As a kind of valuable musical instrument with precise and complex mechanism of superior technical content, a piano can give us a service life of several decades. Therefore, it seems to be quite important to select a high-quality piano meticulously on sale. A piano is assemblied with more than 8,000 components and the processing deviation at any parts may become the hidden trouble into breakdown during the long-term of playing probably. Hence it is necessary to apply various inspections on the production technology, select meticulously the tonal quality that mostly suits the personal interests and hobby when you choose a piano for yourself. As a matter of the fact that most customers would take upright pianos at present days for their households, I'd like to introduce the method of choosing pianos for your references on selection in accordance with my summary in the past few years.
        It takes granted that it is just all right to ensure the appearance free from the bump damages in choosing a piano. As for the function, tone color, volume, the feeling on the keyboard and something else that are stranged to the customers, it is actually misunderstood by a lot of people that any changes could be made by piano tuners. The above-mentioned features are hardly stipulated in detail and uniformly in the specifications of the piano production. It is hardly to make essential changes especially for the pianos as finished from the manufactories. I have met a lot of users in the practice of tuning, saying that their piano is not pleasing to the ear and asking for tuning. They think all the same after I made elaborate ajustments to every part of the piano and every specification conformed to the standard completely, complaining that it sounds too much muffled over an octave in treble. I told him that it was disunified in tone-color, which had been resulted from choosing. He said he had never been aware that a piano would need to be chosen! Some players had their pianos chosen by someone else, but gradually found that their pianos sounded awful in a few years. Is it because the careless doing of the piano chooser? Nay. I have found the nature of a player is closely related with the tone-color of his piano in my investigation of few years.
        In my opinion it is quite simple to take such a piano that sounds good but is impossible for me to select 2 pianos with the same tone-color, volume and feeling in touch. These indices are not in a regular pattern, therefore you must select a piano which suits your own according to your nature and favor. Mpst of the exttroverse ones in nature, in general, tend to take the piano with light tone-color to some extent; while the introvert persons in nature like to have soft tone-color for their pianos. I would rather to have an interview with the future player whenever I am asked to choose a piano, including the klds of 3 or 4 years old. I would be aware of his or her nature through talking before choosing the piano for them, or play the samme piece of music with identical strength on different pianos and try to learn which sound good to him. In addition I would open the piano, inspect the parts inside for well assembling and adjustment, examine the tightness of the tuning pegs with tuning key. If they are loose on a new piano, the accuracy of the sound would be hardly maintained for a few years, when the user will undertake the unnecessary cost to change the pegs.
        What the most important is that the tone-color of a piano must be unified. Whether bright or soft tone-color a piano provides, it must be unified relatively. Otherwise, the music played would sound terrible.
        It is better to choose a louder piano, since that shows a better vibrating function of the sound board and the material well selected.
        The feeling to play is also very important. It will make sense whether you can master the correct manner to play smoothly or not in your study. The intensity to strike the keyboard shouldn't be too small, since that would be no good to obtain the sufficient playing strength of fingers in exercise, so that the fingers could not go upright as playing an electronic musical instrument, resulting in the lack of pellet on fast playing and the vagueness of music notes. Otherwise, the over-intensity to strike the keys disables the fingers to move fast on the keyboard and affects the playing speed. With the fragile fingers most of the kids are easily to fracture their fingers in practise because of hard striking on the keyboard. In a word, it is a complex matter to select a desirable piano, wihch need to handle with care, and should not take a rash action.
        For your reference that's all my view point from the summary in the last few years.

        Here are some basic piano words that are frequently encountered. These terminologies will help you to understand more about the piano.
        Action: Any kind of mechanism used in instruments as a means of transmitting the motion of the fingers to the sound producing parts.
        Dampers: A small pieces of wood mechanism that is covered with felt to terminate the vibration of the strings.
        Hammers: A mechanism that strikes the strings to vibrate and make sound.
        Pedal: An action that is operated by the feet.
        Pinblock: Many layers of wood that holds the tuning pins which holds the strings.
        Resonance: The transmission of vibrations from a vibrating body to another body (two tuning forks of the same frequency with the same pitch)
        Resonator: A hollow Chamber that permits to serve to reinforce sounds by resonance.
        Soundboard: The wooden surface over which the strings are stretched, which serves as a resonator.
        Tone: A sound of definite pitch and duration, as distinct from noise. A beautiful tone on the piano means a beautiful sound.
        Tuning: Adjustment of strings in the stringed instruments.
        Tuning Pins: Made of steel and anchored into pinblock, tuning pins hold strings.
        Touch: Force and weight of the finger when it is in contact with the key.