Essex Pianos - A cut above

Student Learning on an Essex Piano

Piano Centre Edmonton, as Edmonton’s longest serving piano store, has vast experience in choosing the best piano lines for our customers in Edmonton and across Alberta. When the Steinway & Sons line was awarded to us, we were no doubt excited. But we couldn’t have imagined that the Steinway family would grow into such an integral part of music making for many hundreds of families.

Essex by Steinway and Sons, is the exemplification of the core belief that price should not impact performance. Essex pianos are consistently recognized and rated at the top of their class. Not just by us, but industry wide.

When Steinway set out to create a piano that could fill the consumer level price bracket, the one thing that was never a point of compromise, was piano performance.

When you come see an Essex piano at Piano Centre Edmonton, prepare to be surprised. You’ll be surprised that a piano in this price bracket can possibly sound and feel this good. You’ll be surprised that the typical recommendation of the 48” Japanese upright, (which we have here for comparison) remains at all popular in the face of such superior craftsmanship and artistry. Mostly though, we believe you’ll be surprised that joining the Steinway family is such an easy decision to make, once you’ve heard, touched and played an Essex Piano.

Beautiful Essex Cabinetry

So why is an Essex piano a cut above?

The wide-tail design featured on all Essex grands is a special innovation by Steinway & Sons that creates more surface area in the soundboard. This enriches the sound, giving the pianist the impression of playing on a larger instrument. The larger soundboard area also allows for better placement of the bass bridge — which yields more volume, greater tone, and a bass that sings.

Essex Wide Tail Design - A Steinway & Sons innovation

Like all pianos designed by Steinway & Sons, all Essex Pianos contain a soundboard of solid, premium grade, straight-grained spruce chosen for its superb acoustic qualities. It also features a special tapered profile that is thicker in the treble and thinner in the bass, enabling freer vibration and better tonal volume.

Designed by Steinway & Sons, the plate is cast from gray iron and over engineered to provide strength to support 20 tons of string tension. Long-fiber cast iron creates a very dense plate, which does not absorb energy and yields a fuller tone.

Essex Plate, Soundboard, and Strings

Essex grand hammers are specified by Steinway and made by Imadegawa in Japan, using German–made hammer felt and hornbeam moldings. Based on the exclusive designs of Steinway & Sons, the Essex action for grands and uprights are made of wood (not plastic) and are characterized by a faster repetition, better stability, and heightened responsiveness — allowing the musician to play with maximum expression and control.

Essex Piano Action

The entirety of the piano is Steinway and Sons designed and specified, with no compromises made to fit into a price bracket. The resultant performance, is far beyond what one would expect. When you make the investment decision on a long lasting family instrument, you want something built to last, not just until the warranty is up, but for the proper lifetime of a quality instrument. With almost 170 years of piano building expertise, Steinway and Sons is the only company that could bring that craftsmanship, heritage, and quality to a consumer focused line like the Essex Pianos.

Elegant Cabinetry available on many Essex upright Models

Even better for you, is that your local Steinway retailer is Piano Centre Edmonton. We’ve been in business for almost 40 years, providing outstanding service and support to every one of our families, and plan to stay in business for many many more years. We’ve watched competitors come and go, some quickly, some slowly, and we’ve remained steadfast to our core mission of matching people to the instrument that was made for them. Then helping them throughout the process. Making friends for life through music.

THE STEINWAY promise

When you purchase an Essex Piano at Piano Centre, you may trade in the instrument within ten years of the date of purchase, to receive 100% of the original purchase price toward a new Boston or Steinway Grand.