Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards CLP-340 , does it sound a little too "bright"?

How about this? We won't claim that everyone thinks they're bright, but you won't claim that everyone thinks they're not. Don't forget, you were reporting at second hand, too, and claiming that you had never, ever heard (or read) a single person say the CLP340 was bright. You weren't just giving your own opinion. Well, now you have heard it.

My question: I've only played Clavinovas, but we've considered trying to find the P155. Of course, I'd expect the Clavinova to sound (and feel) better -- especially through the speakers -- but is the sound really that different? Are they sampled from different pianos? Just curious.

Consider that even if they were sampled from the exact same piano (or indeed, use the exact same samples) that other design factors in the pianos (amps, speakers, speaker location, cabinet design, other acoustic processing (e.g. reverb)) could have a significant effect on the sound.

What's funny is that while I too personally generally find Yamaha acoustics to be "brighter" than others, that their Clavinovas don't elicit the same feeling (i.e. if you were to ask me if Clavinovas are "bright", I'd likely respond with "hmmm, I'm not sure"). And like Marty, I don't hear it being chanted as a mantra anywhere nearly as much as with their acoustics.

I'm definitely no expert - but I just hooked up my P155 to a 60W dual speaker setup, and I've been having some fun experimenting with speaker placement, how much/little of the P155's onboard sound speakers are used, the tone parameter (bright to mellow), etc. etc.. I can say this - the difference between the built-in speakers alone on the P155 compared to using some decent external speakers is absolutely night and day.

I'm currently trying to create a fairly homogeneous "cloud" of clear, well-defined sound from the speakers in the area behind and slightly above the keyboard (since I don't think I want to hear a stereo separation effect from speaker A and speaker B - that seems unnatural?), and it sounds great. For now, I like the tone somewhere in the Normal-Mellow to Mellow range, leaning towards Mellow. Can't decide if Hard or Medium "action" setting is best for me yet - it's at Medium now. I can see how the P155 could be described as "bright" - but in my case there are so many variables at work in this setup. One thing seems clear to me - you get a lot for the money with the P155 if you can do without the fancier cabinetry, some of the voices, and the slightly-nicer keyboard action.

Anyways, I hope I didn't digress too much from this thread. Cheers!