Steinway, Bösendorfer & co.: the royal class of grand pianos – and what of it lives in your digital piano

This site advises on digital pianos and keyboards – so why an article about grands that cost as much as a house? Two reasons: first, these instruments are the benchmark everything we recommend here is measured against. And second – the loveliest punchline – their sound has long lived in instruments costing €500. Whoever understands the royal class buys better further down.

What makes a world-class grand

A concert grand is largely handwork: the curved body (rim) is pressed from long layers of wood in one piece, the soundboard joined from selected mountain spruce, the action regulated and voiced over months. At the great houses an instrument takes about a year, and in the end each one is unique – two grands of the same model audibly differ. That is exactly why concert pianists travel to pick out “theirs”.

The houses in brief

Steinway & Sons (Hamburg & New York) – the standard of the concert halls; the D-274 concert grand is the most-played instrument of the big stages. With Boston and Essex, Steinway runs two more affordable second lines (Steinway design, built in Asia).
Bösendorfer (Vienna, part of Yamaha since 2008) – the warm, dark “Viennese sound”; the Imperial model has 97 instead of 88 keys, its extra basses shimmering in the resonances.
Fazioli (Sacile, Italy) – the youngest house (1981), uncompromising and brilliant in tone; at 3.08 m the F308 is the longest production grand in the world.
C. Bechstein (Berlin) – the German heritage sound admired by Liszt and Debussy; today perhaps the broadest premium range from Germany.
Blüthner (Leipzig) – famous for aliquot stringing: a fourth, sympathetically vibrating string in the treble that lays a golden shimmer over the tone.
Steingraeber & Söhne (Bayreuth) and Grotrian-Steinweg (Braunschweig) – small manufactories with minds of their own, prized among connoisseurs.
And Japan? Long plays in the same league: Yamaha’s CFX concert grand and the hand-built Shigeru Kawai SK-EX stand in concert halls and competitions beside the Europeans.

What does the royal class cost?

Rough list-price orientation (new, 2026): a “small” Steinway M-170 starts around €95,000, the popular B-211 salon grand around €140,000, the D-274 concert grand around €220,000 – with the Spirio self-playing system, well beyond. Bösendorfer and Fazioli move roughly between €120,000 and €250,000 depending on size, and the German houses start with fine baby grands around €55,000–80,000. Add what is easily forgotten: climate care, regular tuning and regulation – a world-class instrument is one in upkeep, too.

The loveliest punchline: their sound already lives in your digital piano

The digital makers measure their own concert grands down to the last overtone – and precisely those recordings and models play in the digital pianos of our catalogue: Yamaha’s portables carry the sound of the CFX concert grand, Kawai’s ES series that of the hand-built Shigeru Kawai SK-EX, Yamaha’s Clavinova cabinets even ship the Bösendorfer Imperial, and Casio developed its Grand Hybrid line together with C. Bechstein. Put differently: the sound of the royal class is available today from a few hundred euros – what remains is the difference in playing feel and the room-filling voice of a real soundboard. Exactly why our buying criteria circle so stubbornly around the action – the part that resists digitisation.

Honest verdict

Nobody needs €200,000 to learn the piano – and no beginner improves faster on a D-274. But knowing what everyone strives for makes you a better buyer: you recognise what marketing words like “concert grand sound” actually mean, and why a good used brand piano often beats a new cheap cabinet. And should you ever be allowed to sit at a real Steinway: play it. The grin comes free.

📖 Read on