Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Yamaha AvantGrand N1X - Hands On

Dare you test the N1X after your piano adventures since December? You've owned a Roland and a Kawai. Test an N1X and you are daring fate on being overtaken by G.A.S. and having owned all a piano from each of the top three brands in a 3 month span!

Haha, test like test in shop out of curiosity not test like test for new purchase, I'm done with changing pianos for this year Gonna wait for new models in upcoming years.

One interesting test I did today was to try pianoteq through my samson rubicon r6a speakers and through my CVP305 internal speakers. With the samsom's the top octaves sound piercing and there is a clear increase in loudness from F4 upwards. But with the CVP305 internal speakers the sound is more homogeneous and there is no piercing top range (although it comes a little muffled)

My conclusion is that yamaha chooses very well its speakers to give a very likeable sound without any outstanding defect and it matches very well the sound of a recorded piano. And maybe other manufacturers, even having "better" ingredients (samples, actions, speakers,.. whatever) don't match each part of the "piano equation" as well as yamaha does.

Carlos

A Spaniard who knows that the word is homogeneous, not homogenous. Bravo!

Well.. spellchecker's merit.. but thanks :-)

Disaster has befallen my piano! I think I may have our first test of how Yamaha does with warranty service. Tonight I was closing up the fall board after practice and it made a funny noise and the left side of the fall board popped out of its hinge. Now I can’t get it back on! There are U shaped brackets on the side of the piano and pins on the fall board that fit in the slot in the bracket. However if I get one side in, the other side is slightly too far to let the pin sit in the slot. It’s like the side of the piano moved or the pin recessed back in to the hinge mechanism. Either way I can’t get the fall board back in. Calling the dealer tomorrow.

Yikes. Hope you get it sorted.

Many soft close mechanisms require you to set the fallboard down at a slight angle (about 3 inches from fully open). Also, you may want to see if the soft-close mechanism is housed in the bracket--it may have swung to "closed" when the fallboard popped out, which is not letting the pin reseat, so you may have to find a way to "open" it before it will accept the pin (some Bosendorfers are like this).

Your piano has come unhinged? It's joints are failing?

That sounds very familiar. I'm coming unhinged and my joints are failing. Well, that's age for you!

So, how old is your piano?

Yeah I've looked at it a bit, the mechanism is on the fallboard itself, one on each side. They were misaligned but I was able to turn them to be the same way. The pins still don't mesh with the brackets on the body of the piano. I suspect the left side mechanism is broken and receded in to its housing a little bit, making it impossible to get the fallboard back in. My guess is the tech will need to replace the mechanism. It looks like an easy fix, three exposed screws. Dealer is working on finding a tech in the area who can do it (I'm a bit far from their store.)

Hopefully they will fix it easily. Do you push the fall board forcefully when closing? In the manual they say it’s not recommended because it can break the mechanism. I’m always letting it close by itself.

I always let mine close slowly on its own. I actually enjoy the peacefulness of it. It's like saying "Amen" after a prayer.

I love to tinker. If it were my fallboard, I'd be taking it apart to try and figure out what's wrong. I'm sure it will get sorted out soon.

God Bless,
David

That's a good question. I don't, but I'll make sure my son isn't. I missed that in the manual!

N1X is now €7499, down from €7899 at Thomann. D*mn!

Just got off the phone with a tech. I'm taking a photo of the part so he can make sure we are talking about the same thing. He recently fixed a slow close mechanism on a Yamaha acoustic and may have the part he needs on hand and would be able to come out in two weeks to replace it. Here's hoping Yamaha reuses a lot of parts between pianos because otherwise he suspects it will be 6 weeks for Yamaha to ship him a new one

Sorry to hear that, but suspect you already know that early adopters pay the highest price across a product's life cycle It's just going to keep going down (remember the N1 sells for <$6k now). Don't worry, your NV-10 brethren are right there with you on this.

I hope to be a NV10 clansman. But that must wait for two years. So perhaps I won't have to pay the early-adopters penalty?

That'll be over 3 years from initial release in the US, so I'm sure you'll be able to find it at an agreeable discount (easily less than $10k). But Kawai may have a new revision of their hardware and sound engine by then, too

It will be NV10x by then so you will be in the same boat.

It's not the price that most concerns me. It's the defects that must be worked out.

Honestly, three years should be more than enough time to incorporate any "running changes" in production to address systemic issues. But I suspect your best bet for information will be to keep an eye on the NV10 threads here; you'll be able to see if we get any more reports of buzzing (seems to have quieted down already), broken hammers (two reports so far), etc. over the next couple of years.