The digital piano thread

Jonathan O'Neill Hi Jonathan. Congrats! That is very exciting. I do not know the particular hybrid piano but I do know the Yamaha hybrids are quite impressive. Definitely a massive upgrade over the Roland FP-10. I hope your wait for delivery goes as quickly as possible =)

Dustin Anderson Thanks very much, Dustin! I'm like a child at Christmas time to be honest :) I've watched a lot of video reviews and it really sounds like a hell of a piano. Even with comparisons against Roland's LX9 (I haven't seen a comparison with Yamaha's flagship CLP) it held up very well and was suggested to be much closer to an authentic acoustic piano experience. I'll give a little update after playing for a couple of weeks.

Noel Nguyen Yes, I caught some of your enviable Mozart on your own Kawai, Noel! Very nice indeed, something to aspire to.

Trying out all the different tones/instrument settings is a lot of fun but also, for me, a deep rabbit hole that always risks derailing my practice! 😁

Larry K I agree about digital pianos. However, I generally find the silent Yamahas slow, and the actions tend to feel odd when they are on silent mode. Is yours slow?

I have never played a silent Bösendorfer, but I hear those are even slower than the silent Yamahas, but also less clicky and more predictable.

Maria I find the silent practice setup on Yamaha pianos to be so weird, in terms of sound latency, MIDI velocity scaling, and listening on headphones, that I cannot stand to play that way.

So, I can’t tell you if my Yamaha is slow. I know that you are using an upright with magnets to improve repetition speed so maybe all uprights will feel slow to you.

Did you know that Yamaha bought Bösendorfer? Technology has flowed both ways.
 

The silent and Disklavier systems from Yamaha have moved to Bösendorfer, and the sound of the Bösendorfers have influenced the newer series of Yamaha grands, like the CX line.

I fervently dream of a Yamaha DCX3, a six foot Disklavier grand, but it is probably $80k. 

Bösendorfers are out of reach for me.

My wife is deadset against my getting a grand, so, this may remain a dream.

Maria Great article! Thanks for sharing it.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Yamaha. They treated me very well during the pandemic, shipping me the top of the line DYUS5 when I ordered the DYUS1 and they could not make their delivery date.

The fact that they are making Bösendorfer more Austrian speaks to Yamaha’s integrity. If I could get away with it, I’d drop $200k on a Bosie in a minute.

As it is, I did not tell my wife what I paid for my piano. She was studying in Paris, I was lonely in New York. I considered it a fair trade.

Repetition speed is not the only factor when picking a piano but it is amusing that the magnets give you hyper-repetition speed, lol.

I’d be fine with the standard repetition speed provided by the double escapement of a grand. I’d buy a grand for the sound plus that.  A six foot grand piano would be perfect for a 1200 square foot apartment.

Will it happen? I don’t know. I have been under tremendous pressure for two years to sell my piano because my wife wanted to move to France or Ireland, and apartments are so small over there.

I finally rejected an overseas move and canceled the sale of my piano to my teacher (Juilliard/Yale). He was fine with buying my piano but he can play anything.

Larry K 

I think my upright is a similar speed to the majority of grands. 

What is amusing about the magnetic action?

From what I understand, Bösendorfer was financially unstable and Yamaha purchasing the company gave them enough financial stability to move all of their manufacturing back to Austria. 

Bösendorfer pianos are not similar to Yamahas (in my opinion), and even though they are owned by Yamaha, they are still independently-operated as a separate Austrian company. You probably already know that.

https://www.diepresse.com/350249/yamaha-boesendorfer-soll-in-drei-jahren-schwarze-zahlen-schreiben

Maria Well, the magnets are a trick, a clever trick. The idea makes me smile, that’s all.

I recommended the Seiler to my teacher but I believe he found the price of them out of his range.

Not many uprights use magnets or springs to increase repetition speed.

I think the newer Yamahas have changed their sound profile with some influence from Bösendorfer.
 

I’m saying the opposite of what you said, that some lines of Yamaha pianos have moved in the direction of Bösendorfer. I think the “brightness” criticism caused Yamaha to change their approach.

My DYUS5 has German Roslau strings and German Werzen felts. It’s a Japanese piano that speaks German, lol.

Plus, I love its music desk. I just don’t find many uprights with a good music desk.

It’s a wonderful thing Yamaha did to save Bösendorfer. 

Acoustic pianos are under tremendous pressure from digital pianos, in terms of sales numbers. I’d hate for a storied company like Bösendorfer to fold. 

Larry K 

Yes, some of the Yamahas are moving in that direction. I still prefer German/Austrian/Bavarian (like my Seiler!) pianos.

I believe Feurich and Steingraeber have repetition technologies, but they are slightly different from Seiler's SMR.

Bösendorfer is highly unlikely to go out of business. 

Maria Do you live in Germany? 

Bösendorfer probably wouldn’t have gone out of business but they could have dwindled without a cash infusion from Yamaha.

I thought of getting a Sauter upright but the price was staggering. If I’m going to spend $40k, I might as well buy a grand. 
 

Unfortunately, Germany doesn’t make that many pianos because their cost structure is so high.

Larry K 

Germany makes quite a few pianos. C. Bechstein (not the Academy or Residence lines), Blüthner and Rönisch (same company), Sauter, Schimmel (Konzert and Classic lines), August Förster, Steingraeber, and Seiler (not the ED and Johannes lines) are all made in Germany.

Austria, with only Bösendorfer and Feurich's Vienna line, has quite a few less piano manufacturers. The rest of the Feurich lines are made in China. Out of the entire DACH region, Switzerland has by far the least, with no piano companies (to the best of my knowledge).

Why do you ask if I live in Germany?

Maria I guess because of your love of German pianos.

I meant in terms of numbers. My query returned that Yamaha produces over 20,000 pianos in Japan and Germany produces around 10,000.

Yamaha produces six to eight times the number of grands as all the German companies.

Larry K Yes, but the German (and Austrian) pianos are handmade and take longer. The cheaper-line Yamaha grands, for example, are much faster to manufacture.

What was the number for the grands? All I could find is that Yamaha makes an estimated 100,000 pianos in both Japan and Indonesia annually. 

Maria I limited my query to Germany and Japan, as I felt that was a fairer comparison. 

Here it is, 

https://claude.ai/share/7cfd18fa-ab28-432c-b287-651b3eec224c

It is quite a complicated answer.

The result says that Germany produces about 2200 grands while Yamaha in Japan produces 16,000.

Germany has gone for the top of the market. That makes it difficult to survive. 

Larry K AI tends to hallucinate about piano-related questions. I don't think those numbers are correct. Yamaha says they make about 25,000 pianos in Japan each year, but they don't publicly disclose grand vs. upright. 

Hamburg Steinway makes about 1,000 grands each year, but the rest don't have statistics about grands vs. uprights. 

Maria It’s hard to get accurate counts but I’m confident that Yamaha builds far more pianos in Japan than Germany builds in Germany.

I’m just glad to see Yamaha build as many acoustic pianos as they do, in as many different price categories.

Most people simply cannot afford to buy a German made acoustic piano, upright or grand.