🎹 Pearl River Piano | Pearl River UP115 Upright Piano Review & Demo🎹

[Music] hi everyone and welcome to another piano review here on the miriam pianos youtube channel today we're going to look at pearl rivers up-115 institutional upright piano this is a tank of an instrument that occupies a very special part of the price range this is the price range in acoustic pianos that has complete crossover with digital instruments so it gets a tremendous amount of attention and focus when it comes to new piano shoppers especially for beginner pianos because the question really is should i be looking at a used japanese upright piano should i be looking at a new chinese instrument are they really that competitive with the japanese one or do i look at a digital because you know i've heard digital's are getting really good these days so it sits at that interesting uh crossroads in price range where you could have a number of people looking at this as a solution so it's great to take a look at we're really excited to sit down and see what this instrument was all about if it's the first time that you are finding us here on youtube we are a channel that is all about pianos piano reviews piano community piano playing piano ownership pretty well everything to do with piano and we would love to have you be a new member of that community so if you enjoy what you see here please hit the notification and the subscribe button so that we can see you back for more without further ado let's dive right in with our review of pearl river's up115 upright piano right away [Applause] [Music] so this is a 45 inch piano from pearl river it's part of their traditional upright series essentially it's their entry level line and pearl river makes many different brands pearl river is the one focused on their lowest price point so this is the lowest price point of the lowest price point if we were going back 10 years that would mean that we'd be sitting in front of a very poor musical instrument that's not saying anything against pearl river just generally speaking anything at the bottom tier of any of the chinese manufacturers 10 years ago maybe even 15 years ago would be more fair was not a very impressive instrument you had some major regulation and inconsistency problems with the action you had very very poor hammers being used uh you had uh you know steel string that had all sorts of false beating and weird harmonics coming off of it uh you know very low quality level of bass strings uh being used on these instruments uh and quality control wasn't great they just you know you weren't getting a lot and and so there was no wonder why at that time there was such a preference in the buying market especially north america towards used japanese pianos from the 1970s 80s and 1990s because for about the same price point you were getting an instrument that just was musically and technically in much better condition um fast forward to 2022 and you know pearl river uh hylune um i mean those two i guess notably uh but there's probably several others that that uh you know are deserving of mention uh in the chinese market that have really dramatically improved the quality control and the musical success of the instruments that they are producing and as the top of their lines have increased in price and quality and reputation the bottom has kind of pulled up a proportionally speaking and so when you sit in front of a up115 and this is their institutional model what you get for the price is now definitely a comparable or if not equal a comparable experience to what you might get out of a similarly priced used japanese piano or at least an average one there are parts about this instrument which you don't expect one of them is the sustain [Music] this instrument has something like a 24-25 second sustain in the mid-range totally uncharacteristic for this price point another thing that i noticed right away is the evenness of the scale design from about c4 c5 all the way down anything down so [Music] the tone through the mid-range is actually getting to a point where it's competitive with i would say pretty good indonesian product as well [Music] and i need to point out this isn't commentary on the entire chinese piano street we're just talking about this particular model because in another video that we just recently released on the overall chinese market there are instruments now being produced in that country which are totally competitive with other instruments coming out of eastern european uh you know factories i'd say mid-range japanese models are are now getting a run for their money from the very very best chinese models but this one right at the very bottom is what we're talking about it's a nice round tone [Music] the action as well feels quite responsive and very tight [Music] [Applause] [Music] now there are a few things about this instrument which um separate it from the better instruments it's not like you're getting everything for a super super low price there's still some tell-tale things about this instrument that that kind of let your ear know that you are dealing with something uh that's on the lower prices of things one of them would be the base strings the bass strings on this instrument aren't the most consistent you're going to find you do still find some pretty good warmth but there is a slight tubbiness that you get out of those base strings nothing you can do about that it costs money to get a great bass string no way around it you need really pure copper you need you know a workforce that is going to know how to wind those strings properly and then you need the budget and the instrument to be able to throw a few of them out which isn't the cheapest thing so when you can't do any of those things you're sort of left with bass strings which used to be kind of just the norm but now you still find some of them getting onto these lower priced instruments [Music] but despite that and the fact that you there is a little cloudiness in it there's actually a surprising amount of power and warmth that you still get out of the base so for accompanying because i could definitely see a church putting this into a rehearsal space or a school or a beginner who is going to have this in a home where the majority of the playing is happening in the mid-range of the piano and your bass notes really are just there for purely harmonic support you're never really going to have you know major harmonic or melodic parts happening in the bass you know with with more basic repertoire it's great there's no there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever we've already talked about the mid-range having a really nice full tone [Music] and a quite a good sustain um as we move up the other range of the instrument where you're going to start to sort of hear the price point a little bit coming out is going to be your treble [Music] it's sort of right on the line of being a little bit glassy up there [Music] but it's very tunable so tuners and technicians if you happen to be watching this a lot of these shorter cheaper instruments can be quite a pain to tune this one is is quite serviceable [Music] and stable so we're not talking about a particularly complex bridge system so you are going to miss a little bit of complexity but still most of your playing and i'm going to say this again most you're playing as a beginner and definitely for a lot of institutional use not studio or or recital use but institutional use churches restaurants clubs bars you know schools most you're playing is banging away in the middle half of the instrument and this instrument in the middle half uh is it's really hard to find too many musical shortcomings [Applause] [Music] the instrument comes in a few different colors it comes in satin black it also comes in this satin cherry or mahogany i'm not sure which it refers to but it is sort of a reddish color i suppose it's probably more of mahogany the instrument comes with pearl river hammers it comes with russell strings which is a big improvement over what you would normally have gotten at this price range it comes with a sand cast plate i'm not sure that that actually has much of a benefit on an instrument like this because it it's lacking some of the harmonic components that might actually be able to draw some of those very subtle resonances out of a sandcast plate i don't know but the back of it's also really solidly made there's nice big thick back posts on this instrument and it is using an all spruce sound board it comes with a lock which is great again for institutional use and it's got that new england style key cover as well you know the people i would find myself recommending this instrument to would be people who don't need the sound management of a digital piano they're they're okay with the sound management of the digital piano where durability is really going to be a major consideration and they've got you know they're coming into the market four five six thousand dollars to spend something like that uh they're wondering whether digital or acoustic new or used is going to be um a good option and i would say a piano like this or specifically this instrument would be an excellent alternative to most digital pianos that i would find in a similar price range when it comes to the factors such as durability when it comes to things such as touch because i think the touch on this instrument is probably as good as most of the digital pianos that are more in a premium range i'm really impressed with the touch of this instrument again for its price so i think beginner students as i already said institutions i think it's this would be a really interesting fit for um as particularly for people who can't get themselves up into say something like a kawaii st1 or an nd 21 both of which also has kind of like an institutional you know caster or certainly anything up into like a yamaha u1 or kawai k-300 which is really going to run almost double the budget of a piano like this hope you've enjoyed this look at the pearl river up115 it's the institutional version if you enjoyed this quick review of this instrument please hit the subscribe button and the notification bell because we're doing all kinds of piano reviews all the time on this channel not only that but buying tips shopping tips ownership tips as well and just some other musical topics that we love to dive into so we'd love to see you back and and enjoy uh the community that's here it's really awesome my name is stu harrison there's been marion pianos on youtube and we'll see you again soon [Music]

Channel: Merriam Music

Views: 12,076

Keywords: Merriam Music, MerriamMusic, MerriamPianos, pearl river up115, pearl river, pearl river piano, pearl river up115 review, pearl river piano review, pearl river piano price, pearl river piano factory, pearl river piano upright, pearl river piano vs yamaha

Id: HZcheq1eGDU

Length: 15min 53sec (953 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 11 2022