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Though the chart pretends to link each piano to the player's skill level, this is pure nonsense.
It's simply a way to induce the buyer to spend the greatest amount of money.

Caveat Emptor I guess.....

+1

With his chart, grade 5 onward needs wooden keys.

Absolute stuff and nonsense. What possible grounds can there be for this? It's far sillier than saying that no great work of art could ever be painted except with oils.

Poppycock.

This list reflects price, but price doesn't correspond to suitability for a particular level of playing. For example the CP300 and P155 are exactly the same and the clavinova is just a hair better if at all.

For all their differences, I would say all these pianos are suitable for play up to a reasonably high level, and then if you are seeking to be a concert pianist, you need to get an acoustic grand. Basically, these pianos are all as good as an upright (though the bottom two are iffy). If an upright is suitable, so will these pianos be, more or less.

The AvantGrand probably is better than an acoustic upright in some ways, so I will exclude it from what I just said...it probably is more suitable to a higher level of playing than the others are.

If I were to group these I would say the first two are low end, the rest are acceptable, and the AG is outstanding. Beyond that personal taste is more important than ranking.

I don't think any of those can compete with a good upright. Maybe in terms of action (I know Roland's PHA III can do that), but not in terms of sound. How good the upright needs to be to better than various DPs, I don't know. As always, it's a question of money and tradeoffs.

People tend to forget that a digital usually just plays back a recording. Which means that you're missing a lot of the nuances that an acoustic can give you, even though it sounds nice enough when you're listening as opposed to playing.

There are digitals that model acoustics too, but they always seem to have a sound that is not to everyone's taste. Other than that, I don't know what they are capable of. Haven't tried one yet. Maybe they will eventually evolve into a being a good solution to "the piano problem".

I didn't intent to start another digital vs acoustic debate.
I guess the conclusion is, if a student, with a current model of DP as the primary practice instrument and occasional access to an acrostic (like weekly lessons), doesn't learn well at the early stage, the DP is not to be blamed. The category of P155 and above, can carry a student fairly far.

This probably answers my question, I think I will keep the CDP-120 for another year or so, then will get a mid category DP, somewhere between P155 or CN33 but the next generation, to get the boy going, until he developers a personal taste, then we will review it again, we might have moved by then and might be able to get an acoustic in addition to the digital.

A side note, when we play at night when my younger son is sleeping, we use headphones, one connected to the piano directly, another connected to PianoTeq, my 8 year old clearly prefers the PianoTeq. However, he prefers not to use headphone, and has never complained about the CDP yet.

Cheers

On the Yamaha site I found the following.....

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GH / GHE (Graded Hammer effect):
One of Yamaha's premium weighted actions, provides greater accuracy for faster repetetive passages required by intermediate and advanced pianists. Professional grade components provide a smoother,quiter mechanism when striking the keys.
GHS (Graded hammer Standard):
Well suited for the beginner pianist and delivers the graded, weighted touch piano teachers recommend for building proper technique for playing acoustic pianos.
GH3:
Like GH / GHE, but GH3 also swings back faster, like high quality piano keys. GH3 allows the player to feel the weight of the key when depressed a second time, even when the player has not completely released the key after the first push of the key....
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So seemingly the GH/GHE & GH3 actions would cater for "intermediate and advanced pianists"

So to take Grade 8 for as advanced, then the p155/CP33 would suffice according to Yamaha...

You are missing all the KAWAI range, specially the CS series

Only that I finally found that the higher-end actions (Yamaha or other brands) are so much better then the P155 one that I was eventually willing to pay the higher price.