Nearly always stencil brands are not very good and probably a bad buy. Tread cautiously with stencil brands especially pianos with German names, take care. Some stencil brands can be made to sound decent (but not good!) if serviced first by a tech and regulated (volume of all notes made the same) the price of this may offset any savings on the piano itself. Note also that many stencil brands, whether they are purchased names or not, have "German names". Many (if not most) stencil brands are names bought from companies (mostly antique) that are out of business. These pianos are made in areas of the world with low labor costs: China, Indonesia, and Malaysia, in particular.įind out the real maker and research that, as opposed to the store's name. Some are awful some are pretty poor a few are ok.
And could, in fact, be the same model except for the brand name! These pianos vary greatly in quality. Therefore, many "different brands" of pianos - at varying price points - are actually from the same factory. A piano store (usually a nation-wide or at least a regional piano company) buys these from a factory and slaps a name on it. These are like the house brands at a grocery store, except the quality is poor, whereas grocery store brands, while noticeably different in quality, are not poor quality. Stencil brand pianos (sometimes called store brands) are common in the US.