Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Yamah Cable-Nelson

Does anyone has experience with Cable Nelson pianos? Per sales,and also on piano, it is designed and manufactured by Yamaha. Yamaha bought Cable Nelson. Cable Nelso asked to put their name on the piano.

Any one has some experience with it? How's the quality? It's nearly 30% cheaper than a regular Yamaha. Thanks.

The Cable Nelson name is now owned by Yamaha. They build 2 grands that are the same design as the GB1 and GC1 in the Yamaha line with Laminated soundboards. Actions, plate, string size, back structure, etc, same except the board. It does make the bottom end a little tubby in comparison, but it saves alot of money.
They make two vertical pianos too. CN116 same as the T116 (now discontinued) and CN216 similar to the M460. All still with laminated soundborad.
I think the 30% difference is name recognition and soundboard.

I've tried both Cable Nelson CN161 grand and Yamaha GC1 equvalent. The difference in feel of the action between the Yamaha GC1 and the Cable Nelson is easily worth the 30% difference in price for me even if the two sounded identical, and they don't. The Cable Nelson action was very rough, uneven, but the Yamaha GC1 action was excellent, easily as good as the much more expensive C1.

I tried Cable Nelson grand (don't remember which model). In 5 seconds I shook my head and left the bench.

I like the Cable Nelson, but I think John Mila (with all due respect!) is wrong about them being all the same as the Yamahas other than the soundboard. The actions felt a little wobbly to me, and the local salesman did tell me that the jacks inside the action are made of plastic on the CN. However, I did like the piano a lot, and in its price range, was pretty satisfied with it. However, when we buy a new grand piano, we will be looking very seriously at Hailuns.

Yes, John missed the synthetic action parts aspect. Yamaha has chosed to pilot these parts in the CN grands. Specifically the parts are only the jack (present in all Yamaha uprights since 1960) and the repetition lever (balancier). The whippen, hammer flange and hammer shank are wood (and the same as in the GB1/GC1). Other than this and the soundboard that John pointed out the scale is the same.

When fully prepped I can find little or no difference in touch performance and only a little less resonance and projection in the tone. The difference in retail pricing in the CN161 (Indonesian borne) and GC1 (Japanese born) is about $4k. This is a material difference for young families with little performance sacrifice.

I also noticed the difference - sound and touch. Cable Nelson felt more resistant and released not as fast as regular Yamaha. I'm not sure if it worth for the $1200 saving/investment compared to a T-118.

I was at the Yamaha dealer this morning, and a Cable Nelson upright was parked next to (I think) the T118. I'm no piano expert, but even playing a few chords showed a pretty big sound difference between the two. I thought the CN sounded a bit "stuffy". Neither had the lid open, but I didn't spend enough time to see if there was some other obvious reason that the sound was that different. The price on the CN was pretty attractive, but if the sound difference for real the T118 was worth the extra $$$.

Tom