Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Yamaha CP50 review (w/comparison to CP5)

After spending the day with the Yamaha CP50, here's a quick review.

the negatives ..

1. The graded action is very heavy in the lower range
2. Keys have a very plastic feel
3. USB socket is located on the back of the unit next to the power cord
4. Damper returns to default settings every time unit is powered off

.. and positives

1. Great sampling of Yamaha's CF3 concert grand
2. Lots of sustain
3. Nice variety of piano voices
4. Lots of ways to customize piano voices to suit your taste
5. Records in WAV format

To sum up ..

The negatives are very minor and the positives really do outweigh the little inconveniences I described. I would suggest, however, that if you are used to a light feel and play for long periods you may want to consider the CP5. It's next up in the CP line so it costs more but it has a much lighter action.

Keep in mind though that the CP5's keys are not graded. They do have a nice texture though and feel very good to the touch. The keys are also made of real wood, with a plastic overlay. (I don"t think this makes much of a difference and is more of a selling point.) With the CP5 you also get a front loading USB socket. A very nice feature for someone who does lots of recording.

back to the CP50

If you're looking for portability/durability the CP50 is hard to beat. It's compact and relatively light at around 45 lbs. It also has a more solid (metal) construction than previous models such as the CP33 which had an all plastic casing.

one final note ..

One of the best features of the CP line (CP50, CP5, CP1) is the ability to record in WAV format. It is an indispensable feature. It's literally only a matter of seconds from keyboard to iPod, iTunes, editing software, CD, etc.

Thank you for the review - always interesting to read others' thoughts.

By the way, is there any reason why you omitted the first line from your initial post in the piano forum?

Regarding the criticisms:



I expect these settings can be stored to one of the preset memories. What kind of adjustments can be made to the CP50's functionality, just out of interest?

Cheers,
James
x

James,

The reason I eliminated that line was because on re-reading the post I decided that it was of little value to the reader to know that I owned the instrument, though I could be wrong about that. You may have noticed other slight changes in the text. They were purely arbitrary.

Preset memories?

What a novel idea! (I guess you can tell this is the first time I've owned one of these things. lol) I'll have to go to the PDF and look it up.

As far as adjustments to the functionality, parameters can be adjusted for most functions. Value can be increased/decreased with one of three knobs under the display. It's actually set up very conveniently. These knobs (there are 10 in total) were one of the features which drew me away from the ES6, which is all push-button.

Aurelius5, thanks for clarifying.



I was particularly interested in the damper pedal settings - what kind of adjustments can be made here?



Yes, the ES6 (like the Yamaha P155) is a rather difference animal to the CP50. I think a closer comparison would be the MP5/MP6.

Cheers,
James
x

I'm a little sketchy on the terminology but I think it has to do with release or decay.. or something to that effect.

The three damper settings are abbreviated on the display as "Rel", "Dmpr" and "Time"