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No acoustics for now. I live in a humid climate, thats why I am leaning towards digitals. I dont want to go beyond the budget in which I can buy a CA79 or CLP-775.
By the way, do CA49/59/79 have very light action and 775 very heavy?

Go with Kawai or Yamaha … it was also a critical criteria for me as advised by a pianist friend. It’s the keys that matter, not all the fancy Bluetooth stuff. I ended up with Kawai. Go as far as your budget allows you..you want to grow with your instrument. Good luck

FWIW --

I haven't played any high-end Yamahas, but I have played a CA79:

. . . It's really nice.

The Grand Feel III is a "non-folded" action, with long end-of-key-to-pivot distance. It's hard to beat.

If the budget stretches that far, comfortably, you might as well use it up.

The key action of the 775 is about 50% heavier than that of the CA79 (a lot heavier).

At A0 the 775 is about 83 grams and the CA79 is around 55 grams.

After 15 minutes of playing you may not notice much difference, but after an hour you definitely will be more tired playing the 775. If you want a Yamaha, go with the 785 or the 725.

I prefer the action of the CA79, however the main advantage of the Yamaha Clavinova CLP models is they have USB Audio which means hooking up a VST/synthesizer only requires 1 single fifty-cent USB cable to both send MIDI and also receive audio. Whereas in the CA79 you need at least 3 cables: 1 USB cable for sending MIDI + more expensive (and lower quality sound) left and right audio cables to receive the audio back into the piano.

I'm betting that in 2023 the CA80/CA100 models will rectify this oversight.

@Burkey: The cabling might be a consideration. But the piano action is far, far more important. If you key weight data is accurate then the Kawai is the better choice, IMO.

How does CA59 compare to CA79 and CLP-745?

I have owned the CLP-745 for the past 6 months - I would trade it for the CA79 at the drop of a hat. The reasons why I don't own the CA79 are: 1. I was meant to move countries last year (Covid-19 shut down my home town airport for 5 months ) - so the CLP-745 was a temporary short-term purchase, 2. The sole Kawai dealer in this region charges a 30% extortion price premium - whereas the Yamaha CLP-745 was comparatively cheap (40% cheaper than the CA79), 3. Missing USB Audio in the CA79.

The only Yamaha Clavinova that comes close to the CA79 and CA99 is the 785.

If you want cheap, then the CLP-725 is better value than the CA59.

If you want cheap, you can also go CN-29 instead of CLP-725. CN-29 has a display, making up a better user interface. And CN-29 has MIDI. And 8 piano samples. CLP-725 is limited to CFX, Bösendorfer and a Pop-piano. No upright sample. This is a nuisance for some music-styles like ragtime.

About the action of CLP-725 / 735, there is not much to read and how it compares to Kawai CN29/39, but it seems Yamaha made it quite light. Anyway, I don't get Yamahas philosophy:
625/635: heavy
645: heavy
675: very heavy
685: heavy
725/735: medium light
745: medium light
775: very heavy? (same as 675?)
785: heavy? (same as 685?)
Don't nail me if my info about each model is correct, but I am sure they weights of their actions is very different, opposed to Kawai. With CN29 and all more expensive models, all actions have about same weight.

As the title hints at: they're after a good action as the most important factor. I'm not sure the CN-29 fits into the picture.

Yes & No

No & No

So does the CLP-725... Not sure what your point is here?!

Have you heard of VSTs/synthesizers?!

I put the keyboards in parenthesis so it makes more sense.
My theory in counter-weight on the *85 that's supposedly not being in *75 is found on Yamaha website
as for Kawai action weight, yes they are about equal, which is generally "on the light side" for me. And feel varies greatly from model to model, too

by the way the wooden keybed will LOVE your humid climate for sure (said ironically)

According Yamaha.com CLP-725 doesnt have MIDI:



No MIDI, no VSTs. Besides I find it handy to just switch on a piano without extra starting software on a PC. Not to mention $$$ extra for that software. Or external speakers and so forth. Especially as furniture in a living room I would not like to have the optic of a PC/laptop besides the piano.

Same is true for CLP-725. I haven't tried Grandtouch-S(plastic), but reading though forums I think it is in the same ballpark as RHIII.
Same is true for CN-29.

You need to check your sources a third time!

The user manual on page 28 quite clearly specifies MIDI:
https://sg.yamaha.com/files/download/other_assets/4/1337364/clp725_en_om_a0.pdf

As does the 'MIDI Reference' manual document you missed in the same location

Indeed even the USD $500 entry level old P-125 model has MIDI. You will have to go back into the past a long way to find a Clavinova without MIDI!

Wasn't there a statement of Roland regarding their PHA-50 action? Has wooden optics and wooden feel, but without the drawbacks of an entire wooden actions (if you have humidity issues).

I guess the main reason for that statement is just to attack Kawai and also Yamaha to a certain extent

I tried the CN29 and CN39 and they're a lot heavier than the CA79 and CLP-725.

That's interesting. The specs on Yamahas webpage say "No MIDI".
But the owners manual tells you how to use MIDI.
Saw recently a youtube-"review" from Alamomusic, and they also said, there is no MIDI. I guess they didn't read the manual. Anyway, Yamaha should fix their webpage, otherwise most people believe there is no MIDI on the CLP-725.

Btw: My info about the 785 action to be heavy is there: CLP-785 review.

When I compared CN29/39 with CA49 and CA79 and Roland PHA-50, I found weight about similar. At least at the front of the key. The only action that was remarkably lighter was KDP110. And when played near the fallboard, clear winners were GF and GFIII. And GFC + PHA50 were still a bit better than RHIII.

I really need to visit my local dealer again. I want to double check my impressions and I am curious how the 725 and 745 feel. At least now I can play something real and not just do a 1-finger version of Beethovens Ode-to-Joy.

btw: we (forum) should make an updated action table like this one:

There's MIDI via the classic MIDI sockets and MIDI cables and then there's MIDI over a USB cable.

Yamaha CLP-725 has just the USB connector and that will be enough for many consumer use cases like connecting to computers/tablets/smartphones.

The 5-pin MIDI would be useful for connecting to other musical instruments or for avoiding a ground loop if the piano were also connected via an audio cable at the same time.

Thanks, I was just aware of the 5 pin MIDI and Bluetooth-midi.
Bluetooth MIDI is just for recording and for turning the sheetmusic with middle pedal.
I guess I ve a printer cable somewhere to try out USB-to-Host.