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Joined: Jul 2014
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I like how in Europe, it seems that one can go to a piano store and try most of the different digitals. Here in my area in the US, for the digitals I was looking at, it required visiting 3 different stores, all quite distant from each other. It seems that in the US, either the different manufacturers coexist less well with each other, or the piano stores can't afford to be resellers for many different brands. In Europe piano dealers don't carry all brands of digitals as well, mostly due to space reasons, so they usually focus on one high-end and one low-end brand in the same store. But larger more general music stores carry all brands and all models from Casio CDP-S100 up to the high-end AvantGrand and Novus. That's why I could travel to and visit one store and play through (almost) the entire product catalog of all known brands. Obviously, there are some models missing here and there - showrooms can only house so many models in Europe. But for broad overview and first impression it's more than enough.
Yamaha P-515
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Bragging time? In my home town of ~230k people there are (I think) four music stores carrying digital pianos. One has Yamaha, Casio and Roland, second has Kawai, Roland and Casio, third has Roland and Korg (and Artesia, meh...), fourth has Casio, Nord, Roland and Yamaha. But I don't know which models are available in the stores to try out. And only one of them mentions Casio "hybrids" on their website. Wassup with that?
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Joined: Jul 2014
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Bragging time? In my home town of ~230k people there are (I think) four music stores carrying digital pianos. That's the nice thing about smaller countries, where smaller cities see this amount of commercial activity. My home town of similar size has only one Steinway dealer and no stores with digitals on display. So if I'm a Steinway Artist have 100k+ in excess, I can have the best grand in almost walking distance.
Yamaha P-515
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Joined: Nov 2017
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Last edited by MikePianoLover; 03/03/19 12:01 PM.
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Joined: Apr 2007
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Bragging time? Did I mention that the Yamaha dealer in Bulgaria has sold only two NU1-s for its entire history and no AG-s Well, maybe there are other people like me who ordered through Thomann, who knows... P.S. No NV10-s either.
Last edited by CyberGene; 03/03/19 04:57 PM.
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Joined: Jun 2014
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I wonder how many of the things they sell in general these days. As far digitals go I had chat one with the manager of acoustic section once way back, the store I bought my CA78, he said the bulk of the sales are by far the starter pianos like the Casio PX160 and little else by comparison.
I live in a city with a population of about half a million. Every few months I go there, take an early afternoon off and play their acoustic grands, The staff are every welcoming, they know me and I can play whatever I fancy on display for as long as I want. I have yet to see single person on the acoustic floor upstairs in the times I have been there, and I have the floor to myself apart from the staff that walk around occasionally. I obviously avoid weekends.
P.S I do believe in supporting local stores seeing they provide the means to test pianos and they are very welcoming where I am, no pushy sales types at all. I'd feel really bad if I ordered a piano elsewhere even if it is cheaper online. I learned they'll match prices to other official stores quite happily if you ask, but prices are pretty much the same throughout the UK, and as long as it is close to the standard price I see no point haggling. I do none of the, "I'll give you this low offer x, take or leave it" as seems to be accepted in the US from what I read here, I find that rude, as long as they don't take the mickey with inflated prices over other places.
Selftaught since June 2014. Books: Barratt classic piano course bk 1,2,3. Humphries Piano handbook, various... Kawai CA78, Casio AP450 & software pianos. 12x ABF recitals. My struggles: https://soundcloud.com/alexander-borro
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Joined: May 2018
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Bragging time? Did I mention that the Yamaha dealer in Bulgaria has sold only two NU1-s for its entire history and no AG-s LATEST MUSIC NEWS: HEAR ALL ABOUT IT!33% of all Yamaha AvantGrands sold in Bulgaria are returned to the sellers. For the new "X" generation of AvantGrands the number is even 100%! " Bulgaria is simply one heck of a tough market", the head of Yamahas Customer retention department said in a statement earlier today in Tokyo, before committing ritual suicide to massive volleys of applause from colleagues, family and friends.
Physical instruments: Roland FP-30, and E-28 Virtual instruments: "The Experience" piano collection, NI "The Maverick", Galaxy II Grand piano collection, Synthogy Ivory II Studio Grands, Production Voices Estate Grand, Garritan CFX Lite, Pianoteq 7.5.2 Focus: 1850±100 years
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Yes, naming GP500 « hybrid », is misleading when other brands use a true grand action. So Casio keeps pushing that their GP500 uses a Bechstein grand piano action. Based on what I see on this forum, I have to ask: what is the real story here? What of Bechstein's do they really use? And why would Bechstein involved themselves? Let me just say I am not planning to get a GP500, but just wondering what the deal with Bechstein is.
across the stone, deathless piano performances "Discipline is more reliable than motivation." -by a contributor on Reddit r/piano "Success is 10% inspiration, and 90% perspiration." -by some other wise person "Pianoteq manages to keep it all together yet simultaneously also go in all directions; like a quantum particle entangled with an unknown and spooky parallel universe simply waiting to be discovered." -by Pete14
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Joined: Aug 2018
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Yes, naming GP500 « hybrid », is misleading when other brands use a true grand action. So Casio keeps pushing that their GP500 uses a Bechstein grand piano action. Based on what I see on this forum, I have to ask: what is the real story here? What of Bechstein's do they really use? And why would Bechstein involved themselves? Let me just say I am not planning to get a GP500, but just wondering what the deal with Bechstein is. IIRC, the keys on the GP500 are made by Bechstein. Note that Bechstein only supplies the keys and have nothing to do with anything else on this DP. Not even the action.
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Joined: Mar 2014
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Yes, naming GP500 « hybrid », is misleading when other brands use a true grand action. So Casio keeps pushing that their GP500 uses a Bechstein grand piano action. Based on what I see on this forum, I have to ask: what is the real story here? What of Bechstein's do they really use? And why would Bechstein involved themselves? Let me just say I am not planning to get a GP500, but just wondering what the deal with Bechstein is. IIRC, the keys on the GP500 are made by Bechstein. Note that Bechstein only supplies the keys and have nothing to do with anything else on this DP. Not even the action. Not directly but most important thing is that this Casio series has Bechstein sound as the main sound. So keyboard+sound.
Roland LX708
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IIRC, the keys on the GP500 are made by Bechstein. I don't think that is true. The quote on the web site only says "The keyboard is made of the same high-quality Austrian spruce as the keyboards on C. Bechstein grand pianos.". I'm sure that if Bechstein were actually manufacturing the keys too, they wouldn't be silent about that. Seeing how their marketing was successful in letting people believe all kind of things (the action is a hybrid action, the action was designed by Bechstein, the action is manufactured by Bechstein, etc. - all things that they didn't claim outright, but that their marketing material led people to believe) they surely wouldn't forget to make a very prominent mention of it if Bechstein actually manufactured their keys. Since they don't mention it, I guess it is not the case either. To get back to Tyrone's question: The current material on the GPs is much less sensational than it was in the beginning, about the cooperation with Bechstein. If you read between the lines in the material they have now, I think the involvement of Bechstein was three-fold: 1. They let Casio sample their piano, and were available as consultants regarding the proper sound. 2. They were available as consultants regarding the features of a proper grand action, during Casio's design of the action in the GPs. 3. They allowed Casio to use their name for marketing purposes, and have some sort of deal so that Bechstein sells the GP models via their dealers.
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Joined: Feb 2019
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The reading between the lines of this is interesting. Bechstein press release
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So you’re saying that Bechstein simply laid back (consultants) and let Casio do all the work, whilst they (Bechstein) cashed in on the use of their brand name. No?
Casio: so what do you think about this? Consultant: looks good to me!
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So you’re saying that Bechstein simply laid back (consultants) and let Casio do all the work, whilst they (Bechstein) cashed in on the use of their brand name. No?
Casio: so what do you think about this? Consultant: looks good to me! That was a sweet deal for Bechstein! And regarding the blurb about the brand ambassador, what would a brand ambassador say? That they didn't like the product? (Although that's been done before!)
across the stone, deathless piano performances "Discipline is more reliable than motivation." -by a contributor on Reddit r/piano "Success is 10% inspiration, and 90% perspiration." -by some other wise person "Pianoteq manages to keep it all together yet simultaneously also go in all directions; like a quantum particle entangled with an unknown and spooky parallel universe simply waiting to be discovered." -by Pete14
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Joined: Jun 2013
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“That was a sweet deal for Bechstein!†Indeed it was.
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regards Pete
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So you’re saying that Bechstein simply laid back (consultants) and let Casio do all the work, whilst they (Bechstein) cashed in on the use of their brand name. No?
Casio: so what do you think about this? Consultant: looks good to me! To be honest, yes, I think a nice sum of money made its way from Casio to Bechstein for this. But I didn't want to imply that Bechstein didn't also give back useful advice in what I think was their consulting role.
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Joined: Mar 2014
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Putting aside this misinformation- the keys are awesome and even if they are not made by Bechstein they sure are on grand piano level.
Roland LX708
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Joined: Sep 2009
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Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
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You read the press release?
Did you have a barf bag handy? Did your BS-detector blow up? Did your palm strike you in the face?
Summary: That's a Casio piano. (It even has a calculator app built into the UI.)
Conclusion: This isn't the piano you're looking for. Move along. Move along.
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