The two Steinway management teams in New York and Hamburg operate independently in the promotion and marketing of their pianos. The firm has traditionally promoted its product as "the premier piano" and charged a high price commensurate with the status. The cultural differences between America and Europe demand that the sales approach to the potential European customer be a much "softer sell" than the more high-powered  American marketing, which prompts impulse buying. While the two offices exchange promotional materials, sales campaign slogans used in New York rarely translate successfully into German or suit the European market.

The American writer Arthur Loesser, who chronicles the social history of the piano in Men, Women and Pianos, describes the sounds of the Steinway Model D concert grand piano most eloquently:

The end result of the Steinway effort was a tone-producing tool of matchless strength and sensitiveness. It was a structure that could withstand the most passionate punches of the most furious virtuoso. No later-day Liszt could smash it. All of the muscles of the strongest man could now be utilized for tonal expression. Moreover, the unheard-of volume was combined with a noble quality of sound: it was a sound that embodied the nineteenth-century ideal to the full-rich and ringing, and wrapped in overtonal fuzz, especially in the bass. It was a tone that craved to stream out of itself to blend with all other tone, to merge ecstatically into a universal ocean of tone. It was a marvelous kind of sound for the music that people loved then: thick, thundering piles of chord, booming batteries of octaves, and sizzling double jets of arpeggios. But the single Steinway tone struck gently and held, also worked its ineffable spell, taking an endless, yearning time to die.

Clavichords, harpsichords, and the early forms of the piano (fortepiano, pianoforte) have all become antiquated, but many of these historic instruments have been preserved. Some have been copied by modern instrument makers in order to perform music of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries in the perspective of its own time.

The case design of the American Steinway (top) and the Hamburg Steinway (bottom) have different configurations of the music desk. Hamburg concert grands can be identify by a knob for a lid lock visible on the bent side. The usual high-gloss polyester finish that is preferred by the Europeans contrasts the satin lacquer finish of the American pianos.

In New York Steinway, the curve of the arm ends in a sharp corner. On a Hamburg Steinway, the edge is rounded.

The Hamburg has reddish African mahogany for the inside layer of the case. The New York is maple and painted black.

The action in the Hamburg Steinways are supplied by the German Manufacturer Renner.