TopTenREVIEWS

By Wanda Richards

The first Salvi harp was created in 1954 by Victor Salvi. The current owners are his children. They pride themselves on old-world craftsmanship and with keeping with the most recent technology. They combine these two qualities to make Salvi harps that are in use in concert halls all over the world.

Salvi Harps sell pedal and lever harps, however, they do not offer Celtic harps.

Salvi Harps, Inc. sponsors master-classes and competitions. In addition, Salvi Harps continues to innovate and has introduced nylon bushings and double bearing surfaces. These developments have reduced friction that occurs inside the harp. This means the pedals move more easily. Salvi also developed a laminated neck that protects the harp from being damaged.

If you’re lucky enough to live around Anaheim, California you can go their very impressive showroom stocked with many harps and accessories. You can also take lesson at the store by their highly-qualified instructors. If you do plan to visit their showroom, they have lots of information on where to stay and directions on the website. Be sure to check out their Dealers page because you may be pleasantly surprised to find a dealer very close to you.

We were impressed by Salvi Harps’ summer institute at California State University that features many distinguished harpists. If you are able to attend this, you will, no doubt, really enjoy it. They also have college harp programs all over the United States and Canada.

Salvi features a separate section of their website for contests. The pages were very impressive and we like their commitment to the worldwide harp community.

Salvi Screenshots

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Inventory:

Salvi has a very complete list of accessories. They included dollies for moving harps, and a good selection of harp covers. They also offer tuning keys and benches.

Brand Names:

Salvi only offers the Salvi brand, however, Salvi is one of the most renowned harp makers in the world. When you’re selecting your harp, be sure to consider purchasing a Salvi harp.

Features:

Salvi Harps have wonderful write-ups on each of their harps and many of their featured harpists. In fact, they even had short bios on many of them.

Support:

On their Technicians page, they have harp regulators listed. There was a long list of them and hopefully one would be geographically close to you. In addition, they had an e-mail address that customers can write to set up an appointment, but we weren’t as impressed with this as we were with the list we found on the Lyon & Healy website. They actually had a list of the schedule of when the technicians would be in the various locations.

Website Quality:

Salvi Harps’ website was one of the nicest we saw. When you find a harp you like, you are able to see a variety of close-ups photos so you can see what the harp really looks like. Also the extensive write-ups on harps, accessories, and their instructors really stood out from the rest of the harp websites we reviewed. In fact, we wish many of the other harp distributors would visit the Salvi website for tips.

Summary:

The history of Salvi harps and their renown should be enough to convince you to visit their website. However, if you're looking to purchase a harp, read our reviews of the top-ranked sites: Sylvia Woods Harp Center, Harps Etc. and The Harp Connection that offer a more complete selection of harps and accessories.