Review of a Costway PU leather and wood piano bench

Sick of a folding piano bench that creaked when I was recording, and of stubbing my toes on its feet that stick out, I decided to finally buy a traditional piano bench.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find one in the shops I looked at, unless it was small and way too low.  I don't know why they're nearly all so low, now, many are 10 cm even lower than the one I bought, they're useless for traditional pianos which have the keys at a fixed height, and they're not marketed as being specially sized (e.g. for kids or portable keyboards).  Ideally, I wanted one long enough for playing duets, but normal sized will do.  I took a gamble on buying this one on‑line (from Bunnings), based on the advertised measurements being adequate, but I should have known better—they lied.

It's a Chinese-made product, of course.  Most of the goods in stores seem to be, these days.  And lying about specifications seems to be par for the course with their goods.  The box is the only thing with actual dimensions written on it, but they're the size of the cardboard box.

I didn't expect anything fancy, and while I still expect something of reasonable quality for that price for such a simple object (that aspect of it is about right—there's nothing special, or difficult to manufacture, nor any expensive parts, with an ordinary piano bench), I definitely expect them to give correct measurements for furniture that you're buying on line with no way actually inspect it in person.

I wanted a simple fixed‑height one, no fancy bits to wobble about, fiddle with, or break.  Nor one with a price that's more than half of what I paid for my piano, brand new.  And one with some storage, there's a few bits and bobs that go with my plastic piano that need somewhere to live in‑between their occasional use.  And having had an organ bench with studs in it that were painful to sit on, I wanted something with a plain flat top to it.  Some cushioning is desirable, though I've used benches with none before quite okay, but great big fat cushions (or loose ones) can actually be a nuisance in themselves.  With piano keyboards being so long, it's handy to be able to scoot about on the bench to sit in a better place to play prolonged bits at the low or high end.

As mentioned above, I would have liked a wider seat suitable for playing duets.  While it'd be once a blue moon I'd do that at home, I do quite often when away.  And it gives you a convenient place to stack your music, right next to you, while your practicing.  Two small adults could just about squeeze onto this, though I'm not sure how much I'd trust its weight carrying ability (it claims 200 kg).  But I reckon that a couple of young kids learning to play could manage to fit on it easily enough.

Looking around various on-line sites somewhat local to me (well, shipping from within the country, supposedly), they all seem to be selling the same products (assuming that these websites are actual competitors, and not just three or four differently named sites for the same business).  There's not a lot of choice, the same modest priced ones, the same horrendously expensive ones, and the same badly photoshopped images.

My piano is (now) on a homebuilt fixed height piano stand that I made to be stable on a padded carpeted floor, and have the top of the white keys at a standard height for grand pianos (around 73 cm above the floor), allowing practice at home under expected conditions for playing elsewhere.  So I wanted a bench that was the right height to suit (with your feet reasonably flat on the floor, and your arms the right height a bit above the keys).  I didn't want to modify the stand to lower the keyboard abnormally.  And it shouldn't be that hard to find a piano bench for a normal keyboard height.

I didn't really want to have to make my own bench, too.  The metalwork I used to build the stand isn't strong enough to carry a person's weight (in my opinion, even if the manufacturer thinks it could).  And I'm too allergic to wood dust to want to do any lengthy woodworking tasks.  Length‑wise and width‑wise there's a fair bit of leeway for something to be okay, but height‑wise there's only a very narrow margin between too short or two tall.

My folding bench is set up for a height of 50 cm (that's the height my bum is at when I sit on the bench and squash its cushion down), and that suits me about right.  So I went looking for a fixed bench of that height.  Found one which claimed that, and only has a thin cushion on top, so it ought to be reasonably close to the indicated height.

But no…  I can tell it's too low the moment I sit on it.  I end up bending my wrists backward to play (that's one reason why you need one the right height).  There's a lot of people who play like that, and it's wrong, it interferes with proper playing, and eventually causes injuries.  Measuring its height, the claimed 50 cm is actually in the air above the cushion, and if I squash the cushion down like when you're sitting on it, it's only about 47 cm tall.  Or, to put that in old‑school measurements, it's a bit over an inch shorter than it needs to be, and what it's supposed to be.  So, it's not the advertised height (the product is not “as described”), and it's sufficiently different to be a significant problem (for me, at least).

What to do?  Talking with the supplier they'd offer a refund but want me to pay for postage back, because they say it's not a fault/quality issue (completely ignoring the problem of the product not being as described, which is grounds for refund according to Australian consumer law).  Or offering me a $10 discount and I can keep it.  I'm of the opinion that's unacceptable, and that they should be correcting the dimensions that they advertise the product as being.

I could try finding a cushion that's sufficiently firm enough to add the required height (most are too squishy), or make my own.  Either of which are going to cost me more than $10 in time, effort, and whatever I purchase.  And I don't want a loose cushion on top.  I could replace the bench's cushion completely, but that will cost more than $10 in foam, never mind a new cover (e.g. $30/metre for vinyl).

I could attach some feet to the legs and make it taller, that way.  Again, that's going to cost me more than $10 in time, effort, and parts.  Though that's probably going to be the best solution.  But by the time you've gone browsing for what you could use, then put things together, that's easily half a day gone.  Time and effort that I shouldn't have to be wasting, since I expected to buy something that was suitable as it was.

And ignoring all of the above, I'm also a bit dubious about the PU leather seat cover.  Pseudo‑leather is notorious for going bad after a few years (like with my Sennheiser headphones sitting in the bench in the above photo), though just about every piano bench advertised used it, unless you were spending a few hundred dollars.  Vinyl or fabric would have been fine, they don't need to be expensive leather.

The rest of the bench seems about par for the course, thickish shiny black paint, usual thickness wood for the sides and legs as such musical furniture has used for the last several decades, metal corner braces, hardboard bottom, a fairly cheap prop to hold the seat up for you (but it should do the job), storage space you could fit a sustain pedal and headphones in (things that can fit into a space just 68 mm high), oddly it feels like there's some polystyrene under the seat on the inside, and the bench looks quite acceptable when closed.  Those aspects of it seem fine.

You have to assemble it yourself, you find that the wood isn't exactly true, and you have to force it into shape with a proper spanner (not the thin bit of metal pretending to be a spanner that they provide), hoping that you can apply enough force non‑destructively, but it's acceptable enough after that.  The problem that I do find unacceptable is when you advertise a product you need to correctly describe its dimensions, particularly surface and seating heights of furniture.