Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Choice between 2 electric pianos - please advise

Hi, after much searching on the internet I see the most knowledgeable people are on this forum.

I'm beginning to learn the piano and due to space and money constraints I am evaluating 2 electric pianos I saw at Costco today.

They are:

1. Behringer CDP-2000 for $499
2. Casio PX-720 for $649

I'm not sure why the Casio is more expensive. The Behringer seems to look and sound a lot nicer.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all much!

All the best,
*Mani.

Behringer digital pianos

I am not following which Behringer you're talking about. Is it on the link above?

The Casio PX720 is a new model not available in all countries.
Casio PX 720

I did not know Behringer made/licensed/sold pianos. Based upon their boards I would say, "Run away, run away!"

I'm going to purchase a Casio Px 720 very soon, but I also seek some reviews and insight to the product.. I have never heard of the Behringer CDP-2000, tried to Google it but not had much luck. The Casio is priced where it is because it has 128 polyphony, whereas most digital pianos a tad lower would normally have 64. And as guest1013 said, it is a new model.

Thanks for the responses! I wasn't able to find much about that model Behringer online either. Are the Casio pianos of okay quality? The name Casio doesn't scream "quality" to me, but maybe I'm letting old paradigms get in the way.

This isn't the same model Behringer I saw at Costco (couldn't find it online) but it looks the same: http://www.behringer.com/EG1040/index.cfm?lang=ENG

Thanks again,
*Mani.

<font size="3" font color="#0000FF"> The Behringer piano looks better and sounds louder because they are. However, looks and volume do not equal good piano "tone" and authentic touch. Tone quality and touch-action are much more expensive to reproduce in a digital piano than putting on a cheap imitation cabinet or big power amplifiers.

Pianos are all about touch and tone, and that's where the Behringers fall very short, in my opinion. I have played and used the Behringers as well as all of the Casio and Yamaha digitals. Do yourself a favor and purchase the piano for keyboard touch-action first, followed by a quality piano tone reproduction, and then volume power and cabinet.

If you do that, then the Casio's or Yamaha's are well worth the extra money! The Casio PX720 or AP200 (in a full cabinet) are the better choices by far.

Take care. </font>

The circuitry for digital pianos to emulate
an acoustic piano has been around for
30 yrs. or more, so this Behringer should
be okay. Moreover, Behringer is an
established brand known for inexpensive
products that peform okay, and I doubt
if they would put their name on something
bad or that Costco would sell something
that wasn't okay. It's probably inexpensive
because it has 32 polyphony and uses less
than state of the art components--leftovers
from other manufacturers from a few years
ago--but that's no problem because even digital
consoles from 20 yrs. ago already
peformed similar to an acoustic piano.

Thanks! I heard back from Behringer that the model listed here is Costco's own model # for the EG2080.

http://www.behringer.com/EG2080/index.cfm?lang=eng

I'm not sure if that adds anything to this conversation; it sounds like the Behringer model would not be as good of a choice as the Casio PX-720 from what I'm learning on here.

Thanks again for all your help!

All the best,
*Mani.

I'm looking at both of these as well, so this is a timely thread for me! Considering the Casio isn't in the cabinet I am leaning towards it over the Behringer, especially given that Privias are generally solid digital pianos for the price range.

Also, the higher polyphony of the Casio is quite tempting.

Any more experienced opinions?

As so many acoustic piano manufacturers are going bankrupt so fast, you will get some answers in this forum.

You will get more answers over in the digital piano forum, the acoustic piano manufacturers are not going bankrupt that fast.

Hi,

I'm new here but my wife has been in the business of repairing all major brands of electronic music equipment for almost 30 years and I'm here to tell you that Behringer is garbage. Look, we're not snobs. We fix lots of low end gear. We routinely take in Crate, Peavey etc. but Behringer is one where we routinely advise people to skip the fixing and to put the money towards decently supported product.

Behringer also has a (probably deserved) reputation for copying other peoples designs instead spending the money on their own R&D.

In terms of build quality and access to service, the nod has to go to Casio; but not by much. If it was me, I'd do my best to stay with Roland and Yamaha when it comes to D.P.s. We can talk more about the subject of who does good service or not later when I have a better lay of the land here in these boards and we can do it in the proper forum.



Kurt

Unfortunately the lower end Yamaha dp's are clunky junk and the Rolands are out of my price range, but I definitely appreciate your input. Quality control is something I worry about and both the Behringers and Casios have had problems reported.

I think it is just going to come down to field testing them this weekend and see which has a better mechanism and touch to it. I am leaning toward the Casio but keep waffling!

A_Mama

I happened to be at a Costco yesterday and thought of you. I didn't notice the model number but I did play (at my beginners level) the Behringer they had on display. I thought it was absolute garbage. The level of touch sensitivity and tone were very crude. I've played the Privia 110 and it was MUCH better than the Behringer.

And for a very short rant. When you buy a (junky) instrument from Costco instead of from a musical retailer, you're helping create a world where there will be NO musical instrument retailers and low end Casios and Behringers will be our only choices. Based on my experience with the PX-110 and what I know about Behringer I would definitely opt for a Privia 130 from all over the internet with free shipping at the same price as the above named Behringer. I'd also ask a local casio dealer, if you have one, for a quote on the 130. I've found that local dealers can usually get pretty close the Minimum Advertised Prices that you find on the internet.

Kurt

I have to echo Kurt's sentiments. I've worked on a lot of them and you can tell the cheap ones just by taking them apart. If you can't get them fixed they are throwaways.

Yamaha has great support and I've had good luck servicing them.
Kawai has great support and I've had good luck servicing them.
Kurzweil is a fine instrument but their support could be better. I understand they are working on that.
I have yet to deal with Roland or Korg so I can't speak about them.

I'm not going to badmouth some of the others I've worked on by name but there are some brands I'd call toys. I don't like their quality nor their availability of parts.

Kurt, is your wife a MITA member?

Ken

Ken,

Given that Kurzweil is now owned by AM and S and given our experience with the other brands they've taken over like Fostex, Allen and Heath, etc., I wouldn't hold your breath for service and support to get better on the Kurzweil product. We've been waiting close to 10 years for things to turn around for Kurzweil after Young Chang screwed um up. At this point we're not optimistic.

As for MITA, no, we not members. When we started, MITA was a bunch of old organ and jukebox repairmen while we were working on EMU, Sequential and Moogs, etc. Since then, even though we've looked at it, we've never felt the need to join. Maybe if they start offering a group insurance plan; something that it's clear NAMM is never going to do.

Kurt