A Tale of Two Mason & Hamlins

Here are two neat Mason and Hamlin pianos I came across at the Music Exchange in Sacramento, California. One was made in the 1970s, and the other one was made in the early 2000s, showing how Mason and Hamlin have evolved over the years.

[@MAC0192]

You are correct in stating the full perimeter rim was not on the older smaller M&H grands. Mine does not have it. We purchased a 1922 M&H mod A from Turner Piano & Keyboards in Augusta GA to replace the Chickering I purchased new in 1998 . The Mason & Hamlin was the piano in the showroom that your eyes went to as you walked in the door. I didn't play it at first as I thought it was way out of our price range. I was in luck, the piano was on consignment and the owners new wife wanted it gone (it belonged to the previous wife). I played the 3 Steinways , a Kawai concert grand, and some others. My wife said try this one. It was gorgeous, having been restored in the early 90s in NY City. I'm a mediocre player at best and she could tell right away the difference in my playing. I'm sure it will be the last piano I buy. Its moving from South Carolina to Michigan in a few weeks, as are we. Mason & Hamlin is a great instrument.

[@michaelandcarolblackburn103]

Always a pleasure to stop by and watch your videos, James. You are certainly one busy young man. Carol

[@kyrvhy]

Their Tension resonator is a great feature too and are exclusive to M+H. Love the older, and bigger piano, tone.

[@GeorgeTennesseeWiseman]

You are so FUNNY -- and play beautifully! I love listening to you talking about Mason & Hamlin pianos and everything you mention. Excellent job. Great to listen to someone so knowledgeable. I much appreciate it! Thanks!

[@bernardofitzpatrick5403]

Oh man - another beautiful piano with so many interesting, unique features. They both sound wonderful. Can't get enough of these vids on the different piano makes. Great stuff, dude.

[@sugarpacketchad]

I liked the sound of the older one.

[@benjaminsmith2287]

I hope a tale of two "X-brand" pianos becomes a series!

[@frederickchao]

To me the older piano had a richer and sweeter sound especially in the lower notes. Both high and low registers had a more special tone on the older Mason and Hamlin which has a truly beautiful sound.

[@DeadKoby]

I'm a "noob" on Pianos... but I got one from an estate for my children, and other family members who play. I ended up with a 1991 Wurlitzer USA made Console upright.... It's neat to see the technical aspects, even if I'm not much of a pianist. I have all the tools to tune and maintain a piano, so it helps to learn.

[@TheJojo01902]

Your videos are interesting and informative. Thanks for this series, and in particular always speaking of the entire instrument (construction, distinguishing characteristics, and sound) in each video. On a slightly different topic, not really about pianos, some of your recent videos show you with longer hair, but subsequent videos show you with shorter hair. This makes me think you recorded the videos in one sequence, but upload them in a different sequence. This is not an important matter, to be sure, but it's something I noticed. Can you comment?

[@stevencovacci9764]

Do Masno & Hamelin pianos stand up to humidity and heat fluctuations better than Steinway, Baldwin, Bosen.. etc?

[@zackeryhardy9504]

Yea. In particular the new ones. The new ones use the Wessel and nickel parts. They are full carbon fiber and ultimately do not change with humidity. The plate and crown retention system also do a lot in terms of longevity and humidity. Probably one of the best pianos on the market if longevity and consistency are what you are looking for. Steinway is probably last place when compared to M&H, bosendorfer, yamaha, kawai, faziioli, and bechstein. They had their hayday and did a lot of advertising work, however basically all of the other companies copied their designs and fixed all the problems that steinway had and still has. They actually still get crown in their soundboard through changing humidity which is a terrible way of getting soundboard crown. What you get is inconsistent crown leading to the issue of having only a few good pianos mixed in with a lot of bad pianos. All other manufacturers use curved ribs so that they can get a consistent result as well as a longer life on the crown. Because using curved ribs is putting crown into the soundboard while the way steinway does it, the forces are taking the crown out of the soundboard. If you go into the technical world, steinway does a lot of things that just make their piano worse in objective measures and when you talk to the company, they say its fine despite being blatantly bad in every objective manor. I do love bosendorfers, however my issue with them is there are some design choices such as issues with the plate that lead to hammers that need to be replaced more frequently. Only some minor issues with them, but overall I love their sound. Yamaha has a tendency to make their pianos a bit on the bright side for my taste, however they are not bright pianos. They are about in the middle right now, but I like a really dark piano. Overall I only have a few nitpicks and consider them to be some of the best pianos out there. Kawaii is actually doing pretty darn well. They have gone into the world of carbon fiber, but have yet to fully commit to it which is a shame as a full carbon fiber action literally solves for the humidity issues that you get with wood parts. Fantastic pianos as well. And My personal favorite is Mason and Hamlin. While I think they have their hammers a bit on the bright side, that is more of a personal taste issue just as it is with yamaha. But in terms of design, they are probably on top as far as innovation and the actual piano itself. Issues that are not easy are plate design flaws, action desight flaws, a bad soundboard/pinblock, and other more important issues. Mason and Hamlin produces a fantastic piano in terms of objective measurements such as sustain length, parts quality, inharmonicity, string tension balance, and other technical measurements. That being said, they do just sell the WNG action if you already have a piano that you just want to be more ressiliant to the moisture. Wessel Nickle and gross actions are what you want since they are fully carbon fiber including the bushing. They have done tests with the those actions in all sorts of situations and they are the best performing and longest lasting piano action on the market. They come stock in Mason and Hamlin's new pianos, but they are available for all of the other pianos. I know a lot of rebuilders that just put those in the pianos they rebuild.

[@TheCynedd]

Like your videos, like you, like your reviews but I am still waiting for the Harpsichord episodes :)

[@ThePianoforever]

I have a harpsichord video coming out very soon... :D

[@arisaris3484]

I definitely prefer the sound of the treble in the older model piano; but, the bass strings of the newer model sound much richer. So, in a perfect universe I would want the sound ot the upper register from the older model and the string section from the newer piano combined into one piano. Both pianos have the rich tone one would expect to hear emanating from a M & H piano.

[@benjaminsmith2287]

Thanks, that full-perimeter plate is interesting. The new harps are made in China? Are they sand-casted? I think I like the mellower and more resonant sound of the 1980s M&H more. I'm not sure about the sound of the newer one. It doesn't seem as characteristic of what I remember of the brand's tone and resonance whereas the 1980 version does.

[@suzyflorida1193]

If someone offered you a brand new Steinway or a brand new M&H (without even seeing either one), which one would you take? And why? (Both baby grands)

[@ThePianoforever]

Both those pianos can be very nice, but they can also be less than optimal at times. I would certainly never buy either one of those pianos sight unseen, and would rather hear, play, and see them in person before choosing which one to buy.

[@suzyflorida1193]

Yes, I know you would never buy a piano sight unseen, but I figured you would have said that, if you were forced to buy one sight unseen, then you would have picked a Steinway. I'm sure that Steinway has a better reputation than M&H and I'm wondering if you think there's a truth behind that.

[@ThePianoforever]

Steinways can be good, but also have some of the biggest problems in the industry as well. I would not say that Steinway has a excellent reputation at this time, and honestly not even the best piano on the market right now. I would say the more dependable lines right now are the Yamaha CX, or the Fazioli line of pianos, but even then I would stay with the newest pianos as quality has improved recently.

[@suzyflorida1193]

Yes, you're right. I believe that Yamaha and Fazioli are better than either Steinway or M&H at this time, and that's why I didn't include them in my comparison.

[@fho4316]

Should a M&H buyer be concerned about the harp being made in China from a quality standpoint?

[@SunnyAustria]

The older ones high section sounds not very good. Very thin and unprecise. But the newer ones sounds awesome.

[@robertveal7187]

Faunt looks like old English writing

[@staccatoglock]

Newer M&H’s have Chinese made harps? Wtf🤯👎🏼🤮

[@pianist4jk]

Have you actually played the newest Masons? And I mean new within the last 5 years? They are absolutely incredible. Find a Model CC (now the VX-CC) and be prepared to rethink everything about pianos.