Hello, after some years of inactivity I'd like to restart playing piano. I played (and sometimes studied) it for 20 years; I like jazz;
To restart I found a yamaha p90 on internet at a good price. What do you think about this piano? Is it still valid in comparison to other new Yamaha models (P85, Cp33)?
How is the p90 keyboard action?
Help me... I would not do a wrong choose!
Thank you
Emanuele

I've been playing a P90 for years, including some light solo gigging doing pop and classical piano. Its action is significantly better than the P85, imho, and is still essentially the same piano action used in Yamaha's $1000-$2500 (USD) pianos today (they improved key durability and made slight touch adjustments, afaik). The CP33 is the most direct upgrade to the P90, but I actually found the P90's acoustic piano sound to be more broadly usable, plus the P90 is slightly more physically portable.

It's old, though. I'd pay up to $600 (USD) for one today. Note that the keys will break over time if you really beat the crap out of them when playing, but they can be easily replaced for about $15 apiece. And don't forget it has no built-in speakers, so you'll need decent headphones or speakers to get the most out of it.

The P90 appears to be more in line with the P120, P140 and P155 then the P85. so the action will be more firm and more like Yamaha's higher end DPs but the sound generation is more P85 and Ydp140 like with only a single layer. You will not notice as much change in timbre as you move from pp to ff. I think Yamaha simulated this with a filter to mute the brightness at the soffter velocities. You may never notice if jazz playing is all in the pp to mp range but you will in classical piece that have huge dynamic range

If it is a good deal or not depends on the price. Always look to see what new piano you could buy for the same money. Play it before you buy it. test out every function button both when the unit is first on and after it has warmed up some.

If I were shopping for a used p-90, I would play it very well looking for sticking keys. There is a sticking key issue that affects some p-series keyboards. Yamaha is replacing keybeds at no charge on out of warranty units but it has to be to an original owner and it has to have had at least one attempted repair or verification from an authorized repair center. Not all p90's are afflicted which makes buying one harder and Yamaha is close mouthed about which serial number ranges are part of the problem group. The service center has to call for authorization on each and every repair.

Kurt

Hei, thanks to all for your precious inforamtions! Here (in Italy) you can find a used P90 for 500 euros (680 usd at the moment).
I cannot try the piano yet but I listened to the piano sounds and I like it very much...
It will be nice if Yamaha can replace the keys for free... I will inform from Yamaha Italy about that...
From variuos forum, P90 seems to have a too heavy action keyboard, tiring to play for a long time... Is it really?
Emanuele

If that is true then it is also true of many current production Yamaha pianos like the P155, CP33, CP300 YDP160 and several others that share the same key action (The GHE and GH actions are so close that they are in effect the same.)

I own two P90s, I have one at home and one at work. I paid $350 for one of them about 3 years ago, $600 for the other about a year ago. I got lucky on the first one, so pricing is a function of how lucky you get and how long you can hold out. I have no idea what prices are like in Italy, but $680USD isn't much of a discount off one of the newer P series here in US. I had a P140 that I sold, I wasn't able to tell much difference between it and the P90, other than the fact that the P140 had (really weak) speakers. If you lived in the US I would say don't pay much more than about $500 at this point, the P90 is getting pretty old.

...and what about the difference between P80 and P90?
Emanuele

I've never played a P80. The P80 was the predecessor of the P90, I would expect the feel to be very similar if not identical. The P80 has speakers I believe, so that's a big difference. The P80 is a bit older, not sure how things like polyphony, voices and sampling compare. I did not want speakers, so I didn't consider the P80 when I was looking.

I have a P80 and it does not have speakers. It's a good solid keyboard though.

Have you never had the possibility to compare the P80 and P90?

No, I haven't tried a P90 although as others have mentioned it has the same (as in good) action as the P80. The built-in sounds of these older keyboards are not state of the art but the action is what's most important. I usually run my P80 thru a Mac with a software piano.

Finally I got a used P90. It's in very good conditions, like a new one. The keyboard weight and the ac piano sound are what I was looking for, since a long time! ... for the moment I'm very happy! ... Thank to all for suggestions and comments!
bye bye
Emanuele

Congrats, hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy mine.