Disklavier

Good evening, everyone.

My understanding on the moisture issue is the following:

--Yamaha starting importing pianos into the US in the 1960s and  
learned the hard way that the wood must be dried to a lower moisture  
content in order to withstand our central heating and our air  
conditioning.

--The issue is not what the average moisture is outdoors; the issue  
is how dry the air gets indoors as a result of either central heating  
or air conditioning. Of course, there is no absolute consistency from  
one house to another across the USA. However, we do have a measurable  
tendency to dry out our indoor air.

--Extra drying of the wood results in higher cost.

--Yamaha could, theoretically, dry the wood of all pianos to the same  
low moisture content and therefore increase the cost of all pianos  
sold all over the world. Instead, Yamaha dries the wood to 3  
different levels and markets the pianos accordingly to three defined  
areas of the world.

Regards,
PianoBench

On Apr 24, 2006, at 9:34 PM, eyeonyou85 wrote:

> Special treated wood for US.  HA HA HA.  Ok, let's apply a little  
> science
> here.  Just where in the US is this Yamaha wood "specially" treated  
> for?
> Arizona or Florida?  Average humidity in Arizona during spring and  
> summer is
> 11-30% while florida is 60 - 90% while the entire country of Japan may
> experience a range of 60 - 75%
> http://d-training.aots.or.jp/orientation/info.html .  Hmmmm...  So  
> specially
> seasoning a piano for ALL of the AMERICAN market is absurd.  They  
> would have
> to know IN ADVANCE OF BUILDING THE PIANO just WHERE in America this  
> piano is
> going to, Arizona or Florida, which they don't.  Sorry Yamaha, you  
> will have
> to do better than that.
>
> They do their best to keep the Japanese used pianos (those deadly grey
> market pianos that bite your fingers off when you are not  
> looking) :) out of
> the new piano sales competition with such myths.  I laugh at such  
> stupidty,
> then call my supplier for yet a great deal on Japanese used pianos  
> for 1/3
> of the cost of the showroom BS.  Imported a beautiful walnut DC5  
> that was
> practically new for $15000 last year for one of my students.
> eyeonyou