The piano industry always seems to be dealing with its own taboos, in every era. in the 1980’s and 1990’s, composite parts was one of the loudest debates; currently, the debate over China has largely taken its place. However, just as with composites, it will very likely be customers who lead the industry on this topic, rather than the other way around. The pendulum of public opinion on Chinese products is swinging back, and quickly. However, many in the piano industry consider China to be the ‘necessary evil’ of today’s reality, accepting that it has the best balance of manufacturing quality and labor/material costs, but attached to a complex, albeit fading, stigma. The practical truth is that some of the world’s best mass-produced pianos are being made in China, within highly refined factories, using well-trained work forces, and achieving excellent consistency. What is missing from the Chinese industry is the level of artisanship that some people have come to expect from European companies, or the experience that Japan built up over its convincing 30 years of domination. So what can you expect?
China’s piano industry can be roughly divided into three sectors:
1. Pianos intended for their own, domestic market, built in large government factories, or assembled from after-market parts suppliers in smaller, private facilities.
2. Pianos intended for export, as entry level instruments built for some of the largest piano companies in the world (Samick, Young Chang, Yamaha, etc), or as private labels for large retailers.
3. Smaller factories directly partnered with European factories, co-producing what is quickly becoming the bulk of the piano industry’s mid-range offering.
The quality differences between these three sectors are so vast, it is absolutely impossible to understand or impute a value by simply labelling the pianos as “Chinese”. Yet, a poor experience with a Chinese piano by a technician, teacher, or customer still occasionally results in an all-out witch hunt, regardless of the cause, brand, manufacturer, or price point. As modern consumers, many of us are well aware that most of what winds up in our homes has in some way been touched by China’s manufacturing mega-machine. If you can accept that the piano industry is no different, and that like any other manufacturing region, you will still have the ‘good – better – best’ factor with Chinese pianos, then you will have a few truly great pianos with some Chinese origin to add to your list of possibilities. Keep in mind the various levels of the industry, and keep your comparisons ‘apples-to-apples’.