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There's a few more videos of the S7X on youtube than there were 6 months ago. I thought I'd put a few here as I'm interested in hearing people's opinions on the piano (since I own one).

This one is actually a Yamaha S6X, but you know, it's a similar piano....

Great pianos. Great playing. Great audio engineering.

Here's another:

Agreed it is a wonderful piano that can produce a wonderful rich tone!

For the first two recordings (the same piano), I like the warmth of the midrange and the depth of the bass, but up into the capo section of the treble the sound lacks complexity for my taste, particularly when played at 'mf' and above, compared with the rest of the piano.

The third recording (the Bach), the unison tuning isn't so great, but the piano sounds quite fine (in the limited range of the piano for which the composer wrote). The recording sounds like it has compression and the quality of the playing is really messy, and distractingly so. Wrong notes, memory slips, a truly horrible amount of pedal use, zero creativity in the use of articulations, and visually distracting to watch.

The 4th recording (Debussy on an S6X) shows a more balanced, homogenous sounding piano than their S7X recording. It's not quite as warm, though it sounds like the microphone selection or post-processing may have been added to try and make it sound warm (which I suspect also happened in the first recording). Unfortunately the levels are not set correctly and the recording clips when you want to hear what this piano sounds like at fortissimo. I found the tone of a good CF6 to be more special than this (which one would expect, given its price), but this is certainly a high-quality piano.

The last recording has a lot of reverb added, which ironically seems to have de-accentuated a desirable amount of treble sustain. Or perhaps it was recorded in a hall and the piano just doesn't have much going on up there.

+1.
In my limited experience thus far with the new Sx-series, it has been certainly favorable. We aren't a Yamaha dealer, but I'd be delighted to represent them because they are a quality product, and we enjoy the variety of fine pianos.

In the videos from the dealer, it's clear that they are still experimenting with their recording setup. I had a long learning curve myself, so I'm understanding. We work with the time and circumstances given to us. I haven't had the opportunity to record a S7x or S6x yet, but I'd look forward to the opportunity. I recently had the opportunity to record a Shigeru Kawai SK-7 (certainly comp in terms of size and price). I also re-listened to a 7 year old recording I made of an Estonia L225 (again, comp in terms of size and ~price). They aren't perfect recordings or perfect performances, but they are well prepared pianos, recorded raw with no added effects, no compression and very rare clips, which is how we choose to make our demo videos. I'd share those here for comparison and discussion, but I don't want to derail the OP's thread.

I will offer this recording (lost the video somehow), however, of a Yamaha C3x that I recorded 3 years ago. Another excellent instrument, but would not be mistaken as superior to the S6x or S7x. It's just well prepped and, IMO, a good raw recording. This was made in the middle of our showroom, not a hall or studio.

Soundcloud - Demo of Yamaha C3x - Beethoven Appassionata

Sonepica, I like the SX series. There is a unique sound that is well matched to the action. Since you own one, I'm more interested in your opinion.

Sam, I think you have given us a good honest recording of a piano, one where the recording process does not make itself known along with the piano. It does justice to the piano by presenting it to us as what it is, it neither makes it more of what it is not, nor does try to hide its lesser qualities. It is good enough that we can hear the quality of your prep work, and would be able to hear it were it not.

The piano is a really unforgiving instrument for recording.

A few weeks ago, I did step into a Yamaha dealer, and noodled a bit on some of their bigger pianos. The one Yamaha from that line sounded remarkably different from other Yamahas in the shop, and the S_X recordings do capture a lot of that very well.

Well what I initially didn't like about the bass has now resolved. It was just an issue with brand new hammers and/or strings apparently. I like the warm, deep sound in the bass.

Now my nit picking is more focused on the treble. I wonder whether it has quite as much fullness and sustain as it could have. However, it seems to be affected by the weather. Sometimes it seems a bit weak/thin and sometimes it doesn't. And most pianos have a problem with the tiny treble strings needing to compete with the huge bass strings, so this problem may not even be specific to the S7X (this is the first grand piano I have owned).

However, many pianos that have a brilliant treble also have a treble that is very sharp and piercing. Whereas I think the goal with the SX series was to use softer hammers for elegance (more like the Bosendorfer sound). So it may also be a deliberate design trade off.

When I was at the Yamaha Premium Piano Center in Melbourne I noticed that the CFX had a more "substantial" treble vs the S7Xs somewhat thinner sound. But this could just be caused by the size difference between the pianos.

I love the SX pianos, but for my tastes if I buy one I’d ask for it to be voiced quite a bit warmer than the factory voice. As a home piano for a pianist it’s more than anyone will ever need of course, although if I had the choice (ie money was no object) I’d get a CF4 or 6.

That said if Santa had put an S7X under my Christmas tree (or even an S3X) I don’t think I’d have much to complain about 😂

Although I sometimes like to nitpick my S7X, when I played the far more expensive Steinway B/C and Fazioli 228, it was not clear to me that there were better, let alone worth double the price. They were different, for sure.

Bosendorfer I believe I can say has an objectively more beautiful treble than Yamaha (and any other piano brand). However, the drawback is that the piano lacks power compared to Yamaha. Not a problem for Mozart or debussy, but a problem for Rachmaninoff.

How would you compare the treble on your S7X with the videos, and is which range in the treble concerns you most?

My piano actually had a very good treble compared to the other S7X at the selection, which you may recall was why I chose it over the one with the better bass. It also had the best treble of any of the other Yamahas I had played. So it's probably at least as good as the treble you hear on the above recordings.

I think Violetta Khachikyan's recording of Debussy "Reflets dans l'eau" makes Sonepica's case in relation to the SXs here. Not sure whether the difference is down to hammers, voicing, or dissipation of high treble energy.

Incidentally, I thought something was odd in the sound of Clark Bryan's S7X. I have no idea about recording so many thaks to TerminalDegree for pointing out the reverberation in Steven Hardy's Lost in Glen Helen.

I’m the pianist in the Bach recording you mentioned. It was a project I undertook with an unreasonable time constraint I put on myself, combined with being sleep deprived, still a student, and trying to survive a global pandemic. But I agree that the playing is not good. Also, I’ve since been engineering my own recordings, and I would have done things a bit differently myself.

That being said, I figure I’d provide a recent recording I made on an S5X, in which my playing is much cleaner and nuanced.



Now THIS is how a Yamaha should sound.

I've been fortunate enough to have played the Yamaba S3X at the local showroom for some time. While many of the comments on the tonal balance between mid/bass and treble do resonate with me, i am quite impressed with how easy it is to play softly and produce a varoety of shades when playing softly - certainly qualities i appreciate for the music i gravitate towards

Here are a couple of recordings i made last week of that S3X when i was in the mood. Totally impromptu recording made with my Samsung S24 mobile phone, in a noisy environment, and the ocassional slips, but it does give a reasonable idea of the tonal profile.

I'll admit to having a bias against Yamaha because I was once trapped in a small room with a friend pounding off on one. But the piano in your videos is really quite lush and generous with a nice tonal balance. I don't think I heard anything particularly strident.

Perhaps someone with the kind of assumptions I have could be very surprised by these Yamaha pianos. They seem very expressive! Though it could be your own playing augmenting that thought and my like for slow pieces too.

The new SX and even CX do not share the brightness issues that characterized Yamaha previously. Not in my experience anyway. I’ve played every new CX from the 1 to the 7. And have played the S6X and S7X. There wasn’t a huge difference in sound between the two but the action on the SX ‘s was super light and crisp. Not my cup of tea personally. The keys felt almost like a toy piano. But all of them had a nice warm, non-percussive attack.

I also played the 1st gen CFX in the same store multiple times and it neither sounds nor feels like any other Yamaha products. The tone is rich, full of color and deep. And the action is more substantial. It reminded me of the Renner actions I’ve played in Estonias and whatever Steinway uses.

Apologies for replying late on this. Yes, the S3X was far from strident and very enjoyable to play on. The action was also not light, but in fact quite substantial, giving an added degree if cintrol especially in slower, softet music. The bass on this particular S3X was also really resonant, in a non growly' sort of way.. If there was only one thing i wished there was more of, it would be for more bloom in the treble , even though the sustain is good. That said, i'm not sure if the perceoied lack of treble bloom stems from my position behind the keyboard. Sometimes, pianos can sound very different from the pianists's vs the audience's perspective.