apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I hear that Bosendorfer is a world class brand of piano, but I'm not crazy about this. I don't mind the idea of a "modern" piano, but that sheet of black on the side is weird.

Looks lovely. . . but looks aren't the point. How does it *sound*?
Bosendorfer is a fantastic maker . . . but . . . hmm. I'd have to hear it!

The right side, pedals and bench seem rather "Bauhaus"...
...and the left side (the waterfall edge) seem rather 80's.

I guess I'd rather have a Steinway.

I don't like it.

Looks like it folds up to tuck away. Not at all attractive to me.

I like it. But the price??? OMG...crazy...

I like it. It's sleek and contemporary, but also seems modern-timeless. I don't loove it though- some of the lines seem to fight each other and I dislike the puffy-ness of the bench...
that being said, it certainly looks expensive.

This is a clunky, unnecessary 'update'. Conventional grand pianos are both sleek and elegant. I can't think of a style of decor they'd look totally out of place in.

Ugh, no thank you. I have a fondness for modern minimalism but this is chunky and graceless. For that amount of money I'd go with a nice Steinway. Simple, elegant, and they play like butter.

Interesting, but I'm not crazy about the solid panel to the floor on the piano's left side. Musical instruments have always been "modern" in the sense that their form is dictated by their function. To design something more modern results in decorative flourishes that aren't really necessary.

Who cares what it looks like? What matters is how it sounds. Does it sound as good as a conventional bosendorfer? Better? Worse? That's how one should measure a piano, not by how it looks in your living room.

Here, here, we_canuck. Still don't like how it looks, though.

What a disaster! Clearly they are confused about what is modern and what is contemporary.

Love it. Has there ever been another modern piano design?

wc_canuck, that is a ridiculous thing to say. first of all, this is a website about decorating apartments. you are here at this website, so you know this. so conversations will tend to revolve around aesthetics (duh?). secondly, you can't tell me that if a big pile of dog poop sounded like the best piano in the world, that you'd happily keep it in your living room. that is to say, OF COURSE AESTHETICS MATTER. that was the whole point of the audi exercise, and surely not to develop a better sounding piano.

and, for my 2 cents, i think it's hideous. it's like trying to compare a well-made violin to those plastic electric violins.

I'm learning to appreciate how great design can make life easier and enhance one's sense of well-being. Musicians and their instruments reach me so intimately that it's difficult to conceive of instruments as peices of furniture, even as a budding design junkie. No insult meant to anyone who does. It's no disrespect to design to say that a piano is something different from furniture. In my world, a piano's greatest influence is something other than how it looks in a room. Actually, an unloved and unused piano may not be such a great look anyway. Bad chi.

Looks like an Ikea hack to me.

I'd rather have an ugly piano with a great sound.

Whoa, that waterfall-ish side is just too much for me.

When I was a kid, my piano teacher told me that Bosendorfer is like the Rolls-Royce of pianos, so I'm guessing it must sound very nice. That said, the design kind of makes me go "meh." Looks like a big old electric keyboard to me. I'd take a classic older Steinway over this any day. Old pianos have so much character.

The point is that you can get the best concert grand piano in the world for around $60,000. Anything above that and you are purely paying for decoration (exotic woods, carved legs, etc.). Paying $100,000 for this, you are paying bonus money for them to uglify your piano.

So, yes, I'd rather have an ugly piano with a great sound than a pretty piano with horrible sound, IF you have to decide between those two options because of cost constraints. In this case, you'd be getting an ugly-ass piano with as-yet-unknown sonic characteristics for the price of two world-class traditional concert grands.

I like it, but I would have preferred they nixed the black waterfall and continued the stainless steel legs on that side. As it is, it looks heavy and one step away from brutalist.

Is this worse than the one Priscilla had gilded for Elvis?

I'm a classically-trained pianist (went to conservatory and what have you). Bösendorfers are a dream to play on -- much more depth and richness to their sound than Steinways. Steinways are certainly quite nice pianos, don't get me wrong, but a Bösendorfer to a Steinway is like a Bugatti to a Ferrari.

This piano looks awful. I love sleek designs normally, but this one has too much mass/weight. From the viewpoint of a musician, I have very strong doubts about that "waterfall" on the side -- it's going to resonate like mad. The autoblog article claims, simply, "the acoustics were unaffected", but I have a reeeeaal hard time believing that.

Just found Bösendorfer's writeup on it, and they claim "Most striking about the new grand piano by Audi design is the closed side rim of the bass. It not only lends the instrument unusual presence and stability, it also allows it to project the bass more strongly into the auditorium." Heh. I wasn't completely mistaken. Seems to be more a concert hall piano than one for a private home.

(woops, here's that Bösendorfer link on the piano: http://www.boesendorfer.com/en/audi.html )

I think it's really cool looking - keeps with the classic basic shape, but with modern updates. You need to have the right space to put in though (and a very large apartment) and everything around it would need to reflect the design. Or, maybe it should just be in a room by itself . . .