One of the most revered names in the piano business, actually the entire music business, is Steinway. The company may be in for a big change in the near future as private equity firm Kohlberg & Company is on the verge of buying them, which will take the company private again (its stock hovers around $36 right now).
One of the fears is that the new owners will change the manufacturing, which is decidedly still old school in that each piano is uniquely hand-crafted and takes 11 months to build. That’s why they all have their own character, but as we’ve seen with guitars and other instruments, as soon as modern manufacturing enters the picture, a lot of that individual character goes away.
Here’s a short video that shows how a Steinway piano is built.
