Who would have ever thought that the old original Player Piano could inspire the modern lines of disklavier and other electronic player piano systems that are on the market? If you ever get the opportunity to play an original antique player piano you might wonder why they ever bothered.
But of course it was cutting edge technology at the time and was very much a "must have" item for a certain cross-section of society much in the same way that the latest plasma TV screens and home entertainment setups are today. And of course, the popular disklavier pianos by Yamaha are also a must have item amongst certain pianists.
The player piano went through several design changes before settling on a design and then quickly vanishing from production for over 50 years until slick, electronic methods re-opened the doors for the player piano.
I have often longed for a player piano but of course they are more expensive than their purely acoustic counterparts and also, when buying an electronic player piano you are obviously faced with the inevitable prospect that the technology will progress and evolve every couple of years meaning that your piano will quickly become obselete and not worth the initial investment.
The reason that the original antique player pianos died out was because of their bulky size and the fact that you had to have a large piano to house the mechanism. With the electronic versions, these limitations are ALL removed and so it is easy to foresee that the modern day player piano systems will continue to grow from strength to strength.