much more than kindling. (My wife bought it used for $100 before we were married – probably 15 or more years ago.) She’s thinking about getting back into playing, and heck, if we had one that was halfway decent, I’d probably give it a shot myself.
The piano store that we went to deals mostly in digital pianos, but the one line of acoustic pianos they carried was Pearl River. The salesman told us about how Yamaha bought them about five or six years ago and now they are one of the best selling pianos in the world. He showed us the insides, talked about how they were put together, played it a bit (it sounded OK to my untrained ear), and after taking up about a half hour of his time we thanked him and left.
My wife wanted to do some research on the internet, so we tried to find some impartial articles and reviews (not sales literature), but are not having much luck. Basically I saw one posting from about 1996 where someone said they have always been crap and still are. But that was before Yamaha got involved, and my sense is that the quality has maybe gone up since then.
So anyway, we’re just looking for info from anyone who has personal experience with this brand. Links to articles would be helpful too. I realize it’s not going to be a Steinway in terms of quality, we just want a good inexpensive (but not “cheap”) starter piano.
Note to Mods: I wasn’t sure if this should go in CS or IMHO. Feel free to move it if I made the wrong decision.