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What do you think about this piano:

https://m.thomann.de/gb/thomann_dp_95_b.htm

Seems like it's a good piano, how does it compare to for example
Yamaha p 45?

A house brand piano? Blech! Not me. Not ever.

What do you mean with a "house brand piano".

I don't think you'll find many here advocating a digital piano made by a company that doesn't specialise in their construction. The safest bet would be to stick to the main companies

Yamaha
Kawai
Roland
Casio
Korg
Nord

It's made by the Hong Kong based Medeli and I think it's already a quite old model. Has been around at Thomann for a while...

Medeli has improved throughout the years, but I really don't like the sound samples of the DP-95 on Thomann's website.

It has a lot of "features" that are not necessary for piano playing.

If looking at budget digital pianos from "less reputable" manufacturers then I'm sure there are better alternatives, like some newer Medelis (as "Gear4Music", "Thomann", "Neuwerk", "Fame" or "Classic Cantabile" perhaps) or some of the better Dynatones (as "Steinmeyer").

(Both Medeli and the the South Korean Dynatone are often sold under random brands of German or UK music stores.)

Medeli's "K8" action might be decent. (Not that I really know...) If the random German music stores says that it's "triple sensor" and the model obviously looks like a Medeli on the Medeli website, then it has the K8 action.

This is what the latest mid-range Medelis sound like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F9oM-jGmdA

For high-range Medelis check out the DP-90U demos on Gear4Music's YouTube channel.

And Dynatone has their own YouTube channel. They have also improved slightly from the "90's Clavinova" sound to their latest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1J-AINVbB0



How so?

If there are e.g. positive reviews on Thomann's website there's always the chance that many of them are "less educated" i.e. people don't necessarily know what to expect (and demand) from a "decent" or "good" digital piano in 2019. And soon 2020.



You get more "features", but probably the overall quality is inferior.

Just curious but are this Williams keyboards just rebranded Medelis or Dyatones?

I had a thoman dp years ago and it was very bad. Qc issues. Now i have a casio and no problem. Thomann pianos are made by medelli. Maybe now are more reliable. Anyway for the price I'd choose another one. Roland fp10, casio px160, yamaha p45. Even inside thomann dps, dp51 is way better option than 95

The old Williams Allegro looks just like a Ringway RP-20:





I won't bother looking up much images of current models, but I think I remember seeing some resemblance also there.

E.g. the Williams Legato III looks very much like an Artesia PA88W. Which isn't really an Artesia, but a Ringway PA-3.

But of course that's just the chassis and some customization is possible, just like Kurzweil has some models with a Kurzweil piano sound in a case obviously made by Medeli.

As for cheap digital pianos on German music stores (Thomann, Session, Kirstein, Music Store) it's worth checking out "B Ware" return units and any other special deals. E.g. a Kawai CL-36 can be had for 699 € (+ very moderate shipping costs outside Germany) and it's a complete package with a stand and pedals and kind of an alternative for the portable Kawai ES-110.

The retailer is Thomann. The piano is labelled Thomann. But Thomann does not design or manufacture pianos.
So Thomann is the "house" and this is a "house brand".
That translates as "Move along, move along. There's nothing to see here."

For all the good things you can say about this forum, it tends to be awfully snobbish, when it comes to brands. If a digital piano is not one of the aforementioned ones (maybe Dexibell could be added to the list) then it will get an immense amount of hostile comments here (mostly from people who have never laid eyes, let alone fingers, on anything from that brand).

My guess is that Thomanns self-branded digital pianos are good for the price, but a higher price will buy a better product from a global brand. I considered buying a Thomann digital piano but decided to go with the Roland FP-30 (which is a choice I have been very happy with).

What you need, only you can know, and the model you found may indeed fit your needs well. But if you want to hear about peoples own experiences with a particular Thomann model, you are unlikely to find it in this forum. (There could actually be lots of lurkers out there with Thomann digital pianos, but unless they speak up, no one will hear them).

This brings to my mind another brand, this time apparently an actually German one: GEWA. This is also sold by Thomann, and you can even get it here in Denmark in the leading chain of digital piano stores. And it is also not one owned (nor tried) by the usual suspects in this forum.

That's not true at all. We all have the experience to say that house brands aren't as useful as the big players because their actions and responsiveness is subpar for practicing. The cheap crap is sold because people doesn't know it better.

We certainly don't all have that experience! I, for one, haven't got it, and my guess is vastly fewer than half of us have such experience.

The cheaper products are sold to those who will not pay larger sums of money for their instruments. Considering these products "crap" is definitely snobbish. They may be of lower quality in various respects, but this does not merit labelling them as waste products.

My former thoman dp was crap. Few months after buying it new many keys started to triger high volume notes even if i played softly. I know this also may happen with other brands. But now i have casio and a little yamaha and they work perfect. That's what i can say from my own experience

You may be right and wrong.

There was a video about a "Hemingway" digital piano that didn't go to very much into detail, but even from a short video it was obvious that it's crap. And that's what the video was about: saying that the Hemingway is crap and the (ex) owner had trouble returning it to Thomann.

On the other hand there's e.g. this review of a Thomann DP-51 (Medeli DP-420K or something like that) from a seemingly non-biased channel and I think they consider it decent, but my German is pretty bad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouUoE2imqv0

There's also DP-32 (possibly a Medeli DP260 i.e. one of the more recent models):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWOklXTqWQA

They have similarly done videos of the "established brand" products, so one can easily compare at least the sound. (From line out/headphone jack and also via speakers at the end.)

And then again as for "for the price": there's no point buying a crap digital piano even if it's cheap if it's so bad that it's practically useless.

I listened the first demo audio-clip (you can find it in the product page in the thomann site) and what I hear are low quality samples, with a lot of reverberation to try to hide the mediocrity of the samples (and I feel that piano engine uses the same samples for many many notes). And we don't know nothing about the quality of the mechanics, the feel of the action, etc...

So, the price is very low for a cabinet style digital piano, but I think it's better to save some more money and buy a decent instrument from the usual well known brands...

For example: I had the Thomann DP-26 for a while. It was a house brand labeled Medeli. All Piano voices had a single sample, so no real dynamics except it got louder the harder you hitted the key. It had a plastic hammer action. No let off, equaly weighted. It was simply a little better keyboard action. The sound was muffled and none of the voices stand out. You can call me snobbish, but if you want to play piano properly, just avoid the low-low-budget pieces.

Don't equate truth with snobbery.Crap is crap, and that's that.

Interesting. I only listened to the first minute but that is quite a big step up from their previous reliance on ancient Yamaha sounds (to my ears at least).

By and large as far as the 'house brand' or 'stencil brand' types from 'gear4music', 'Thomann', 'Hemingway', 'Williams', 'Classenti' etc are concerned I wouldn't give these house room at all.

If one believes (as I do) that the most basic Yamahas (P45 etc), Rolands (FP10, FP30 etc), Casios and Kawais are the absolute lowest entry level consistent with achieving a half-way acceptable pianistic experience then it stands to reason that anything cheaper must provide something less than acceptable.

I don't think that is snobbery, I think it is a sense of realism about what money buys you. Why buy something rubbish when 50, 100 or 150 more dollars/pounds/euros can buy an acceptable piano-like experience.