The founder, Kawai Koichi (1886-1955), studied with Yamaha Innan (Yamaha's founder), worked at Yamaha, and later established the Kawai Musical Instrument Works in 1927. Kawai is currently the second largest Japanese piano manufacturer after Yamaha, and is the designated piano for nine professional music schools in China, including the Central Conservatory of Music. Kawai's grand pianos and high-end upright pianos are made in Japan, while most low-end pianos are made in Indonesia, and Jinbao in Yichang, Hubei Province, is also produced, but it is purely OEM and the parts are all domestic.
The Shigeru Kawai Grand Piano, also known as the SK Series Grand Piano, is a top-of-the-line grand piano developed by Mr. Shigeru Kawai. In the 2007-2008 edition of Piano Buyer, the Japanese-made Shigeru Kawai grand piano was listed as one of the 1A (highest quality) performance pianos, and the only piano made in Japan in 1A.
Kawai is more popular in China with the KU series, which is also the most common among universities, with an average price of less than 30,000 yuan, and the largest KU-A1 can be bought at about 20,000 yuan. For models sold globally, the K series is more recommended, which is a series with relatively high sales in the world. The K-series was previously named K-2 and K-3, but was later redesigned to be named after the K-300, K-500, etc., and the larger the number, the more expensive it became, from the $7,000 K-200 to the $20,000 K-800.
The new K-Series is equipped with Kawai's famous third-generation super-reactive action and mahogany wool hammers, with the K-300 being the most cost-effective, which is 1 cm taller than the K-3, with three die-cast aluminium brackets and a one-metre stand. Compared to the Yamaha U1, the K-300 has a softer and warmer tone, because the K-300 has slightly longer strings, less tension, and a softer string hammer, so although the Yamaha U1 has increased the richness of the tone, the difference in timbre between the two is still obvious. The K-300 is priced at around $8,500, which is lower than the U1 and more cost-effective.
