please help me buying a digital piano

[cucudas]

i'm currently a piano majoring at a college
i don't have any piano at my home, so i'm thinkin about buying a digital piano
i could not buy an acoustic piano since i'm living in an apartment
so please help me buying a digital piano which has a graded hammer between 700-1000 USD dollars
thx

[leahcim]

Ok, send me the money and I'll nip to the shop later

Seriously, there are loads of threads in here talking about different makes etc and hundreds of usenet [google groups] threads.

In summary the replies are generally acoustic v digital debates and a list of the models that the posters have [or want to have] In that vein, I've got a yamaha P60 - the action is good [same as the better models], the sound, IMO, not so. I dunno about USA prices, but if you can get a P90 or P120 for $1000 or less, I'd go for that instead. But there's also Roland, Korg, Kerzweil, Technics etc to look at too, you might prefer them.

It really boils down to your budget and subjective things beyond it having the basic "weighted action / piano sound" - you have to visit a store and play a few and compare them.

[violinist]

i'm currently a piano majoring at a college
i don't have any piano at my home, so i'm thinkin about buying a digital piano
i could not buy an acoustic piano since i'm living in an apartment
so please help me buying a digital piano which has a graded hammer between 700-1000 USD dollars
thx

I have a yamaha p-200 at home.  Feel free to e-mail me with questions about it if you are considering that model (I'm not even sure it's available now.)  I got it about 4 years ago.

[jeremyjchilds]

I have a p60 and it serves it's purpose well.

If you are looking for a budget solution to practicing needs, then this is bargain basement...yes the sound...well...sucks compared to the expenseve ones...but how loud will you really need it?

[leahcim]

It's not the volume that made me comment about the sound. It's the zingyness that's left after the initial "sounds kinda like a piano" has worn off.

If I had an acoustic I'd be happier with it - because it'd let me play all hours through headphones [and it's loud enough to make you deaf that way] and the sound although not good, isn't that bad.

But if it's all you've got to play on spending a bit more would probably make sense.

When I bought it, I bought it because I had a low budget and no experience to compare it with and plenty said the action on the yamahas p120s and p250s they had was good and the action is the same [and there weren't so many around 500 quid that had hammer action - today the choice is wider from other makes]

I figured that the sound would easy to replace - and it is, except there's no way to put the midi through a computer and the sound output from the software synth on the computer back to speakers / headphones in the P60 - but there are inputs on the P250 and P120 IIRC.

Similary, there's no way to take the sound output from the P60 [to record or whatever] and have it come out the speakers as well - there is with the P120 or P250.

So that means either buying an amp / speakers for my computer - or listening through headphones connected to that to get a better piano sound - the speakers would probably cost more than the difference between the P60 and P90 today.

If you want speaker output you're better getting the P120 - because you have a much better sound to start with - which is reason enough IMO - but you also have much better way of improving the sound and keeping the same speaker output that you paid for. Assuming you have the budget of course.

If you're happy with headphone listening then the P90 gives you a much better sound to start  with- it's a bit more expensive than the P60, around 100 quid here, but that money, instead of going on speakers you don't want, goes into things that make it a better fake piano.

That said, if you're looking at the P60 - look at the YDP113, it's effectively the P60, with a stand and usually costs less - unless you're gigging [and you wouldn't do that with a P60 anyway] or moving it around a lot, it'll save you the price of a stand.

As I've said before - the price difference [real prices rather than MRRP] between the p60 / p90 / p120 used to be bigger, I think they are close enough now that the P60 isn't worth buying unless you're really stretching your budget to buy it in the first place.

[hahad]

i'm currently a piano majoring at a college
i don't have any piano at my home, so i'm thinkin about buying a digital piano
i could not buy an acoustic piano since i'm living in an apartment
so please help me buying a digital piano which has a graded hammer between 700-1000 USD dollars
thx

Check my post at:

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,9426.msg105973.html#msg105973

May help you decide. I purchased a P120 and still recommend it.

[leahcim]

Check my post at:

https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,9426.msg105973.html#msg105973

May help you decide. I purchased a P120 and still recommend it.

Your comments on Ivory are interesting. I'd suggest that Ivory has things other than it's willy-waving sample set size and a computer chip that are making the output better than your Clavinova - e.g that they sample other pianos than Yamaha [subjective, of course, and I note they have a C7 in there alongside the Bosendorfer and Steinway] - and that they calculate sympathetic resonance with maths.

Gem are worth looking at in that latter respect - they are doing the symp res with math [and also using math to do velocity changes, rather than using n-layers of switched samples, key off instead of having key off samples etc] with their DRAKE-based instruments.

They are still using a hybrid of sample set and math rather than the hypothetical "ideal" digital piano that might have no sample set at all. I don't think they've got much w.r.t "a product" that directly competes with the P120 yet [if you're looking at the P250 / RD700sx / MP9500 et al, they arguably do though]

They no doubt will have before long though [there should be a pRP800 but I've not seen anyone selling one, just a press release that didn't suggest a price or anything]

Worth listening to though, especially as the "Yamaha / Roland" choice does have a lot to do with the popularity / availability / visibility of those manufs. I've only listened to it online as yet [and there's no dealer within a short walk / drive that stocks them here] but what I heard was impressive.

imho gem's approach is the one that's going to work long term - as opposed to adding bigger and bigger sample sets.

[colourblue]

Guys, pls help!
I want to buy a digital piano but so confused now. i have tried some and those below are about my budjet:

Yamaha P60 (the sound is great, not many functions)
Yamaha P90 (more functions but no speaker, the sound is good but not as nice as P60)
Korg SP 200 (good sound, no speaker, not many functions)
Korg SP 300 (good sound, speaker, not many functions)
Casio PX400R (good sound, alot of great functions, however, not many good reviews so far)

So please give me some advises which one should I go for, been looking around for a month but still couldnt decide

Forgot to tell, I am going to use this piano to learn Jazz (together with Classical), so don't know which one is best for me

[bm]

Hi everybody,

I'm a newbie here as you can see (and not so old in piano playing... only old in my life  ), but just to give you some feedback from my point of view..
And please don't pay to much attention to my langage.. I'm French, from PARIS (France).

When I decided to get an electronic piano, that was first because I wanted to have something :
- which looks like a piano, especially from my finger's point of view,
- I can play with headphones (it's not 'cause of my neighbours, but my wife..)
- with a good sound of piano in headphones.

After having checked different things, my choice was, for my X'mas 2004, a P120.

8 months later, what I can say about this, from my point of view, and which is sometimes different from what I thought 1 or 2 month after my purchase, is :
- pretty good for "fingers" (including arms...), 
- pretty good sound in good headphones (I'm especially sensitive to this point, and can't listen music of poor quality),

main concerns are :
- difficulty to make differences between ppp and pp or pp and p when playing, and between f....
- when you keep down one key for a long time, P120 sounds very quickly as if you leave it ! For example I have presently this problem in BACH's Prelude 10 book 1, where there is no real differences on records, from the very beginning of the prelude, when I leave or when I keep one key down with my left hand, while going on with my right hand ! (this is,  when I compare with a "real" piano).

But in my opinion, P120 is a good choice, for the price (also it helps me to keep contact with a keyboard during holidays, I can take it, and I do !)

BM

[leahcim]

Yamaha P60 (the sound is great, not many functions)
Yamaha P90 (more functions but no speaker, the sound is good but not as nice as P60)

What are you comparing these with? All with each other, or against a real acoustic too?
I think you need to play a few acoustic instruments first [i.e grand pianos] to get a feel for the action and the sound - at which point I'd hope that you'd think none of them sounded that good - bm's points about the dynamics / expression are valid.

The reason I ask is partly my own subjective bias of course, but to me the P60 is passable, but nothing special and the Korg's sound is $%#$% terrible The p90 sound, to me, was significantly better than the p60.

Switch off all the reverb & fancy effects when you try them as well - it'll show what the piano sample sounds like [when I practise, I don't use reverb, because it's easy to rely on the reverb to connect the sound when it should be your playing doing it]

But, that said, sound is very subjective - but logically, it wouldn't make sense for Yamaha to make their more expensive digital pianos have an inferior sound to their cheapest one.

Hence my surprise that you're saying the P60 sounds better than the P90 - I don't think you'd find many people that did think that - that's not to say you're wrong, it just begs the question why?

To me, yamaha pianos are too bright, perhaps the more realistic yamaha sound from the P90 means you don't like it?  The P90 does have a mellower sound as the variation of the main sound which, to me, was better than the main sound [aiui the p120 doesn't, the variation is brighter still]

If so, I'd look at the other makes who sample other pianos [steinways / faziolis / etc] - I'd at least try a Roland [should be easy to find], and consider the prp700/800 from GEM [which aren't so easy to find] they should be appearing in the next couple of weeks aiui [at least here in the UK] and have the fancy physical modelling 32 bit processor in them.

But out of your list I'd get the P90 + monitor speakers [Or possibly, the P120 if you want built in speakers]