Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Yamaha AvantGrand N2 vs. similar priced Yamaha upright?

You have now. Moderator's reply is above.

How about if you two give it a rest and let everyone resume talking about the N2 vs. Yamaha uprights?

I've done my part, and I'm finished with it...the moderator who contacted me was was polite, efficent, and a great help.

Time will tell if jmmec is as good with apologies as she was with accusations.

Snazzy

Snazzy, I sincerely apologize for my accusation, although I remain deeply troubled by your behavior towards other members of PianoWorld.

I'd also like to apologize for being partially responsible for taking this topic off course. The time wasted could have been better used for meaningful pursuits.

Regards

Well Justin, I sincerely appreciate, and accept, your apology, although I remain deeply troubled at your quickness to judge innocent people like Colleen and myself, especially on a public forum, and in front of our friends and other members in good standing of this fine site, Piano World.

Now, let's please move on and enjoy this excellent topic, and, also, to the group, my deepest expressions of regret for having to endure these off-topic posts.

Best Regards,

Snazzy

As someone who has both the AG and a new Yamaha acoustic grand, I have to say this is no easy question.

Some of my observation about the Avant-Grand is the Piano 1 voice has excellent Yamaha concert voicing for classical and Piano 2 has the benchmark Yamaha voicing for Jazz. My brother in law is a Jazz musician and when he play our AG recently (Piano 1), he was a bit disappointed saying things like "too mellow", "no edge to the sound", then I switch the AG to Piano 2, and he kept saying "amazing", "wonderful", "I love this sound". To be honest, I personally can't stand Piano 2, because I'm a classical person.

Another observation is that this weekend I switch the tuning temperament from "equal" to "Bach-Beethoven" (that's not the name, but whatever that setting is in manual for Bach to Beethoven era) and the result was incredible. When you play scale, it sounds to me exactly like equal but when you start playing music, the sound is so different you think you've got a completely different instrument. Some of the typical baroque stuff that composers uses disharmony and resolve sound very different using this temperament compared to equal. I played the same things over and over using both and OMG what are most people missing because they cannot hear this difference. Everybody is using equal on their acoustic piano and they are missing something so great. Then, at the touch of a switch, change the tuning back to equal temperament for your Chopin.

The Avant-Grand is not an acoustic piano. It does not have all the idiosyncrasies of an acoustic grand piano. If you love these idiosyncrasies, then you will not want one. But you ask yourself how often do acoustic idiosyncrasies come into play in playing real music? Are you one of these people that sits in the middle of the night at the piano, play one note every 15 second and go goo goo ga ga over the sound and vibration coming out of that magical box? If so you need an acoustic piano, really.

While attending my children's lessons yesterday, the piano teacher said "I could hear you pushing on the keys", "I want you to drop you arm, not push". Could he hear differences like those on the Avant-Grand? I mean if your technique is wrong because you are an average 7-year-old, could you learn the right technique for the Etude in Dm by Gurlitt? I would say probably not. For that you need an acoustic piano. In fact, the teacher showed my daughter how to play the same Etude with its repetitive right hand chords on an upright and a grand piano because the technique are slightly different. To compound this, because my daughter practice on a Yamaha acoustic grand at home, when she played on the teacher's Kawai RX2, it sounded sloppy, because the action is different and she didn't know to make the proper adjustments. It sounded better but also a little sloppy on his Yamaha C7. On his upright, no sound came out (repeating chords) at all, or just every other or third chord because her movements were not sufficient to make the upright action to repeat a tone. The teacher's words are "as a pianist, you must learn to play well on all pianos, not just yours at home."

Given all this, if you are already an intermediate to advance pianist and is already able to cope with different pianos to make the proper tones, then the Avant Grand is an excellent alternative that does much more. If you are very young or a beginner (though I feel many teachers are not as strict with adult beginners as they are with young children when it comes to technique) and need to learn how to get the right tone using right technique, then digital pianos are generally far more forgiving than an acoustic piano. I have yet played any digital piano that could produce a sloppy lazy tone when played with the wrong technique. It is just not possible. A digital piano is not capable of sounding sloppy. Everything coming out of a digital piano is good, clean, sounding tone no matter how you play it.

The Avant Grand is the least forgiving of all digitals I've tried, but still it is far more forgiving than our acoustic grand. I'm a pretty mediocre pianist, and on our acoustic grand, often I try so hard to soften the left hand that I drop notes. I notice I was doing that a little too on the AG but not as many notes get dropped. There is one piece I play where there's one passage marked ppp. The AG is the only one so far that behave close enough to an acoustic grand where I actually still drop some notes because I don't have the control a good pianist has when it comes to play really soft.

I'm not sure if all this rambling makes any sense to everyone, but hope it helps in comparing an acoustic piano to the Avant Grand.

Great post, 4evr88, and some excellent observations.

I've been playing for so long, I'm glad to be rid of the idiosyncrasies (thank goodness for spell-checker) of an acoustic grand...heck, I didn't like my old CP-80M electric grand much either, but back when I was performing, it was the only "portable" (if you call about 320 lbs portable) piano other than a Helpenstill.

I'm the perfect candidate for the type of digital piano that is the Avant Grand...I'm lazy, so I want it to sound perfect every time, I'm stingy, so I don't want piano tuners taking my money, and my ears just can't stand to hear a piano drift slowly out of tune with itself and the other instruments around it.

But, yes, there are those who love the idiosyncrasies of an acoustic, as well as those who just love playing one and basking in the sound...I've got a Steinway B for that, but I rarely play it anymore, mainly for the reasons I stated previously.

You are so right about digital pianos being so forgiving, but since I have developed, over my 50 or so years of playing, a multitude of "technique sins", I kinda yearn for forgiveness a lot more than I used to.

As I said already...your post is excellent and well presented....there's no rambling that I can see.

Snazzy

I think your point about the ability to switch to different temperaments at the push of a button is so cool, it's like discovering a hidden treasure right under your nose that you never knew you have. I'm definitely going to try out different temperaments other than the equal one that I've been sticking with so far for sure now.

I think there's a lot of stereotyping from the acoustic camp that the Avant Grand is just another mere digital, therefore unworthy as a competition to an acoustic. Then on the other hand, the stereotyping from the digital camp is that the Avant Grand is an highly overpriced digital unworthy of delivering sufficient values to justify its high price. Your observation about the Avant Grand being forgiving enough, yet not overly forgiving, helps show an example to clarify why it offers unique values that incorporate the best of both worlds, and thus has a unique and attractive standing in the market place where neither the average DP nor the average AP can fulfill.

To get another temperament, just press Function then C5 on the keyboard for equal temperament and the other keys in that octave for the other temperaments. The display should say '6' for the Bach temperament. You have got to try it. It's one of these 'oh wow' moments when you play a baroque piece hearing it in this temperament.

Thanks for some really interesting insights on the avantgrand vs. real grands. Great reading! I really appreciate it.

Reading over the comments and especially 4evr88 above, makes me think the AG is much superior to other Yamaha digitals. As I mentioned in a previous thread, I've got a 990 clp and wondered how it compares to the AG. What I'm wondering now is the keyboard as 4ever88 describes it sounds really superior to mine. The 990 is very good but it's also stiff and I don't notice much difference between the touch settings on the 990. What I don't like on the 990 are the pedals and how it sounds without the headphones. Be interested to hear comments on the comparisons.

Yeah, the Avant-Grand has a real grand piano action. That's either the most brilliant thing Yamaha did or the engineers simply threw up their hands and said why not just use a real wooden acoustic grand piano action they have been making for 100 years instead of trying so hard to simulate one. Having the TRS system to vibrate the keys is nice, since the hammers strike some rod instead of vibrating strings. The pedals are build just like an acoustic grand with its string and levers at the buttom of the piano. It's so cool; only if the keyboard would shift to the right with the una corda pedal. Maybe that messes up the alignment of the optical sensors.

The Avant Grand only has 5 voices compared to the CLP-990's 25. Technically, the full 88-note sampling are much more sophisticated than the CLP-990, but of course the CLP-990 is probably more fun with marimba, vibraphone and so many other instrument voices. The AG is a piano. I don't think it's more sophisticated than other Yamaha digitals at all. The CVP products are amazing, which the AG just can't compare. Also, the AG doesn't have Internet connectivity and its keys do not move by themselves when playing back something like the Modus F11.

Yamaha have been making digital pianos with wooden piano actions since 1996. The GranTouch range came as plain digital pianos (Grand & Upright) as well as Disklavier type pianos. The concept of the action was very similar to that found on the Avant Grand, although it has been developed further for the AG to make it even closer to an acoustic grand piano action.

Any more recent news about this "NEW VERSION" of AvantGrand ? I really don't want to buy one now and hear few weeks after about it's successor !

As polygon sez: NAMM2011

And I was assured when I purchased my N3 this past summer that there would NOT be any new AvantGrand offerings at NAMM 2011. Time will tell!

I was just thinking this tonight. However, the sound and experience of playing and writing on Avant Grand is as close as it gets. I prefer it over any upright I've ever played and most real grands. It is the best. I've owned it for 6 months now.

The four channel sampling differentiates it from all the rest.

Now I'm getting nervous tbuying a N2 or N3: A large french dealer told me that he cannot get anymore N2 or N3 from Yamaha because they will be replaced them in february, and that he saw the prototype of the N1, which is supposed to be the less expensive of the 3 models. The guy said that he saw it and that is is a "small N2" with a simplified piano mechanism action.

I am just wondering if this NEW model will have a NEW sound database, and if therefore the 2 older models may also have their sound database updated. (with the new modeling technology used in the CP1 ?)

I'm really nervous buying a N2 or N3 now and then, 1 month later, hearing about a new or updated version :-(

Why would Yamaha not want to sell more of these low-volume, high-priced units?

If a salesman said that he cannot get them anymore, it makes me wonder about that dealer.

I wouldn't worry about a (putative) new model coming out. There will always be a new model. Maybe you could use the new model release to help you get a better price on the "old" model ... if you can find one.