This is an update to this video, if you haven’t seen it yet check it out. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ai2IqeswptE.html Here’s the most recent correspondence with the owner of this piano. “At this point I am inclined to file a warranty claim with Steinway and have them redo the logo on the right side of the piano and refinish the areas of the plate that have the rough texture and discoloration. The newer firmware for the electronics module under the piano has helped the problem of dropped notes a lot, but there is still some improvement needed. Steinway publishes their firm, "no haggle" prices publicly. A New York D sells for $173,000 and a New York D with the Spirio R sells for $216,000. Then there is sales tax of 9% where I live, and a cost of around $1,000 to ship the piano to my home by truck. After spending just under a quarter of a million dollars I believe my piano should be perfect, not just "pretty good". I will let you know what response I get from Steinway.” The owner also mentions that in the settings, you can change the user ID in the iPad. However, Steinway at this time won’t issue a new ID unless you bought the used piano directly from them. Therefore, the owner says, “I think my original response is still the best option --- just hand over the ipad with the user ID logged in when the piano is resold and transferred.” He also says he has a 1966 Steinway B that he wants to get restored someday, but does not consider Steinway an option for the rebuild, and would prefer to have it rebuilt locally.
There is a great story (possibly apocryphal) about Rolls Royce. One day Mr. Rolls (or maybe Mr. Royce, can't remember) was walking through his factory when he overheard a worker, who was assembling one of his famous cars, say, "Okay, well, that's good enough." Mr. Rolls (or Royce) fired the man on the spot. "Good enough" is not good enough when you're building a Rolls Royce, or, one would hope, a Steinway. No longer the case, apparently.
Thank you James I really appreciate your honest and informative reviews, if I had spent that kind of money on anything , I would expect it to work 100%, and look 100% , Steinway really need to improve their whole customer service experience. Keep up the good work, I love your enthusiasm!
Thank you,James. Just watching your videos should indicate that you are very knowledgeable about pianos and very honest in your evaluations. If Steinway has a "problem with this", perhaps they would like to write you or send a technician to "explain" what's happening. Lots of luck on that. Cheers, Rik Spector
Might just be the settings on my monitor, but I find it kind of interesting that the logo on your piano seems to be blurred out . . . (and I'm still not convinced that the 'player' isn't just a gimmick)
thanks for the update on this bro. Its my deepest feeling that this brand should just stick with the crafting of world Class Concert grands and leave the toys for the keyboard guys.. Something they do very very well.
To my knowledge, the "recordings turned into Spirio library" is actually done by Zenph, now a subsidiary of Steinway. They have proprietary technology that hunts notes from an audio (like MP3, I don't know the exact formats) file and translates them into MIDI-like formats. However, the pedaling has to be done manually, so actual pianists have to mimic the pedaling in the recording to the best of their abilities. Van Cliburn's recording dropping notes is probably a note-hunting related issue though.
vistastructions I have noticed quite a few of these "fake" Spirio performances in their catalog. I was wondering what the provenance of these were. There are a few Spirio recordings of Vladimir Horowitz, and I know that he never did any reproducing piano recordings on modern equipment. He only recorded some Aeolian duo art rolls back in the 1920s. In view of this, I don't think I will replay the Van Cliburn Clare de Lune.
James could you try to get an official statement from Steinway regarding the transferability and licensing of the Spirio mechanism? This is being discussed on a serious forum of player piano collectors and enthusiasts on Facebook and many simply can’t believe Steinway is doing this.
I think it is pretty clear that this is Steinways policy. They will only talk to the original owner, and will not offer any subsequent owners any support or help in any way.
ThePianoforever This license agreement was found on the iPad App Store. Looks like subsequent owners can pay a fee and yearly subscription. It also appears that you can’t make RU-vid videos of it playing either! The agreement doesn’t specify the fee or the annual subscription price.
We have been told that you need a customer ID, and that Steinway will not issue one to subsequent owners. It is possible to use the original owners ID, but there are restrictions, and it must be done in the right order, and very carefully, or things could go wrong. I could understand why they would not want their system shown on RU-vid as it works so poorly.
@@ThePianoforever If you read the license agreement thoroughly, you see that the owner of the piano has limited control over it's use. Click on the link "License Agreement" in the Apple store description. It's long but in pretty clear English and answers most questions about the user agreement for the system. It's not what you'd expect for these huge prices.
The big difference between Fazioli, and Steinway is a piano can not leave the Fazioli factory without Mr. Fazioli playing, and approving every Fazioli piano. I also believe the Mr Fazioli is a perfectionist, and would never let a piano with his name on it leave the factory like that.
Gibbo He stayed at my home for almost three hours. He played my other pianos, and I got to talk to him about the technical details of pianos and how they are designed and made. He has been building pianos for almost forty years, so talking to him was very interesting. He has a tremendous amount of knowledge about pianos. It was a fun and interesting afternoon for me.
Is there really that much of a problem with people running unauthorized Spirio software on their $200K Steinways (new or used) that they need to have such a draconian licensing position? Talk about greed.
I’m sure Yamaha and their other competitors are good with this since it leaves a huge market open for less greedy manufacturers. It also seems that that position could hurt new sales because customers would know that the residual value of their high-dollar purchases would be detrimentally low. I think they need a new marketing team.
Based on the License Agreement found on the Apple iPad store it turns out that you're buying a mechanism with the right to use it as the original owner via the Spirio app. It also says you can't transfer it to third parties, but those secondary buyers can pay a fee to Steinway and get a subscription to use the files. It doesn't state what those fees might be or the subscription cost. The agreement also has many other restrictive clauses. I would advise any potential buyer to read this agreement carefully before you buy one of these as we don't normally expect such restrictions in a consumer playback product.
I wish the Yamaha Disklavier was available in other brands. Since it is not then buy a Yamaha. It is a much more user friendly system and plays very well. At least Yamaha does a better job of finishing the piano before it is sold.
Thanks for this interesting review. FYI- regarding a remote concert or connecting two pianos with player systems, we've been doing that for more than a decade with PianoDisc and also Yamaha. Here's a 2012 video re this. :-) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WN7mCgZc79A.html
Jarrod Radnich!? Amazing to see you here! I love your arrangement of Pirates of the Caribbean, I play it all the time in my videos, and just for fun as well. Thanks for the interesting information as well.
Adding a credit card to a strangers Apple ID is NOT the way to go. Sounds like Steinway and Apple need to have a meeting and figure it out. Can you imagine? Most pretentious meeting in the world
The phenomenon of the color of the letters "Ste" looking slightly different when viewed from one angle as against another I'll bet is real; I feel sure you are not imagining it and is not a "trick of the light." The scientific name for it is "dichroism. " It is a function of the particular crystal structure of the metal Some metals and alloys exhibit it, others do not. If it is in those letters, it tells me that they are not written in gold, because pure gold does not exhibit dichroism. I always assumed that the lettering on the side and on the fall board is done with gold leaf. I guess not.
@@ThePianoforever The trim and associated hardware is plated with 18 carat gold, but the logos are actual brass inlayed into the wood of the piano. That is why Fazioli supplies polishing cream in case the logos tarnish.
Hmm I understand your position and that of the original owner but I stick to my idea. I wont buy, if I did , an piano that’s not to sale on. Secondly, the problem with being honest is that you sometimes trip a toe. Apologize and go on. Being honest is not always nice. It is being honest.. and I hope you got a lot of nice pieces and comparing for us.. keep going. ( and don’t forget to smile)
The finish on the harp MAY be repairable with careful air brushing. An instrument of this quality level and price should have no issues. First impressions are exactly that, no second chances. At the very least, a dark page in the history of Steinway....how sad....
It's beginning to sound like the Boeing 737 MAX scenario!..And as for the 5 year warranty, for the kind of money spent on one of these pianos, it's a joke!!!!
With regard to the Apple ID, that is just standard crApple. It's good for people if their iPad gets stollen but for somebody who might refurbish and resell second hand stuff, it's a massive pain.
Nobody no part of Steinway's refusal to allow the activation of a Spirio piano on a new install of an app is Apple's doing. And yes, the security and theft prevention provided by Apple's iCloud activation lock is very real. Stolen BloatDroid phones are easily sold (though not for much since they don't hold value nearly as well as iPhones) thanks to the complete lack of security or activation prevention.
Lol $40,000 and if you need a new apple ID, lose your password or die, you're screwed. Honestly I hate steinway as a company, I prefer the touch and tone of a shigeru kawaii or CF yamaha and I CERTAINLY prefer those companies. I'm only speculating here but my guess is that if you have any issue at all with your yamaha ENPRO system, a technician will be out to fix the issue (for free), apologize, offer a complimentary tuning and document what happened for continuous improvement. Meanwhile, steinway STILL continues to knock their own products down AND use the resale as their#1 pitch. They dominated the golden Era by offering the highest quality product... not by creating technicalities. In my mind, modern day steinway isn't even steinway anymore.
Yamaha ls an electronics company as much as they are a musical instrument and a motorcycle company. Steinway is not an electronics company. They bought the Live Perfomance Model LX system developed by Wayne Stahnke in 2014 and re-branded it as Spirio. They obviously underestimated their ability to expand into area where they had no experience. Yamaha has been in this segment of the market for much longer and doubtless their early products also had problems. This is not to excuse boneheaded directives from stubborn and greedy upper management and I hope they see the errors of their ways before they drive the company into the ground. Excellence should indeed be expected from any product in such a rarified category, but minor cosmetic imperfections do not bother me so much from a product made by human craftsmen and women. If you crave perfection look for something made by high precision robots. And as you said, the piano itself had great action (I myself do not play, my late wife had and our daughter has the chops in the family) and it is one of the best sounding Steinways that you have experienced. In the end making music is what it is all about. Philosophical post-script: Love is the best thing that people do. Music is a close second.
Transferring an Apple ID from one person to another would be a major headache in itself. This sounds like an utter botch to me, and one that is far from guaranteed to work!
I guess the bottom line for me in all this is that if you're going do dish out several thousand dollars for anything, it's probably best to thoroughly research it first. Yamaha has pianos that can do this same thing as the Steinway but better and without all the complexity. I'm sure you've reviewed products with a-name-you-can-trust only to turn out to be things you'd NEVER buy. I think the owner just saw "Steinway" and made all the assumptions that goes with that name. Those assumptions it how Steinway makes its money but doing your homework is how you can save your money.
