PEARL RIVER

Pianos made by: Guangzhou Pearl River Piano Group Co., Ltd., 38, Xiang Shan Avenue, Yong Ning Road, Zengcheng, Guangzhou, China

Established in 1956, Pearl River Piano Group has become the largest and best-selling piano manufacturer in the world, combining traditional craftsmanship with advanced CNC digital machinery to produce over 150,000 pianos annually by more than 4,000 workers. Pearl River recently transitioned to the world’s largest, new, state-of-the-art factory dedicated to building pianos, encompassing 1.2 million square feet. Pearl River is the best-selling piano brand in China and is exported to more than 112 countries. It also operates a European company headquarters in Braunschweig, Germany since 1995. The company builds pianos under the Pearl River, Ritmüller, and Kayserburg names, as well as under a few other names for OEM contracts.

In recent years, Pearl River has revised and streamlined its lineup of models with the assistance of European and American piano-design consultants. Currently, Pearl River acoustic pianos are offered in three series: Traditional verticals and grands, European verticals, and Prestige verticals. The European Series includes the newly introduced model EU118S 46″ vertical with silver hardware, and available in seven finishes, including polished ebony. It is equipped with German Röslau strings, a slow-close fallboard, and Pearl River hammers with imported German felt. The Traditional model UP115E 45″ vertical is in a school-friendly institutional style, with special casters and a full-length music desk. In the Prestige Series, the flagship model PH3 50″ vertical features the innovative PR 2.0 hammers, with premium red inner felt from Germany and rare hornbeam wood hammer cores, which produce the depth and resonance of a much larger instrument.

Pearl River grands come in four sizes, from 4′ 11″ to 6′ 2″, including the recent GP150SP and GP160SP models with silver plate and hardware, and have been redesigned over the last several years to include features such as vertically laminated beech bridges with solid beech caps, more responsive touch weights, refined hammers with German hammer felt, beech rims, and new scale designs.

Pearl River also makes pianos under the Ritmüller name, a brand that originated in Germany in 1795. A European master piano designer was engaged in 2007 to design, from the ground up, a line of higher-end pianos that would be distinct from the Pearl River line. The new Ritmüller line was introduced to North America in 2009. The Ritmüller line includes the Classic, Superior, and Premium series of vertical and grand pianos. Among the many higher-quality components used in crafting Ritmüller pianos are solid tapered spruce soundboards, German Renner hammers and actions, Strunz solid soundboards, Dehonit pinblocks, Laukhuff keyboards, hornbeam wood actions, beech rims, and real ebony sharps.

Piano Buyer‘s reviewers have been consistently impressed by Ritmüller pianos, choosing the 48″ UH-121R vertical and the 4’ 11″ GH-148R grand as “Staff Picks.”

In 2013, Pearl River brought to North America the upper-level Kayserburg Artists brand. These instruments are handmade, in a separate “factory in a factory,” by a team of Pearl River’s most experienced craftsmen, closely supervised and trained by Swiss master piano designer Stephen Mohler. The Kayserburg Artists craftsmen complete a rigorous training that includes studying the world’s finest pianos and working side by side with visiting European specialists.

Kayserburg pianos are available in five series: Excellent, Heritage, Nuovo, Artists, and Master. They contain such high-end features as soundboards of tight-grained, solid European spruce; Renner hammers and actions; German Röslau strings; vertically laminated beech bridges with wood cores and solid beech caps; German natural keytops; and genuine ebony sharps.

Warranty: 10 years, parts and labor, to original purchaser.