Just a couple of months back, we got an upright piano for my daughter
who is enjoying her piano lessons. Therefore, we would like to share our
experience in shopping around for the best value that we could find in the
Singapore Piano Market.
For a start, there are many brands available such as Yamaha, Kawai,
Hailun, Steinberg & Song and etc. Our main criteria are that it must have
good resale value and would be able to last till Grade 8. We do not want to
have the hassle of changing to a new piano and at the same time not able to
sell it should my daughter lost interest in playing the piano.
We finally decided to get a Yamaha U1 which will cost around 10k Sgd if
we get it brand new. With such a hefty price tag, we opted to get it from the
resale market. We search all the classified websites (Locanto, Craiglist and
Carousell) and Google on second hand piano shops. To cut the story short, these
two second hand piano shops were shortlisted by us, Asia Piano and Piano
Gallery.
At the end of the day, we got a Yamaha U3 which cost around $4900 Sgd as
it is of a higher calibre and it would have cost 11k-12k for a brand new one.
The Yamaha U1 was going for around $4500-$4600 and the Yamaha U1 tends to have a higher pitch sound while the Yamaha U3 has a more mellow sound. Each U3 tends to
have a sound of their own but the U1 have a more universal sound. The age of
our piano is around 26 years old and it is imported from Japan (domestic use).
To know the age of the Yamaha piano, you can just look at the serial number and
you can go to this link to have a gauge of how old your piano is:
http://www.markgoodwinpianos.co.uk/info/yamaha-piano-serial-numbers
As part of the package, we have two free tunings and several freebies
thrown in. We got our piano from Asia Piano.
HI SAF (lol),
ReplyDeleteI think it's certainly a good habit to buy pre-owned items. When I started learning guitar, I also bought a pre-owned one. I believe that until I know what I want, I most likely won't be able to appreciate a good guitar from a bad one. It took several years before I bought myself an average price but new guitar. Until my skills are better, there's no point in upgrading to the best guitar. If I outgrown my instruments, I'll gladly buy a better one.
Learning how to play a piano is one of my must do things before I go. But it has to wait while I settle life's more pressing issues haha
Looks like investment in piano is kind of steep but for your daughter, I am sure it is a well worth one.
ReplyDeleteHope it will be a worthwhile investment :). To generate mileage, my wife and myself are taking piano lessons too.
ReplyDelete