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Hello
I am looking for a digital piano of around £600 (it's britain here!) when the touch comes at the top of its priority.

At the moment I am considering
-Yamaha DGX630 and
-Yamaha P85.

For me, the touch is a tad more important than the sound.

Could you please help me with my decision?

Thank you!

/ps/ Also, I move house often so it needs to be portable!

Good luck. Although I have a P155, some of the Casio's in that range are supposed to be pretty good.

For any Non-UK'ers viewing this thread. If you are suggesting a model, bear in mind that what you pay in $$$'s is what we over here pay in £££'s.

Unlike the real world where £1 is more than $1, in the DP market for example the $1100 to $1200 P155 was £1100 to £1200. Which is think is pretty poor form from Yamaha, or whoever decided to pump up UK prices

MarcoChung,

To what extent would the instrument need to be truly portable?

All of the major digital piano manufacturers produce instruments with integrated stands that, while perhaps unsuitable for carrying to gigs/practises every week, can be disassembled relatively easily, whenever you need to move house.

For example, the Yamaha YDP-S31 and KAWAI CL35 both feature realistic touch characteristics in compact, attractive cabinets, yet can be disassembled and reassembled in a few minutes. They're perhaps towards the higher end of your budget, possibly even exceeding it a little, yet still represent good value for money.

Cheers,
James
x

Both of the Yamahas that you mentioned have the GHS action, which is Yamaha's cheapest and not good at all. Casio has some PX (Privia) models in that price range (e.g. PX-130) which have an ok touch, although it's still not the best. Realistically, a high-quality new DP will be over 1000 GBP.

You might consider a recent used instrument.

what bout Korg SP250? it retails about US$700 now, dunno how much in Britain.
The touch is heavier than P85

Yeah, the Korg is a good choice. I forgot to mention that one.

Hello
Thank you for all the replies

I am a oversea student in UK which means, with a little bit of exaggeration, I have to move house every 12 months and I do it all by myself + some friends so it needs to be easily movable.

The SP250 is in the region of £600-£650.

Edit: http://www.reidys.com/index.pl?submit=View_PLU&PLU=2138

The SP250 is £559 here with free delivery in the UK.

I bought a Casio Privia PX-720 last year. There's a thread about it on here too. It's at the upper range of your budget around £600 (although you may be able to find some deals on it). I can't compare it to many other brands though, this is the first DP I've owned, but it's worth checking out if you can find a store with one on display.

Touch wise, I'm very happy with it for the price. Portability wise, it comes with a complete cabinet, but as mentioned above, disassembly isn't hard. Benefits of the cabinet aside from aesthetics, it gives a nice sturdy platform and the three pedals are fixed in place. The sound from the built in speakers is very pleasing too.

Midi out/in, so you can hook it up to a PC and make use of the various sampled piano libraries or PianoTeq if you wish. My only complaint in that regard, is that you can't (afaik) connect the PC back up to the built in cabinet speakers, so you'll end up having to buy a new set of speakers (which will likely be better than the built in, even though they're pretty good) or headphones.

The thread linked above mentions Costco selling these, I've not seen them in UK though, so maybe it's the US Costco? Heading down there later today so I'll take a look and let you know the prices if they are indeed selling them.

All of the Casio PX series have the same action and basic piano sound. The differences are in stands, cases, speakers etc. For example, the PX-720 is basically the PX-120 plus the stand and three-pedal unit.

As mentioned before, either the Casio or Korg would be a good choice, although I would lean towards the Korg myself.

Dear Geoffk

So you would recommend to stay away from Yamaha?

Also I've had a quick search for Korg SP250 and it seems like that the keyboard itself is good but the service from Korg is notoriously poor. What do you say about that?

Yamaha is great. But I'd stay away from the P-85 and P-70, neither of which is very good. The purpose of the cheap Yamahas seems to be to encourage you to buy a better one. But if you can swing a P-140 or P-155, those are great.

I've never had a problem with Korgs myself, so I can't really judge their service personally. In fact, I think that their stuff is pretty reliable--possibly more so than Casio. But I'd try to buy one from a shop that you can deal with in case there's a problem. If you're really worried about it, than buy a Yamaha, but I doubt it will be a serious issue.

The korg is pretty heavy at 19kg(exlcuding stand), not sure if that will effect portability.

I played on the SP250 everyday for a month, the touch and sound are both good, definitely pleaseing. I would consider getting it, but I think I'm going to go with the Kawai CL 35, the sound just seems better to me

Where do people find these Kawai's for sell? I rarely ever see them on instrument sites, and if I do, it's rarely more then the Mp5 or Mp8II.

Kawai has the worst distribution in the business. These people do not understand retail.

The MP5 and MP8 are the only Kawais that are usually sold through regular music shops. The rest are only available at a Kawai piano dealer. Unfortunately, these are not as plentiful as they could be.

I was faced with the same situation last year, I ordered a Korg Sp250 from Rocking Rooster. These seem to be the cheapest in the UK, the price is £532.99 at the moment. I ended up cancelling the order though as a mint condition Yamaha P140 came up on ebay for £420 buy it now price. Try looking around on ebay and loot for used ones. There's a P140 on ebay at £257 which ends tomorrow, may be worth a bid.

Hi Journey,

What's wrong with Kawai? You write this not without reason.......So tell us more.....

Best regards
Johan B
(yamaha-fan)

I looked on the internet at piano shops, saw that they had Kawai's in stock, and went to test them!