How piano showrooms trick your ears — and how to pick a piano that sounds good at home

I've been tuning and voicing pianos for years. I thought I knew tone better than anyone. But even I got fooled by a showroom trick today.

Let me explain what happened, and how you can avoid the same trap.

What "good tone" actually means

When we say a piano has good tone, we're really talking about three things:

1. Sustain — how long the note rings
2. Richness — how full and complex the attack sounds
3. Touch response — how the key feels, the dynamic range, the connection between your fingers and the sound

Remember these three. They matter.

The showroom trick

Here's what piano sellers know that most buyers don't:

A large showroom makes every piano sound good.

I'm not exaggerating. Put any piano — even a beaten-up old upright — in a room where one wall is at least 10 metres away, and it will sound impressive after tuning. Here's why:

1. Sustain is free

Large rooms have natural reverb. Every note rings longer. You don't need a good soundboard or long strings — the room does it for you.

2. Harsh tones disappear

That bright, harsh attack you'd hear at home? In a large room, high frequencies decay faster than low frequencies during reflection (the same reason your Wi-Fi drops before your radio does — higher frequencies lose energy over distance). The room naturally softens the tone. What you hear is artificially warm and full.

3. The floor gives you "power"

Showrooms almost always have hard floors — timber or tile, never carpet. These surfaces reflect sound back at you, creating a sense of energy and presence. The piano feels responsive and powerful. It's the floor, not the instrument.

Result: Any piano, tuned, in a hard-floored showroom = sounds good. Even trash.

How I got fooled

I'm a professional. I've tuned thousands of pianos. And I still got caught by this. That's how powerful the room effect is — I'd estimate it accounts for 50% of what you perceive as "good sound" in a showroom.

What happens at home

Your living room is probably 4-5 metres wide. Maybe carpet. Maybe low ceilings.

In this room:

• Sustain is shorter (no reverb help)
• Harsh tones are fully audible (no distance to soften them)
• The floor doesn't reflect much energy back

The piano that sang in the showroom now sounds flat, thin, or harsh. Same instrument, same tuning, completely different character.

How to pick a piano that actually sounds good

If the showroom has hard floors and one wall is 10m+:

Don't trust your ears. You can only hear volume differences, not tone quality. The room blurs the line between good and bad pianos. This is where cheap pianos sell best — the room hides their flaws.

Grand pianos sound better than uprights here, not because they're better instruments, but because they're louder. The room rewards volume.

If the showroom is small (under 10m) with hard floors:

You can rule out pianos that sound dead or have mechanical problems. But you still can't accurately judge tone quality — the floor reflections add "life" that won't exist at home.

If the showroom has carpet in a small room:

This is the most honest environment. You'll hear actual tone quality and feel real touch response. Problems are immediately audible. This is where you should make your decision.

The best test you can do in any showroom:

Close ALL lids — including the top lid and the music desk lid (the first layer). This isn't perfect, but it removes some of the room's influence.

If the piano still feels playable and sounds acceptable with all lids closed, it might be a good instrument.

What about private sellers?

If you're buying from someone's home, watch out for tile or concrete floors. These make any piano sound "punchy" and responsive. You might think "this piano has great touch!" — but it's the floor.

Ironically, if YOUR home has tile floors, you're the ideal buyer for cheap pianos. Tile compensates for many flaws. A piano that sounds thin on carpet will sound fine on tile. This is partly why some Japanese pianos are priced so low — they were designed for hard-floored rooms.

The bottom line

• Large hard-floored showroom: Don't trust what you hear. Volume is the only reliable signal.
• Small hard-floored showroom: Can rule out dead pianos, but can't judge true tone.
• Carpeted small room: Most honest. You hear the real piano.
• Your tile-floored home: Cheap pianos will sound better here than anywhere else.

The showroom is designed to sell, not to reveal. The piano you bring home is the real piano.

Want to check your room before buying?

If you want to understand how YOUR room will affect a piano's sound before you buy, we've built a free Room Modes Simulator that shows you exactly which frequencies your room amplifies or suppresses. Enter your room dimensions and materials, and see what you're working with.

You can even use it before renovating to design a better piano room.