[Pianoinfo]

Help please!!! Can anyone tell me the difference between Yamaha U1 and U3? For new piano, the price is about 500 pounds different but for second hand piano, the price is more or less the same. Is it worth it spending 500 pounds more to get the U3. Sorry about the idiotic question. I have absolutely zero knowledge about piano. I am a loving mother buying a piano for my beloved son who is 8.5 years old and learning grade 5.

Thank you very much in advance for all your comments. Any information is useful and highly appreciated.
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SING

[Barrie Heaton]

The U3 has a longer bass string so should have a better bass also the scaling is better on a U3 that is what you are paying the extra for

Barrie,
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Barrie Heaton
Web Master UK Piano Page

[magriggs]

Barrie, excuse my ignorance but what do you mean by the "scaling" being better?

[Barrie Heaton]

Do you have 3 years to spare?

Basically when a piano is made compromises are made to fit the piano inside the box The first is the string scale which is made up of “the string speaking length, diameter and over all tension”. The bigger the piano the less compromises have to be made. All this affects the sound quality of the piano. The better the scaling the easer it is for the tuner as the tuning scale (the 12 semitones that make up an octave) fit better and less stretching is needed in all intervals

You can have 2 pianos of the same size using the same scale but one sounds better than the other – termination points, materials used and the skill of the string maker all play a part. There are lots of factors that influence the sound of a piano scaling is just one of them if you wish to read more then do a search on piano tech
http://www.ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech/

To day most pianos are designed on computers. Now on older pianos we some times put the scaling into a computer and look at the harmonic curve, we alter the scale to see if we can get a better curve over all on some pianos you can and some you cant. Depending who you talk to, some think this is wrong as you are altering the original sound of the piano. Others think if they had this technology they would have used it and we would have had some better sounding midrange pianos the top rage piano makers did it by trial and error


I hope that simple explanation as helped

Barrie,
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Barrie Heaton
Web Master UK Piano Page

[Melodytune]

I remember attending a lecture some years ago where it was discussed that when a piano is re-strung by certain specialist technicians that they've been known to change the scaling (the use of a different gauge of wire in certain sections of the piano - for instance)in an attempt to improve the overall tone of the instrument.

On the topic in question - go for a U3. Its worth the extra cost.
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Chris Melloy
Piano Tuner

[magriggs]

Excellent, Barrie, thanks!