Estonia L190--looking for reassurance!

[hotcat]

Well, I went ahead and made a (refundable) deposit on an Estonia L190. I do love it and it will be my first grand piano! But it's so nervewracking to make such a huge purchase. Is there anyone out there, including owners/tuners/technicians who have time to leave a comment or two? If it helps any, the other piano I was considering was the Yamaha C3X which was also lovely.

I'm just an amateur player, but putting in lots of hours lately. On the Estonia I played some Mendelssohn, Brahms, Chopin, etc. and it was heavenly--like the piano was just made for those kinds of pieces.

Part of the deal is the piano will have a Dampp-Chaser installed. I live in brutal midwest climate. Of course I will try to run a humidifer in the winter and the AC in the summer, but I wanted the D-C as kind of an added assurance. Opinions about the D-C are also welcome.

[hfmadopter]

Estonia has built a great reputation for themselves and it sounds like you feel at home with the L190, so enjoy ! There just isn't enough negative press around to say otherwise. One of the first rules to buying a good piano for yourself is that you are comfortable playing it, some pianos fit individuals like a glove. When you hit that match and the brand is decent, so be it.

 Environmental control for your piano is a first step to long  life for sure, that is an absolute. How we get there is open to interpretation, shall we say. The best method is room control, IMO. But that is just offered as my opinion, though one of thousands of peoples opinions. If your piano can live in 50% humidity all it's life, you can't do any better. That requires a meter and either manual control of humidity level for the room or automatic control. Manual being a big pain in the butt, less accurate over the long haul than a full environmental control system offers. Actually, your entire house would enjoy that same situation, FWIW. Of course we don't all do that. The nearest I personally come is to AC the house in the summer and humidify the pianos room ( aka living room) in the winter but to no exact specification. However if I were buying a brand new piano of any brand I would be more exact in that action and would opt to not install the system to the piano but to the room.. Pianos love stable humidity, from the finish to pin blocks, soundboard and strings to the main frame of the piano, even it's legs... An onboard system can't address it all, where room environment can..

Just my take on the situation.