Digital Piano Weighted Hammer Action

  • Thread starter Thread starter washingtonhtsny
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washingtonhtsny

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I am deciding which digital piano to buy. The models I am considering includes Yamaha P120, Roland FP2, Kawai MP8500. Action feel is very important for me and I play classical works. Can someone give me some suggestions? I did quite a bit of search on the internet, there seems to be a lot of conflicing reviews. I went to the a store here but really didn't have any time to experince before the sales person got bored of me. Any suggestion, espeically classical pianist on digital piano, will be greatly appreciated.
 
Hi,
I was looking for the same thing, and I went with the Yamaha P120. I tried out many out, and that was the one I thought felt the best. I'm happy with it! Do you have access to try any out? That would be the best thing to do I think.
Good luck finding the one... :O)
evt
 
Hi,
That guy sounds like a bit of a maniac...ruin budding
prodigies, wreak havoc on pianists, the gift for your step
sons, the choice of brand-name conscious brutes!!!! lol pretty extreme right!

I think the touch sensitivity feels good as compared to others I've played, however, I'm no prodigy. I think you should try it out if possible. The style I play isn't classical really, although dynamics are important in many different styles, and for what I've been playing the p120 is cool.

You may also want to look into Kurzweil. We recently got the Kurzweil K2000 after researching for a keyboard with nice sounds, and good action etc. It's a really awesome keyboard. They sell for around 500 on ebay.
evt
 
I went to Sam Ash today in Mahattan to see pianos. I tested P120, P250, Roland F5 (they don't have F2 there). I think that I am happy with the action of P120 and P250, which is the same graded hammer action. I stood and played some sections from Chopin Etude and Debussy's Riveriere I am pretty happy with the action even thought it didn't feel exactly like on my Mason Hamlin BB but it is do-able. I can actually play PPP on it, but I am not too happy with MF. It might because of the speakers are limited in watts and the room is still noisey.

FP5's action is too light and doesn't feel like a piano for me. The piano sound is really not as real as Yamaha P120's. On P120. I can hear the harmonic rings from other strings. On F5, I cannot hear it. Betweem P120 and P250, the sound and feel didn't sound too different to me for my initial test. But P250 is too big and not portable for my travel purpose at all.

So I wil go with P120.
 
Cool! It's good that you tried them out. I'm very happy with mine.. I hope you enjoy yours too :O)
evt
 
I own the P80, and I also love it. It is now replaced by the P90, but these piano's don't have built in speakers. I run them through a Hi-Fi amplifier (Harman|Kardon) and JBL Control One speakers. That setu works awesome for me. For the best sound quality, I really recommend to buy decent headphones. I own the Sennheiser HD490 which is awesome. I'm really satifsied with it. I've heard some other Sennheiser headphones (I know, this is off-topic) but I think the HD490 sounds best.

Anyway, about the piano: I've heard the P120 once, but I don't think the built-in speakers do the sound justice. But that's always the case with built in speakers. If you'd ever need good, cheap and compact speakers, I can really recommend the JBL Control One's I talked about.

The P120 may sound slightly better sample-wise comapred to the P80, but for my purpose the P80 just sounds awesome. You can set many many variables, like the string resonance washingtonhtsny was talking about for instance.

Any of the P series of Yamaha Digital piano's would be a good buy, however I've never heard the cheaper ones, like the P60...
 
Thanks! I ordered from music123.com and hopefully it will arrive before the weekend. I agree that the internal speakers will not jusfty the sound because its size and probably "low current" circutry. I will hook it up with Onkyo SR702 and 7.1 speakers to see.

Btw, can I ask how much you paid for your headset, Sennheiser HD490? Regards David
 
That was like 4 years ago, but if I remember correctly they were 89 guilders, which would be like $40-50.

Really great headphones, I can really recommend them. They sit very comfortable (the earpads are flat and soft), the sound is like you don't know you're wearing headphones - it's really cool.

And, a bonus feature, the cable is detachable, so if your cable breaks (which is mostly the first and only thing to break on headphones) you can just buy a new one. The cable only connects to the left "speaker", which I also like.

As I said, I own it for about 4 years now, and it has never let me down.



Stan.
 

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I bought a P80 5 years ago. The music store had at the time an electronic monitor they were using as a demo. I got lucky a friend had bought a P80 a couple weeks before and got the monitor throwed in for free since they had bought a lot of gear the year before. I mentioned it to them and they gave me the same deal. I still have the P80 but I bought a Roland RD700 couple months ago. This digital has great hammer action plus expresion/damper pedal hookups.
Randy C
 
P250's internal speakers

Hi,

I just wanted to share this with you;

I went over to a local music store, and I saw the P250. I played it, but it didn;t sound nice whatsoever. It was caused by the speakers, I'm sure. If my P80 had those internal speakers, I probably wouldn't have bought it. Now, I wouldn't want to lose it; it's a really good digital piano.

Stan.
 
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