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Besides looking at the Roland FP-7 as my first DP I'm also looking at these two. Don't know if I can justify the $1000 price difference between the two. Any thoughts?

The huge difference is that the CP5 can do 4 parts while the CP50 can only do 2. So with the CP5 you can have a split (or 2) plus layers. The CP5 also has a far greater amount of SCM pianos. Its a far more capable board. But the CP50 is pretty good as well.

Maybe wait a few weeks and then add the Kawai MP6 and MP10 into your equation. I'm hoping that they will edge out the CPs.

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Check out the CP33 as well.

Anyone heard the new Roland RD700-NX.

You mean the FP-7F, right? No real reason to buy the FP-7 once the F is available (very soon).

If you want good EPs and OK APs, then the CP series is maybe what you are looking for. If you want excellent APs then Roland SN is one of the few games in town.

Yeah Dew meant the FP7F

If all of these are inside your budget, I'd buy the one with the key action you like. But if it turns out you prefer the GH keys on the CP50 then look also at the CP33 and P155. These are cheaper and have the same keys and if you only want to use the grand piano voice I wonder if the GP voice in the CP50 is that much better. Sure the CP50 has other features but will you use them?

I have a P155 it has keys I like and the one grand piano voice is good. The others as just OK. But this is exactly all I need need. I think the CP50 has more good sounds and a few other features, if you need that go for it. My thinking was that I can upgrade the sound by using a computer. But you can't change the key action.

My wife and I were also considering the P-155, CP-50 and CP-5 as the options for our new digital piano.

My advice is this: definitely get your hands on the keys, if possible side-by-side. I found the CP-50 key action to be the worst of the three (very springy), with P-155 being a nice feeling and CP-5 was the hands-down best for my tastes.

Going into the shop the CP-50 was my top choice, but coming out, it was the last of the three... and the long-shot (due to budget) CP-5 was the new front-runner.

Other than key action, the P-155 has a very slim selection of sounds, but sounds great for a piano. The CP-50/5 both have a good block of extra sounds, which is nice.

If you layer and split at the same time though, the CP-50 might not cut it for you, it can only do either or (layer or split).

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I'm not certain, but I believe the P-155 has a different action than the CP-50, at least from my empirical tests. The CP-50 felt like the GH3 action, which I don't like. The P-155 felt like the GH action, which I do like.

When we were trying out clavinovas, the low-end GH ones were ok, but the GH3 ones felt bad, then they started feeling good again with the NW action models (CLP-370+).

I may be completely off my rocker, but that's the experience I had.

The piano sound should be the same as in all of their other SN offerings, though I would love to know if any differences actually exist.

Others have reported similarly, and I'm kind of shocked by this as Yamaha specs show the same GH keybed used in both. Anyone know what's going on here?

LindyHopper, have you tried any Roland SN offerings yet?

Not in depth on the Rolands.

We were sticking to the Yamahas in our search (for better or worse). I did some cursory looking at the Roland models, just to make sure I wasn't missing a truly excellent gem of a board.

We had an original budget of $1000. And in the end bought the CP-5. The key-action was really *that good* (for my tastes) to blow our budget by 1.5x.

The CP-50 key-action was surprisingly bad. I expected it to feel like the P-155, but it didn't. The keys felt like they were 'fighting back' rather than just being piano action.

The CP-5's action is lighter than a proper piano, but it feels super-good and it's a nice balance for the E-Piano and organ stuff I like to do.

The P-155 clearly won over the CP-50 for me. And The CP-5 was the ultimate winner, though our vacation will be pushed back a month or two to pay for it...