Hello Everyone, Every time I seat down at an Avant Grand by Yamaha I'm blown away with the sound. Any one out there that knows anything about this remarkable piano ? Would I be better off with a real piano ? Any plus or minus about Avant Grand. Thanks again. Steve

Hi Steve... from your past posts you seem to have been looking into Steinway and Yamaha, all good brands... However, I think an acoustic grand 5'8" or larger could probably blow away the AvantGrand in the realism department. For the price you might even find a 6'. Of course, the AG sound comes from a concert grand so it will have a deeper bass among other tonal qualities not found in a 6' or smaller piano. The AG is very good though if what you are looking for is a grand action with pedal and keyboard feedback, silent mode, and volume control.

People have the AG and are very happy with it. Whether or not you'd be "better off" with it depends on what you are looking for in a piano.

Steve,

Many people love the AvantGrand. I should know. We sell an awful lot of them.

I'd really like to tell you more, but almost anything that I could say here would sound like an ad. Send me a PM if you wish and I'll share with you all the reasons why the AvantGrand might be a good choice for you.

Thank you for the reply. The base does sound good. For a little more money I might be happy with a good grand piano. Thank you. Steve

They are great, but I can't see spending that type of money and not buying a real, substantial acoustic grand.

It's the best DP I have played. Yes it's nice.

But the sound can not even beat a well prepared upright. A reasonable good grand beats it hands down.

I played only with the speakers. If you play with headphones I don't know, maybe cheaper DPs sound exactly the same or even better than a AG?

I own a DP but not the AvantGrand, because to me, the AG sounds just like any other high-end Yamaha DPs (like the CLP-380) costing a fraction of its price when played through headphones - which is only logical as all Yamaha DPs are sampled from the CF-IIIS (none from the new CFX as yet). But it doesn't have the playability or 'feel' or response to the touch of a real acoustic grand, nor of the DP I eventually bought (V-Piano), which is what matters to me most. The AG's speaker system is very impressive, so it will appeal to those who mainly play using its speakers but also need to use headphones occasionally. (If you don't need to use headphones at all, why buy a DP in the first place?)

I've played the AG, and the great thing about it is the action. NOT the sound. The sound is very ordinary, just like any of their other good digital pianos. I prefer the sound of my beat up old Yamaha P22 studio upright to the sound of the AG. If I got a regulation done, I'd be extremely happy with both the action and the sound of my upright. If I had $15-20K to spend and a place where thin walls and neighbors aren't an issue, I wouldn't even be considering digital pianos (and uprights). A real grand piano is the only way I'd go.

Hi! I have a recording studio, and I use many plug-ins that are sampled deeper and most accurate than this kind of DP.....the unique reason that this machines are better than a plug-in is the keyboard.....but I can say now that I own a real grand piano that nothing could be the same thing.....now and in the future.....Is like having sex with a perfect robot girl that is a real exact copy of a beautifil girl....but is not human!!!!! :-)

But what if no one told you that your perfect robot girl isn't human?

And even if you knew, surely the advantages to that "perfect robot girl" make her worth knowing. Maintenance costs are nothing compared to the "real thing". She's always in perfect shape no matter the temperature or the humidity. She never needs to be tuned, yet she's always perfectly in tune. You can listen to her beautiful, powerful voice all night long without waking the kids or bothering the neighbors. And she feels exactly like the real thing because the parts that you touch are real.

You want to take your real girl to the beach? Not a good idea. Salt water air will turn her into her grandmother in no time. "Robot girl"? Take her to the beach every day if you want. By comparison, the consequences will be minimal. You want to leave her alone all winter in your under-heated country home? Not a good idea for "Miss Human". I don't need to tell you what a disaster that would be. "Miss Robot"? No problem. When you go visit her after the long winter is over, there won't be even a hint of a complaint.

In my experience, people who equate playing a piano to having sex are seriously hung up on themselves and most likely have an inflated opinion of their playing ability as well.

With a digital product especially, it's up to each individual to decide if the package of applications, special features, and limitations fits the user profile, and if the price makes sense.

Yamaha set the bar pretty high with the Avant price. It's up to the market to determine if there's enough there to warrant the huge premium over more modestly-priced digital pianos that offer more tonal possibilities in a less glitzy case with a simpler action and an inferior speaker array.

If you've spent some time with this instrument, money is a non-issue, and you feel that the instrument fits your user profile, then there's no reason not to buy it. You've commented on the sound reproduction, so that Avant speaker array should obviously be worth something to you. In my own case, I play a digital at home exclusively through headphones, so there isn't the same value for me in that department.

My advice is to get thoroughly familiar with all the apps so that you're beyond the "blown away" stage and can make a cold rational decision (sorry Irving ). In posting on the acoustic forum, it's inevitable that you'll get some black/white thumbs-down opinions of a digital instrument that attempts to replicate an acoustic. Like mot things in life though, it's shades of grey. Weigh all your perceived pluses and minuses before you commit.

Dear Irving,

Is Sara at all disturbed with your facility in making this analogy?

This brings up the issue of which instrument my dog prefers.

After all, lock your dog and your wife in the trunk of your car for an hour or so.

See which one is happy to see you when you let them out.

Wow!!!!!!
Naturally the story of the robot girl it's a joke!!!! some kind of paradox!!! I never want to compare piano playing with having sex with someone...... If someone misunderstood I have to beg my pardon.....and first of all I DO NOT HAVE AN INFLATED OPINION OF MY MUSICAL ABILITY!!!! Never in my life!
But......I can say for sure that sampled piano is NOT the same as a real piano.... just a matter of taste..... This problem is not so serious.... everyone likes what is better for himselve! and that's all...
P.S sorry for my bad english..... :-)

I can think of plenty of uprights that would be soundly beaten by the Avant Grand.We should be more specific when describing sound and making comparisons;

Bass-Rich and resonant? Natural decay(or just a loop getting softer).Plenty of little uprights fall short here.
Treble section-ringing,bell-like?clear?clean?
Middle keyboard clear and resonant?

Tone Harsh?smooth?

Just some suggestions.Plenty of uprights fall short of reasonable musical requirements.

Agreed....but then, there are more than plenty that beat any and every DP hands down.

Avant Grands are good pianos but for me they're still quite fake.

However, the advantages of the Avant-Grand - a touch that IS a grand piano touch combined with great sound, no need for maintenance except for some regulation once in a while, no ill effects from the weather (it's exceptionally humid on the east coast of Scotland in summer), being able to practise in silence or utilize the speaker system, and having a quality grand piano sound and touch when space only allows an upright are all great ideas and advantages.

Yes, a C2 is a better piano when you are talking about pure piano. However, this machine will make big waves.

joe80,

Why would there be '"no ill effects from the weather" on the action, particularly because it is a real grand action? Piano actions are prone to weather conditions especially if the climate is very humid!

schwammerl.

ah ok.....you win.

in one respect, the action wont effect the tone, since the tone is digital.

Hi Steve,

For whats its worth, shop around. Never pay RRP, there are always deals to be done.

I suspect if you were to say to the people that have commented below, whats your opinion with an extra £5k (as I did with my nearly new one) off the RRP, they may have a more favorable response ! ...

So far, all of the discussion that I've read here about the AvantGrand has focused on its practicality and on how close (or not) it comes to sounding like a "real piano". But "real piano" sound varies countless ways and can mean very different things to different people. So it's hard to know just what we're talking about.

In the interest of making the term "real piano" more meaningful in a real world context, let's take the individual player out of the equation. Let's focus just on how pleasing (or not) a piano might be to an audience in a modest-sized performance space.

So here's the mind game: A pianist is coming to perform for your church, school or music group. You've been entrusted to select the piano for the performance. You need a piano that will sound as sweet, rich, powerful and pianistic as possible. Both the pianist and the audience would be disappointed by anything less than the best that you could provide. You have three pianos from which to choose: A new 48" Asian upright (any one that you can think of); a new five-foot baby grand from a reputable maker of mid-range pianos (also any one that you can think of); and a new model N3 AvantGrand.

Which piano will you choose? How much weight will the "real piano" concept play in your decision? Alternatively, if you think that this isn't fair enough competition for the AvantGrand, tell us the least expensive new piano that you would choose over it for the performance. Just remember, you have to please both the audience and the pianist.

Irving, on those criteria, I think the AvantGrand is a clear winner. It would have far more bass depth than the other two, plus it's guaranteed to be in tune. But you are right, it isn't very stiff competition. I tend to think that the sound of a piano is more important for the player than for the listener. As a listener you tend to appreciate the music and focus on what's enjoyable about the sound. As a player, having an instrument that responds to your input and makes you feel involved in the music is very important. As much as I appreciate the sound of a fine piano, if Yevgeny Kissin decided to give a concert on an AvantGrand one day, I think I would enjoy it just as much. (not that he would, of course)

Let me ask you this. In a hypothetical situation, (imagine) Kissin is playing a concert in two adjacent halls at the same time. One on a Yamaha AvantGrand and one on a similarly priced grand piano (say a well maintained 25 year old Yamaha C3). Which one would you attend? Do you think the Avant Grand would equal the performance of a real grand piano? Keep in mind hall acoustics too.

I believe the one with the real C3 would be better, but that wasn't the hypothetical I was answering. I didn't make the rules for that hypothetical. I still think the quality of the piano is a lower priority than the quality of the music and the musician. A master on a crappy upright easily beats a novice on a Steinway.

As long as hypotheticals are being thrown around, if there were two C3's to be had, both nearly identical except one held its tune for years before needing a tuning, which would you be more interested in? For me there's nothing more distracting that a piano that is very slightly out of tune.

When I owned a C3 I had a deal worked out with a friend, a trumpeter who also tuned and worked on pianos. I made him practice tapes and he tuned my piano for free. (I also supplied him with lunch as well.)

It was a great deal for both of us. The only reason that deal existed, I played a great deal and the C3 needed to be tuned many times per year - up to six times a year. For an every day practice piano a grand piano action coupled to a system that never needs to be tuned is more than adequate for me. For some folks a piano has great emotional meaning, for me it's a tool to get a job done.

Yes, ando, I agree about the musician/novice/crappy/Steinway bit. Makes every sense to me. Also, I think any well maintained piano would sound better (more authentic, at least) than any digital piano made at the moment. Although I have played exceptions to this: a church piano (a console Hailun Bernstein branded piano) played and sounded like a harpsichord; it was quite hilarious to play and listen to though.

Tom

You are trying to reduce a piano to the SOUND from a piano (it could be any sound producing device, right?). Sounds wrong to me.

I don't follow your suggestion that 'real piano' would be not meaningful. I think with 'real piano' people mean the traditional acoustic piano with mechanical action, real soundboard, real vibrating strings tensioned with an iron frame, etc, without any electronics. Seems perfectly meaningful to me.

Furthermore, 99.9% of the time the PLAYER is the only audience. So following your argument consistently you should remove the AUDIENCE out of the equation and focus on the player.

Since we are doing hypotheticals on how realistic the Avante Grand sounds, let me ask this:

If an Avante Grand, set to its best Yamaha concert grand sample, were played side-by-side with an acoustic Yamaha convert grand, and both pianos were screended from the audience's view, would they be able to tell which was which?

Would they prefer one over the other?

Great question for many here. It should be stated that Yamaha is not marketing this piano as a replacement for the concert stage (though Chick Corea did mention the possibility of using one on stage in his electric set up).

I think it could give many grands a run for their money, but the thing is, Yamaha is not marketing this as a substitute for a concert grand. They'd have to use the action from a nine footer and what they have appears to be the action from a C3; I realize I'm now talking about the action though.

I practice mostly with headphones and it sounds great through headphones. When I crank it up without headphones, it sounds surprisingly real when played at the level you would expect to hear from a 'real' piano. I think I could fool a few people if nothing were said.

This is getting off topic but for me I see this technology as being great for music university practice pianos and well as for the entertainment industry - cruise ships, hotels and churches. It never needs to be tuned and has the feel, sound and looks of a grand piano.

I cannot comment on the AvantGrand but two weeks ago I was on one of Roland's 'World Premiere Presentaion Tours' in Brussels where they introduced the V-Grand. Three professional classical pianists played a mainly classical repertoire in a traditional concert hall setting.

And no the V-Grand did not convey the intended emotions of the classical pieces to the audience as an acoustic grand can do. E.g I was not moved at all when one of Schubert's Impromptus was played as I normally am.
Although different settings were used the mid lacked expression and the highs were cold and shrill. Dynamics (from ppp to fff) yes if defined as from very low volume to very high but an accordingly change in colour, no.

The instrument allowed for virtuosic playing when a special version of Rhopsody in Blue was performed. So perhaps for more popular or jazz music maybe yes.

schwammerl.

I listened to a recording of an Avant Grand that someone posted here recently. There was one bass note so bad that I thought that I could make a spinet piano sound better. I know nothing about the various settings or voices, but I was appalled.

Even the best digital simulations do not get the way that a real piano's notes blend together. There always seem to be articulations, attacks, or decays that are wrong. But some of them are close enough for casual listening.

I'd be curious to learn of this recording. I've written about two Db's, both below middle C that have a gnarly quality about them ... and as I've written before, my C3 also had notes with the same exact quality.

Oh, goody! I like mind games, and this is a fun question, Irving! . The choices are a little limiting, but I get your point.

Personally, if I'm in the audience I want to hear the Avant. The only time I've heard it live was when I played it myself. I'd love to hear it in a small concert setting, closing my eyes, checking it out from the back of the room, the sies, etc. I guess that doesn't answer the question though.

If I assume the task of pleasing everyone to the best of my ability, I'll eliminate the vertical. It's visually unsatisfactory. It will disappoint audience expectations of what a concert should be. It's isolating. The pianist may feel the event falls short of a real concert.

Of the two remaining choices, I'd check with the pianist if I could. He (meaning he or she) may be an open-minded adventurous sort. He may be very conservative as are many of the folks here in this forum. If he's conservative, he might prefer the short grand from the reputable manufacturer. I'd accede to his wishes. If he chose the Avant but didn't have experience on it, I'd advise him to come in quite early to familiarize himself with it. He'd probably want to do that anyway, but I think with the Avant it's kind of important. The combination of real grand action and electronic response can be momentarily disorienting.

If for some reason I couldn't include his input, I'd consider the program. If he's going to perform some heavy-weight lit like the Lizst B minor, I'd definitely choose the Avant. If it's to be an evening of Satie, Debussy, and/or similar, I'd go with the short grand. I have a wonderful memory of a small-venue concert I attended many years ago played on a really short old Bluthner. I'm sure it was right around 5'. The program was light on piano thunder and long on delicacy. The little Blüthner was exquisite.If however, the short grand was just mediocre or worse, I'd simply choose the Avant regardless of the program and be sure to let him know.

For the audience's satisfaction, I'd be pretty careful about how I promoted the concert. Even if it's simply an announcement in a church bulletin, I would not want to create the opportunity for unmet expectations. One way to guard against that is to bill the thing right. If the choice was the Avant, I would bill it.....

Concert pianist Nestor Pogostikaropovich will perform classical works of -------, --------, and -------- on an Avant electronic grand piano



If the choice was to be the short grand, I'd go with......


Concert pianist Nestor Gopostikaropovich will appear for an intimate evening of music. He will perform works of --------, ------------ and -------------. Come early for good seats.


With the right billing, at least the attendees will have their general expectations met. That's not to say that some won't find fault. Some classical concert-goers either swoon or sulk, but that's life. You can only do what you can do.

Dave and others, I was hoping to throw some light on the OP's question with that hypothetical of mine. It seems obvious to many people that the sound quality of a real C3 would beat that of the AG (well maintained C3 of course before Dave attacks this with the out-of-tune/maintenance argument). It now totally depends on the buyer's situation as to which piano to go for. If space and neighbors/family aren't an issue (due to the grand's louder volume which cannot be controlled), then the C3 is the clear winner in terms of sound quality. If space is a constraint and if you live in an apartment complex with thin walls and complaining neighbors, then clearly the AG is the winner. If one wants to argue that the AG will beat a comparable and well maintained grand piano when judged on sound alone (throw in the action too, the argument holds), that person is trying to fool himself and others. If someone walks into a showroom and asks for the best sounding piano, I'm pretty sure that no sane person would point to the AvantGrand when there's a C3 available in the same showroom. Dave can disagree with me all he wants.. I'm speaking about the average behavior of the well experienced pianist on this forum.

I have played the AG. Its a great digital piano, no doubt. However, all comparisons with C3 are just unfair to the AG really..there is just no comparison. The price of the AG is quite steep too. If that's the price of a C3 action, so be it. I guess it would mostly have to be the price of the action (and the vibration feature, however that is implemented) since the sound is comparable to any other Yamaha digital piano. It is true though that one may perceive the sound as better due to the action, which is what I'm guessing the OP perceived and that indeed is a sign of the success of the real action in a digital piano package (with regard to sales since many buyers are novices). However, I doubt if it will fool more experienced pianists. As I've said before during one of these AG vs grand debates, the sound is tied in to the action as well. What that means though is that simply having an action taken from a grand piano is not enough.. the level of control should be the same for a similar experience of the sound. With no strings and with sensors, the level of control is simply not the same. The same movement of the hand deployed on the AG will NOT give you the same sound patterns/shapes as it would on a grand. To a jazz player, this might sound trivial, but to a serious classical musician (whether amateur or not), this can be a serious disadvantage. So much that the C3 action in the digital piano serves no particular purpose, other than enabling the manufacturers to claim that they have a digital piano with a real grand piano action in it. Unless the action is intimately tied to the act of producing a sound that is similar enough to how sound is produced in a grand piano, there is absolutely no point in the claim that this digital piano has a grand piano action. Sampled sounds cannot achieve this.

To summarize, it really depends on your situation and what kind of music you want to play. If you have a big house with no neighbors to worry about, if you can tolerate somewhat higher volumes and if you play serious classical music, the AG is simply a bad choice. Turandot, call me close-minded, but sometimes the truth can sound close-minded.

Here are two guys who have both swallowed Yamaha's Kool-Aid.

I'm sure they did it without accepting any remuneration for it.. simply because they thought the AG is great. Btw, this video reinforces my view about the sound. It is just so very dry and lifeless.. listen to it! Can't anybody else hear what I'm hearing?

It is just so very dry and lifeless.. listen to it! Can't anybody else hear what I'm hearing?

It's possible you're hearing the piano directly from its outs and not recorded from a distance using microphones which would have also added room noise and reflected sound. I would bet if room noise (noise and reflections) were added to the recording you'd have a difficult time distinguishing this technology 100 percent of the time from other and older technology.

The default reverb setting is 5 from a range of 0 to 20. I crank up the reverb when I practice as I just like the sound to be more lively. I would guess that recording has the reverb at the default setting of 5.

I really think there should be some double blind tests to expose the golden ears among us.

I agree, that would be a good test. It would be even better if a test could be designed where pianists could only see the keyboard (and hear it). I am willing to bet any amount of money I can possibly afford that I would be able to tell the AG apart from a real grand.

If you crank up the reverb and record the live acoustics from a room, I'm still pretty confident I can get it right 8 times out of 10 (I didn't want to sound overconfident..I'd have said 10 times out of 10 if not for that).

Also a test like this would shut one of us for good. You know which side I'm rooting for.

Don't you think that the answer to this question is kind of obvious?



Why is it that important?

I agree its an empirical question but one is certainly allowed to voice one's intuition as to what the results of an empirical study might be based on one's experience.



Because a real grand trumps the AG on all counts and it is exactly the features on which it trumps the AG that allows me to tell the difference? Isn't that important?

Why should you be "rooting" for either side? Surely the ideal result for the world of music would be if we couldn't tell the difference? By stating that you hope we will always be able to tell the difference, you are expressing a personal bias. The technology is still quite underdeveloped, but in time the gap will close. I have no doubt that if the finest scientists/engineers/musicians decided to, they could produce a digital instrument that could fool you in a double-blind test. The constraint is money because corporations have to factor in profitability into their development. However all this does is stretch out the time-frame. Eventually the technology will evolve to the point where all aspects of a Grand piano can be modelled. It's not exactly an urgent thing for the human race to achieve though - after all, we already have perfectly good real pianos without having to try so hard. The accurate simulation of a piano will arrive if and when the market demands it, but there is no doubt that it will be possible at some point. You only have to look at the way the Digital Piano has evolved over the last 20 years.

At this point, you can tell the difference. In the future, maybe not...That is when you will have to put your bias aside and judge it on merit.

I agree completely. That day is far away but it can be done. I don't doubt that. The AG is primitive if we're talking about sound quality and its ability to simulate the experience of playing a real grand piano. That's all I'm saying. There seem to be people suggesting that the AG can do much more than what it actually can. That simply is false propaganda. The AG is just a digital piano with mediocre sound, and with a grand piano action put into it for no good reason (since its not intimately tied to the act of producing a sound like it is in a real piano..which is the only connection, in my opinion, that can even hope to simulate the experience of playing a real piano. This cannot be done with sampled sounds and related sensor technology). The price is steep because of the action. Having a real action in there is preferable to having just graded weighting done somehow, I agree.. but is it the same as playing on a real piano with the same action? Absolutely not. The action alone does not make up the "action". The "action" is tied in with the act of producing the sound. With such mediocre sound in the AG, that level of simulation cannot be achieved.

It's obviously of great importance to you, but in the scheme of things musical, I don't think it's of much importance at all that you believe this to be true. In music, one chooses an instrument that expresses one's musical intent and has the features that one prizes. End of story.

It's not like you and Dave are playing some card game where it's clear to both of you what trumps what and, because you both know the rules of the game, you will bet whatever you reasonably can on the defined value of your hand.

To the contrary, your card game with Dave is pointless. There is no agreement about what trumps what. There is no agreement about what 'dry means, what 'lifeless' means. You can shuffle and deal into eternity and nothing will be accomplished.

If the player (piano, not cards)
doesn't have the confidence that he can coax a particular instrument to give him the product that he has in mind, then it's not going to. He should and is perfectly free to choose something else. With your attitude I can readily believe that the product of your playing the Avant will be "dry and lifeless"., and that's fine. You don't like it. You don't want to work through it. Okay. However, I do not believe that your perspective and limitations in any way cause Chick Corea's product on the same instrument to be dry and lifeless.

It strikes me in these Avant threads on the piano forum that for many, not just you, there is an urgency, a missionary zeal at work, in putting down the Avant, a greater urgency than the usual X blows Y out of the water chatter (which in itself is pure childishness). I find the urgency fascinating. It's more about needing to believe that something is true than simply believing that within the confines of one's own being it is true.

NOTE: I'm not writing that the Avant is the greatest thing since whole-grain bread. I have my own feelings about what kind of musician it serves best. That's beside the point here.

Not the end of story for many people who come here seeking advice. They are led to believe my salesmen and other people alike that the AG is the best bet for their money, regardless of their purpose/budget/situation. All I'm doing here is to try and put things in perspective, to provide a balance against all the hyping done by people like Dave here.



In that case, maybe Frank should shut down this website and we should all go back to our lives as all these terms are absolutely meaningless and nobody can ever reach a reasonable level of consensus on these matters.




Though you put those words in quote, you meant something by them, right? Really, your statement above is absolutely meaningless according to you yourself. Secondly, it is not an attitude problem. Some things just cannot be achieved due to physical limitations of the instrument. Do you mean to say that any pianistic/musical effect can be produced on the AG that will compare favorably to the same effect produced on a full sized grand by a highly accomplished concert pianist (with the "right" attitude)? From what I understand of your post, this seems to be what you're implying and if my understanding is right, on this rare occasion, your reasoning has failed you.



I have mentioned in this very thread (and in every other thread) that my arguments mainly hold for classical music where there are higher constraints and standards for the sound quality that composers (classical/romantic for example) expect out of every tiny phrase that they write. The shaping of those phrases are so highly specified. Jazz is much more free.. and so these physical limitations of the instrument do not limit the musician from coming up with a valid interpretation of the jazz piece. You do not find Chick Corea's playing on it dry and lifeless precisely because of that (as him playing the same piece on a concert grand would sound different but might not sound better as the two will be perceived as equally valid interpretations/performances). The same cannot be said of a Chopin Ballade or an explosive Liszt piece for instance if Chick Corea were asked to play that piece on the two instruments. If you want people to venture a guess on which performance would be perceived as the less "valid" one on a forced choice test, I think the answer is clear. Maybe you don't. It is not an attitude issue. That's an easy way to argue against what I have to say here. We could accuse each other of being narrow minded and stop this discussion right here and that wouldn't prove a thing.




You may be right about the missionary zeal. Its a reaction to the other kind of zeal here that tries to promote the AG without specifying what its limitations are. "It has a real action in it, so it gives you the advantage of owning a grand piano without giving you the volume control headache, or the neighbors issue. You get the same satisfaction!" is the kind of propaganda that happens here. I have never once seen you protest when that happens. I find your stance very reasonable in most situations but not with regards to this particular issue.



When you've taken so much time to respond to my having listed some of the potential limitations of the AG, I think it would be more useful to people like the OP (and others who come here seeking expert advice on these pianos) if you took the time to spell that out! I have often stressed that most of my views here on the AG pertain only to serious classical piano students (and professionals). I believe you might have a less strong version of that same view that you refuse to share here. It is beyond me as to why you're reluctant to do that.

I have often stressed that most of my views here on the AG pertain only to serious classical piano students (and professionals).

When I went to college for music we had many practice rooms, the vast majority having uprights and not full sized uprights at that. I think most serious classical pianists wouldn't mind practicing on a real grand action in the form of a hybrid if the alternative were a vertical piano. If you wanted to practice at college and there were no grands to be had, you practiced on a vertical.

The grand pianos in college were mostly assigned to the handful of piano teachers and several were assigned to the main rehearsal halls. Several other rooms also had small grands.

I started out as a classical organ major and we had rather simple Allen electric organs in several practice rooms on which to practice. It would have been nice to have a real tracker action but I was happy to have something to practice on just the same.

Since the word hyping was used in conjunction with my name I feel compelled to explain yet again my enthusiasm for this technology. First, I have nothing per se with Yamaha and their GranTouch or AvantGrand, it's the idea of coupling a grand action with an excellent sample that I think is a great idea. Bösendorfer also thought this was a great idea and I played one of their three prototypes in Vienna several years ago. Unfortunately Bösendorfer didn't follow though on this and I chalk that up to their inherent financial problems as confirmed by their takeover by Yamaha.

I would have preferred that Bösendorfer brought this technology to market since their model used the action from a nine footer. Imagine how these discussions would go if everyone could practice on a Bösendorfer\Renner action of a nine footer in a very small package.

I suffer from tinnitus and, as I have stated several times, stuffed many towels in the soundboard of my C3, had the hammers softened several times and even placed strips of felt between the lid and the body to quiet it down. Acoustic grands meant for the stage are loud animals, too loud for the home, too loud for some neighbors ... and too loud for me for every day practice.

While I have had classical training on the organ and the piano I feel no limitation in my ability to express myself on the instrument I hype ... and again, it's the idea that I'm hyping not the specific instrument in question though at the moment Yamaha seems to be the only company with a broader vision.

Dave, what you need to realize is that not everybody who comes here seeking opinions on the AG have tinnitus or something similar. Not everybody has space limitations. Not everybody has neighbor issues. You don't mention all these caveats in all the posts that you make here and so it comes across as hyping. Also, I repeat, simply having a grand action in there doesn't make it a grand piano. I've already posted about this in great detail. So I won't elaborate further (please re-read my earlier post if you are interested). Btw, your point about practice rooms is well taken. However, if universities could afford to put $20K AG's in each practice room, I'm sure they can hire a technician or two to maintain their acoustic pianos in top notch condition (Keep in mind the longevity of acoustic vs electronic instruments.. so the AG's will probably need replacing around the same time the acoustic needs rebuilding or restringing). So there is no real advantage cost-wise either. In fact, putting AG's in there might end up costing MUCH more than it would to maintain their uprights in top condition. Universities these days cannot even afford to do that, let alone buy AG's for their practice rooms.

So the real advantage is ONLY for the people who are not classical music enthusiasts who cannot tolerate loud instruments and who have neighbors who cannot either, and those people that have space issues. I haven't heard one argument here either from you or anybody else as to why the AG might afford an advantage to people not belonging in these categories.

You definitely haven't been to many music universities then! You honestly could not be more wrong about this. The practice pianos in most conservatories are typically in very poor condition compared to the average home grand piano. They get the crap hammered out of them day and night and most of them are really out of tune. The cost of maintaining them to any great degree is prohibitive, which is why they typically will only get 4 tunings per semester - which is not much when you consider how many hours they get played (roughly 8-9 hours per day during semester). The Avant Grand could expect similar maintenance costs on the action mechanism. They don't need hammer voicing, but there may be costs associated with sensors which may balance that out. The tuning cost is the real difference, and it is significant. 4 tunings per piano (maybe 20-30 practice pianos in the average conservatory), at $150 per tuning, that's $12-18,000. Not exactly small change.

The argument as to whether these students need acoustic pianos in these practice rooms is not as straight forward as it sounds. Yes, if the pianos were all in tune and in good condition, the acoustic is far preferable as they are more expressive and richer sounding and offer a resonance that technology can't provide. But when you consider the poor maintenance and terrible tuning, the advantage is more than cancelled out. Having studied at two major conservatories and played some terrible pianos there, I would have preferred to practise on an AvantGrand. And I was only a piano minor - my major instrument was guitar. It was very off-putting because I am very sensitive to tuning. I used to bring my own tuning hammer and tweak notes just to make them bearable. And this was by no means atypical of cash-strapped universities. The arts struggle for funding in general.

You make some valid observations about the two technologies, but most of them are predicated on the world being a much more perfect place than it is - in particular, the assumption that music universities have the funding to maintain their acoustic pianos at a constantly high level.

Also, I repeat, simply having a grand action in there doesn't make it a grand piano.

That's correct, it just makes it a hybrid piano with a grand piano action that never needs to be tuned, doesn't take up much space, and won't annoy the neighbors.


Btw, your point about practice rooms is well taken. However, if universities could afford to put $20K AG's in each practice room, I'm sure they can hire a technician or two to maintain their acoustic pianos in top notch condition (Keep in mind the longevity of acoustic vs electronic instruments.. so the AG's will probably need replacing around the same time the acoustic needs rebuilding or restringing).

A Yamaha N1 probably sells for around $7,000. The school would save money on tunings since it never needs to be tuned. The work on the action, of course, would even out the discussion, but in this case, we are substituting upright pianos (with an upright action) with a hybrid piano with a grand piano action - roughly the same footprint but now every piano in the school has a grand piano action.


So the real advantage is ONLY for the people who are not classical music enthusiasts who cannot tolerate loud instruments and who have neighbors who cannot either, and those people that have space issues. I haven't heard one argument here either from you or anybody else as to why the AG might afford an advantage to people not belonging in these categories.

I don't know why you exclude classical music enthusiasts. If Yamaha or Bösendorfer never created these hybrid pianos I would still be investing my money in ways to quiet down these beasts ... and not just because of my tinnitus - they are loud. (Where are all the discussions of ways to make acoustic pianos even louder? )

One joy I would have three to six times a year was when my C3 was tuned. It was such a nice feeling to have a perfectly in tune piano. That feeling only lasted a short time since I practiced so much. Having a perfectly in tune piano is a joy I experience every day.

I guess my tolerance for anything less than the real McCoy is less than others, certainly less that you. I like playing on a real grand piano action and whether you think my N3 a grand piano or not is not my concern. I am waiting for Yamaha or someone else to offer the same idea with the action from a nine footer.

I think many folks would like the option of having their kids practice the piano while they, the parents, can talk on the telephone in the same room ... or watch TV ... or read a book. If this technology doesn't rock your boat, fine. I was unaware of this technology until I played a job in a theater many years ago and played the entire evening on a GranTouch. If a guy who makes his living from playing was unaware of this, I'm guessing regular folks are also. I traded in my C3 within a matter of months. For me a piano is just a tool, I don't have to have an emotional relationship with it, I just practice on it.

Lizst85,

You already answered by question about whether it was that important to keep chipping away at the Avant. I answered your question in turn.

Continuing to focus your pitch on me is generous, but pointless. I'm kind of full. It's like when the host asks you if you'd care for dessert. You politely decline. The host then brings you a big wedge of blackberry pie dripping with vanilla ice cream.

I am surprised to read that your missionary zeal is motivated by Yamaha salesmen who are promoting the Avant as a better piano that their own more expensive acoustic grands. I haven't heard anything remotely like that from a sales guy in a Yamaha dealership. The focus I've heard was on a no-fuss, small footprint, lower-cost alternative to their artist grands. My guess is that the salesmen you describe are the exception and not the rule.




In terms of word or line count,I haven't taken much time at all. That's an odd observation considering all you've written here and the urgency with which you've offered it.

I gave my detailed answer to the OP very early on this thread. I did not tell him that the Avant sonded inferior because I don't believe it's patently inferior. Also, the OP wrote that he loved the sound, so that was a given. What should I tell him: "you're wrong; unlove it immediately"?

When Irving posted his hypothetical, I posted again to give an answer. I thought Irving's hypothetical was fun, interesting, provocative, and worth an effort. Not to be critical of you and Dave, but in reality Irving's hypothetical was buried under the sheer volume or your duel to the death with Dave. I don't have much interest in that personally. You seem like two boxers who retreat to their corner between rounds, then come back and throw the same punches.

I was fascinated by the urgency of it all, so I just wanted to ask you why.

If the advantages you guys make out for the AG are so great, then why don't we see universities purchasing them? Btw, you'd have to ask a university piano tuner if when hired by the school of music, they still charge on a per piano basis. Your quote of $150 per piano for a hired tuner (possibly on the university payroll) seems to be high. I'll let piano tuners answer that question (the ones who might be on university payroll). A more realistic estimate would probably be around $100 per piano. 3 tunings would probably work. I hammer the crap out of my piano at home, its got a humidifier/dehumidifier system in it.. and after I got it installed, the tuning holds up extremely well! Its been a couple of months now and the tuning is almost as good as new. So I imagine a practice piano with a humidifier installed should not require more than 2-3 tunings per year to keep it in shape. So that's an initial investment of $500-600 for the humidifier system (I wonder if you get discounts on bulk orders) and then $300 per piano annually to tune it. Like you say, the action of the AG would require work too at approximately the same time the action of an acoustic piano might need work and it might be more expensive to work on that because of all the electronics in it. Also like I mentioned earlier, in 7 years from now, the current N1 (or N3) is going to be pretty outdated and also, the chances are high than they won't even last that long in a practice room. Digital pianos are much less durable than acoustic pianos, we all know that. If that's true of personal digital pianos, I shudder to think of the fate of a digital piano in a university practice room and the kind of abuse these pianos have to endure. If you're saying the N1 can match something like the P22 in terms of durability and tolerance to abuse, then you have it all wrong. I believe this is exactly why universities don't buy too many digital pianos for their practice rooms. I certainly know of the abuse you talk about that pianos in universities endure (I go to one). If that's true of work horses like the P22, do you really believe the N1 can stand up to this kind of abuse?

I'm sure there are people in the university who think about cost comparisons much deeper than we can possibly do here. If they haven't decided to buy AG's or even cheaper digital pianos, there must be a reason behind it, wouldn't you think?

@Turandot: The metaphors that you use are very entertaining and I love them even better when they make sense.

A sampled sound can sound great to an untrained ear. I wouldn't want to tell anybody to unlove it because I don't love it. However, I would ask them to listen closer and for longer, and do side by side comparisons with real grand pianos, before making a choice based on their situation, budget, etc. I wouldn't hand them misleading information such as "its got a grand piano action in it, so there is no difference in experience from what you'd get out of a grand piano".

I'll throw in my two cents, for whatever they're worth (not much ).

A year ago when I was shopping for pianos, I tried the Avant Grand for a while. I was quite impressed. It sounded, and felt, much better than what I had expected.

But what it good enough? I decided that for me, it wasn't. This thread has focused on the sound, and I do think it can be a little thin, but what really didn't quite hold up for me was the instrument's feel. It may have a "grand piano action", and it may feel better than most digital keyboards, but something in the playing feedback loop just didn't connect.

This was less of an issue for me with composers who didn't write for the modern piano in the first place-- Bach, Haydn, Mozart. But when I tried to play Debussy on the Avant Grand I saw that it wasn't even close to what I needed.

Maybe some day.

-Jason

I generally admire your posts, but I think in this thread you leave some holes in your arguments.




The most obvious reason is that we don't see universities buying anything! You'd have to visit them all and study their inventory. Also, Universities already have the pianos in place - they aren't throwing them all out and buying a new fleet of AvantGrands or anything else. There are major money shortages in the arts at most universities. It's true that there's a bias in classical circles against digital pianos - which is one of the reasons conservatories are reluctant. They would be worried about the way it looks on Open Day when students come through and see digitals instead of revered grands. Never mind that many of those grands with lofty names are in such a state of neglect that they really aren't good instruments at all. I'm talking about clapped out Steinways and Bosendorfers. It's more common than you might think. Having played them, I can say that I'd rather play something in tune.




They usually aren't on the payroll - that adds to the cost in most cases. $100, $150, that's not the point. It is expensive to tune that many pianos and you have to do it continually to keep them that way. Even one day of having an out of tune piano in a conservatory is a liability and an impediment to practice.



You can't compare what you do at home with what happens at a conservatory. I guarantee you those pianos are being played 3 times more than yours and a lot harder because they are having virtuoso-level repertoire played on them constantly. I think students are less careful about the way they play on practice pianos too. Some of them pound them into the floor!



Not even close - see above. Furthermore, if they were to only receive 2-3 tunings per year, they would sound so bad that the AvantGrand would be the indisputable winner.



It might be outdated, yes, but those grands need a lot of work too.



Well, the AvantGrands aren't the typical domestic level of DP. I don't know how durable they would be, but neither do you. You can't base those comments on what you know about cheaper portable DPs. If the action costs a similar amount to maintain, there's no reason why the expense should mount up particularly beyond that. Solid state electronics are very reliable.



The argument is losing focus here. The P22 is very much cheaper - that's going to be part of that preference. You can't pick and choose which criteria apply to each comparison. When comparing P22 against the N1, you say it's about durability. When it's N1 vs C3, it's about performance. It seems you can't see one advantage of the AvantGrant. Any acoustic piano is vastly superior to you. I don't believe that to be the case. A good grand, yes. A really good upright, probably. AvantGrand beats P22 though. But as soon as maintenance and tuning problems interfere, the gap closes quickly. I'm not arguing about the artistic merit of the AvantGrand, rather the certain everyday realities that they address. My comments are based on having played badly tuned pianos in conservatories and the fact that if I'd had the option, I would have chosen an AvantGrand over those pianos. For stage pianos, of course they should be acoustic grands. No argument there.



Where is your evidence that no conservatories do buy DPs? There may be plenty of them out there. I haven't been to every conservatory in the world. Have you?

Some conservatoires buy digital pianos (roland and clavinova) for keyboard skills classes where the quality of piano is not paramount.

The avant grand will probably find its way into many practice rooms in time.

The development of the AG is a positive step, no doubt. At the moment it just sounds like an upgraded Clavinova, true, but I think its a neat alternative to a grand for those on limited space and budget.

Its important to still play on real grands though, because the tone isn't quite there yet...

Ando, firstly, the way you say "You leave holes in your arguments" here make it seem as though there are none in yours. Like Turandot points out elsewhere, there is plenty to debate about here. So its not as though your views on this ought to be the more valid ones or are devoid of holes.

Secondly, I find this question from you somewhat funny because not too long ago (look back a couple of posts), you claim that you've seen more conservatories than I have and so all that you say about conservatories should be true relative to what I say. To quote you: You definitely haven't been to many music universities then! You honestly could not be more wrong about this. The practice pianos in most conservatories are typically in very poor condition compared to the average home grand piano. They get the crap hammered out of them day and night and most of them are really out of tune. The cost of maintaining them to any great degree is prohibitive, which is why they typically will only get 4 tunings per semester - which is not much when you consider how many hours they get played (roughly 8-9 hours per day during semester). You seem to be able to claim so much about conservatories and music schools at universities. So then, the impetus would be on you to show me ONE *major* conservatory or a university music school from amongst the hundreds you have apparently been to that uses AG's or even cheaper digital pianos in *most* of their practice rooms.

I'm not saying that this is sufficient indication of the fact that the AG's are more cost prohibitive than uprights.. this surely is one potential indication. Now if you choose to argue "there must be *some* place in the world where they probably have AG's in their practice rooms. I haven't been to ALL conservatories, neither have you", then all your arguments so far stand nullified for the same reason. I hope you see the logic behind this argument of mine.

You make it sound as though its an empirically tested fact that you're stating. Have you seen upright pianos at the conservatories you've been to that have been fitted with these humidifiers? Were they tuned thrice a year regularly? How many such data points have you seen? Let me address this question to all the conservatory and university students who might be reading this post: how many pianos in your university practice rooms come with a humidifier/dehumidifier system? I doubt we'll get a significant number here. If that ends up being true, I see no way you could have made that confident a statement about these pianos not holding up their tuning with 3 tunings per year.

Well, that's an easy one to answer. The pianos at large conservatories don't use individual humidifiers because the whole ventilation system has a dehumidifier in it. Adding a Dampp Chaser would only add insult to injury as far as cost per piano goes. The humidity is controlled pretty well in these systems. I know for a fact that the pianos get tuned a lot more than 3 times a year because I have been to a faculty review meeting myself for an unrelated matter but I ended up hearing a summary of the department's finances. I was also quite friendly with the Dean of this department and we used to chat about such things - especially when I would complain to him about the out of tune pianos!

Likewise, at the other conservatory I studied at in Austria, the piano students were all aware of when the pianos were due to be tuned because they would try to book their practice slots to fit in with that. Again, it was quite frequent. I can't speak for every other institution though. I did notice that the pianos in the Royal College of Music in London were particularly well tuned. I would put that down to more frequent tunings rather than to them all having Dampp Chasers in them. I played 3 pianos there and none of those 3 had dehumidifiers. I can only assume they use a climate control system as well. As far as I know, dehumidifiers are more for domestic situations that don't have an interconnected and regulated climate control system.

I would add that I spoke specifically about my knowledge of where I studied, I did not try to speak generally for all other institutions.

Come now, you are wily enough to be able to recognise a bit of playful drama! Your claim that pianos in practice rooms should be able to stay in tune was amusing to me because of my direct experience to the contrary. Don't take that too literally - it was a friendly jibe, nothing more. Having said that, I would wager that I probably have seen more conservatories than you have, only because I have made it my business to visit many of them around the world. However, my main source of experience is from a relatively small number. You are correct about that. I do think you have an unrealistic idea of how long a practice piano stays in tune. By comparing it to your domestic piano, I think you are comparing apples with oranges. I have also heard reports of poor tuning/maintenance of pianos at places like Julliard. It's not an uncommon theme.

I never claimed that there are AvantGrands in conservatories. I was merely challenging your claim that none of them have them. My point was that you can't make assumptions unless you have taken reasonable steps to seek the information. The "impetus" was therefore not on me because I didn't make the claim. Remember the burden of proof to prove a negative is extremely high. I had no burden of proof because I was merely postulating a possibility. I have no idea if there are DPs in universities or not - and I never said I did. However it's possible they might. As I said, I haven't been to them all.

Lizs85,

The OP did not say he couldn't hear the difference between pianos. He said that: "Every time I seat down at an Avant Grand by Yamaha I'm blown away with the sound." He mentioned nothing about some manipulative salesman telling him that the piano recreates the acoustic grand experience. Those reports come from you, and only from you, even though I'm sure a good many here have played the Avant in dealer showrooms.

Frankly, I find it had to believe that a professionally-trained Yamaha sales guy would say something that silly unless he got carried away riding the coattails of the OP's own enthusiasm. Salesmen will turn their mainsail to the customer's wind. That's basic sales technique.

I think the crux of the matter is that even with a sophisticated course of ear training offere gratis by you to the OP, he may still love that Avant sound. I'm not comfortable with his "blown away" reports myself. I advised him to get beyond that stage before committing. I think 'blown away' is dangerously over-emotional in a purchase situation. However, the OP said "every time", so I don't think it's a first-time infatuation.

I sometimes teach an American Lit course on the California Experience in American novels. Whole books have been written on why Steinbeck is a 'great' writer whereas relatively speaking, authors like Saroyan and Kerouac are minor figures. Steineck never places high in my students' informal opinions though.That's fine with me. As long as my students understand each author's literary technique and apporach to writing, I'm fine with whatever grabs them personally. I teach an understanding of a process, not anyone's ranking system. I favor the same approach to musical composition. music performance, and yes -- musical instruments.

In that case, feel free to continue postulating possibilities as I now think you were being argumentative just for the sake of being so. My problem is with people who think they can "postulate possibilities" unchallenged while criticizing somebody else's view based on "where's your data? Have you seen enough conservatories?". Seems to me like you have two sets of rules for yourself and for others. That doesn't sit well with me. So I won't argue any further as its pointless.

Turandot, I see your wisdom now. (I'm only half joking but yes, you do have a point).

You were the one saying things like "why are there no DPs in universities?" . I only countered by saying you can't necessarily be so sure of that. There's a big difference. An unsupported claim can be challenged without proof. The challenge is to your very lack of basis for the statement. If you can't get that, I've given you too much credit in the past. I gave real world examples of my claims that keeping practice pianos in tune is a real problem. You gave nothing but a poor comparison to your own piano at home. It's nothing to do with having different standards for me than for you. I talked about my experience at several conservatories, you talked about nothing but your home. And you think I make unsupported claims? If I made my arguments the way you have in this thread, I would expect to have them ripped apart too. Please don't go all passive-aggressive as though you have been so wronged. It doesn't reflect well on you. You are misrepresenting this debate because your arguments fell into a hole. As somebody who very frequently argues very diligently yourself, you should be quite used to having to make a decent case. I think you are just used to getting your way.

Fine.

(Because I'm not interested in Da Capo al fine. "Ripped them apart" indeed. Keep your credit to yourself, I don't live off it. I can see when logic begins to fail with people and that is the point of no return. Strawmen begin popping up all over the place. An "inference" is conflated with "comparison" and all heck breaks loose. So this shall end here.)

Retreating with a few pontificating statements doesn't erase your lame arguments.

Haha, very funny video.

Hi 1BigBird, I couldn't help but notice you're from Everett, WA. If you drive down to Classic Pianos (www.classicpianosseattle.com) in Bellevue, they will let you do a side-by-side comparison of an AvantGrand with a Yamaha C3 or similar. If you call and request beforehand, the head guy tells me they will sometimes use a cloth to cover the rear components of the piano so you can only see the keyboard, allowing you to essentially do a blind test between the AvantGrand and a C3 (try not to scrutinize the pianos as there are differences in size, electronic components, etc. I am pretty oblivious to things so this wouldn't affect me.)

The AvantGrand is a very good hybrid piano, and if you like it, you should go for it. From my experience, Yamaha stands behind their products and there is little to worry about in terms of reliability. Personally, I am seriously considering an N1 for quiet practice.

As a side note, I tried playing the ocean etude on an N3. This is my test for electronic pianos, as most cannot handle sustaining a whole bunch of notes while sounding good. As well, from my experience, most uprights and electronic pianos don't have quick enough action for the repeated notes in this piece. I'll play a note only to find out it hasn't sprung back up yet.

The N3 is the first electronic piano to pass my ocean etude test. Its action is like that of a grand, and it doesn't have any sound distortion issues from my experience.

DPs cannot have distortion in their sound unless you connect them to speakers (& amps) which can't handle the power. What is limiting in my experience is that they have this definite ceiling to the power: with APs, if you really bang, you 'go through the tone' (listen to Horowitz). With most DPs, once you reach their limit, that's it.

bennevis, the N3 probably has a built in compression\limiter for those times when the piano is cranked up too far.

bennevis, the N3 uses sampled sounds. Now, I don't know if each sound is sampled at multiple different volumes and if by turning the volume knob up it plays a different sampled sound. I really don't think that's how the volume control works. I'll let others who might be better versed in how DP's work answer this. The point though is that, if sounds aren't sampled at multiple volumes, the tonal qualities of playing louder on a real piano simply cannot be replicated by the DP as somebody pointed out. Btw, even if you sampled it at multiple volumes, there will be subtle variations in tone depending on who played the piano during the sampling (or whatever other technique is used during sampling). Some people here may not believe this last part as they claim that velocity is all that decides everything about the sound produced. That's another topic that has been discussed to no end here.

I expect that they use machines to play the piano keys whose sound is being sampled for the database (is that the right word?) in the DP, otherwise they can't get consistency. And they won't want to crank up the machine to the point where the sound becomes harsh and 'ugly'. But sometimes in performance (even if it's just for a single bass note at the height of a climax, as in the big cadenza for Rach 3), you do want the sound to be harsh, and this is what's so disappointing in most DPs - that you can't get to that level no matter how hard you hit the key.

The samples are velocity based, the faster the hammer travels, the louder the sound. The amplification system works independently.

The strings in a real piano only see the velocity of the hammer, period. The strings don't care if you caress the keys like a long lost lover or if you walk across the keys with your shoes on, velocity is velocity.

With any kind of belief system, the burden of proof lies with the individual who states that something exists.

In the past I have played on various conservatory pianos. I have never seen digitals there. They were all acoustic, both uprights and grands. And they were in widely varying shape, from pretty good grands to the most crappy upright that you would not even want for free. They are clearly cutting on the maintenance costs. They seem to try to keep some pianos in good shape while others are not maintained. For the crappy ones, sometimes a key did not work; ivory was taken off the keys; in some cases I had to straighten up dampers before the note would play; and I was on the point of bringing my own tuning hammer to get some pitches at least somewhere in the right ballpark. Well you get the picture.

So given above suggestions of the big savings for DPs, either this conservatory is consciously choosing for acoustics, or we are missing something that makes the cost of a DP just as high as an acoustic.

Maybe what we miss is the average lifetime of electronic stuff, usually set at about 5 years? Or maybe it is that conservatories consider a DP unsuited to serious practice?

For myself, even in the case of crappy upright I am not so sure if I would prefer a DP instead. Well if keys are really broken it's a clear case, but for the less dramatic issues...

If a digital instrument has a grand piano action, that action will be subject to the same wear as on an acoustic grand piano. There will be no savings in maintenance if they want the action to perform properly.

My experience with CP70s and CP80s is that they seemed to get heavier than normal wear, and the actions were not maintained. Of course, the portable folding nature of those pianos led to less than stellar action response, too.

Yes.. so prove to us that different pianists playing with the same velocity produce the EXACT same tonal characteristics. You claim that's the case. So prove it. That's the funny thing about burden of proof. It goes both ways. Science rests on the very notion of falsification. If attempts at falsification fail, then the claim is treated as something that's worth considering. Similarly the claim when presented in the first place, needs to be accompanied by proof and proof that's falsifiable in principle. So all this about "the burden of proof lies with you" stuff is nonsense. Both parties have responsibilities to fulfill.

In the current situation, when it comes to discussing this stuff on an online forum, you cannot expect people to present data with plots and equations. If someone paid me to do it, I would probably do the experiment myself and verify if your claim or mine is the right one. In the absence of that possibility, all we can do is provide plausibility arguments. My argument for that is simply that there are tiny variations in the trajectories that the hammer can take to the string.It is not a constrained trajectory that has infinite precision. That's talking about a single note. Now when you talk about groupings of notes and phrases, the precise time of striking the string matters..with a sensor waiting to be activated that produces a sampled sound, the level of control is absolutely on a different scale altogether. It cannot be compared to the level of control one might have with the grand piano action COUPLED with real strings and other physical parts in the piano. The pedal itself can do multiple different things to the tonal quality for example. Its felt lifting off the strings. You can lift the felt off either after you strike the string or before. The two produce entirely different tonal characteristics. Are you suggesting that this can be done on the AG (a clever DP could possibly do it in the future, but I don't think it is implemented on any current DP)? The resonating characteristics on the real piano can also potentially change with changes in humidity, temperature and things like that and subtle changes in these characteristics when amplified (as the piano is loud, as you admit yourself) can turn out to be not so subtle in perception.The sound emanating from inside a piano is propagated across the room depending heavily on the geometry and physical aspects of the piano. With sampled sounds coming out of a speaker in the AG, that's simply not possible. Couple that with room acoustics..and the presence of people in the room: there are nonlinear interactions taking place here leading to potentially HUGE differences in experience with a room that has a grand piano playing as opposed to an AG playing in it (note: the nonlinear interactions are important in understanding this point of mine because you might argue that there are the same people present and the same room if you put the AG in a room under the same conditions). There's multiple different things that you can imagine goes on with a real piano. So I find it baffling that you simplify tonal characteristics down to mere velocity of the hammer.

Again, these are plausibility arguments. I have no proof for any of it, only intuitions. Similarly, you have no proof either for your claim that it is only dependent on hammer velocity. So all people can do here is to read each set of plausibility arguments and decide for themselves which arguments sound more reasonable and plausible.

I think that the 'secret' of an acoustic piano is that the interaction between the hammer and the string are in essence nonlinear in nature.
Thre are many scientific publications about this phenonemon; one you can find below:
Physical modelling of the piano ...

This in contrast to the digital piano where the velocity dependent activation of the sensor must be a linear interaction.

As to different pianists producing a different tonal palette when playing the same piece even at equal 'velocity striking' of the keys. I think this has to do with the fact that playing groupings of notes or phrases has less to do with the notes that are written down on the score but rather with what is 'between the notes'; timing in striking the keys and operating the pedals is what makes the subtle differences in.

Now whether all this is of much use in this debate about the AvantGrand is not at all sure.
I find the comparison between the AvantGrand (or any other advanced DP, e.g like the Roland V-Grand)and an acoustic grand solely on the basis of touch and tone production pointless.

For me they do not have to compete with eachother as the stenghts and benefits of the two species are of a different nature. The strenghts of the AvantGrand is mainly situated in the convenience domain still having a very good touch and adequate sound: playing through headphones, practice sessions without disturbing others, practice instrument in schools with little maintenance, performance instrument in bands (pop or jazz) ...

Just my 2 cts.

schwammerl.

If people only claimed what you claimed about the AG, I would have absolutely no issues with it. In fact, I believe you and I agree on most issues here. The point about control in between playing notes and how that affacts tonal quality is exactly what I've talked about too. With the precision in trajectory statement, I was trying to make a point that even if you talked about single notes, there are *probably* differences in tonal characteristics.

The nonlinear hammer-string point is very important too, thanks for pointing that out.

Finally, I agree..the AG seems to have a convenience advantage. All I am saying was that people seem to believe that its EQUAL in performance and experience to that afforded by a grand piano and there's lots of misleading advice and information given here that speaks of the two breeds of piano as though they afforded equivalent experiences. That is simply not true. So people will have to be wise in their choices, depending on what their goals are. Is the priority silent practice? If so, go for the AG by all means. Is the goal getting your phrasing right, gaining immense control over dynamical and lyrical aspects or subtle interpretative (including tonal control, etc) aspects? The AG might just not be your best bet there. This is all I'm saying and apparently people disagree.

Good guesses, both. I bet its the latter though.

I tried out the N3 today, after trying Yamaha's Clavinola 370, soon to be replaced, reportedly, with the 470. It was my first foray into the digital piano world. I expected to be disappointed, having an acoustical Yamaha WX3 upright that I love but can no longer practice on because of new living situation in multi-family dwelling.

The 370 was OK, but just. I then played the N3 just for fun, never thinking I'd seriously consider a piano this expensive. But OMG, it felt and sounded absolutely wonderful and was a pleasure to play. I am just an amateur classical pianist and not an expert on pianos, so pardon the hyperbole. If I were to break the bank and buy one, I would likely get the N2 (upright and $5K less). Dealer said piano technology was same in both models. Has anyone played the N2 and compared with N3?

Have been so distressed at the prospect of selling my beloved WX3. But admittedly when I played the AvantGrande today, it completely changed my view. I played a Bach English Suite and portions of Beethoven's Op. 90, to get a feel for the responsiveness of the keyboard with different styles of playing. It was so enjoyable, I forgot I was in a showroom, wearing headphones!

Would love to know others thoughts, esp. on the N2. The upcoming N1 is the lower end of this technology and will not include the TRS (Tactile Response System) that reportedly gives it the acoustical grand piano action and feel. But dealer didn't know how much cheaper it would be than N2.

Laurie

The N2 and N3 play and feel exactly the same. The action is superb. I would buy one in a second if I wanted another digital and had the $. I dont think the TRS is that important. The N2 and N3 have Ivorite keys, which I thought was not important until I got a piano with Ivorite keys and I miss it when I play a piano with plastic keys.

All are heads and tales above any other digital if you are talking about the action. The sound... I still contend a $400 Casio hooked to some $600 speakers and Synthogy Ivory sounds better. But the N1,2,3 action is as good as it gets, and in fact as good as it is possible to ever get.

Be sure that you play the N2, preferably side-by-side with the N3. The N2 lid directs some treble straight at the player, which can make some high notes piercing. The N3 lid directs sound in a more realistic way and there is no piercing treble. Also, the N3 has a soundboard that some forum posts indicate enhances realism. If the AG was going to be my only piano, I might take an "in for a penny, in for a pound" approach to the N1, N2, N3 choice.

It sounds like you will be using headphones, at least some of the time. Be sure to play these pianos with GOOD headphones (I like the Sennheiser HD 600 phones, but these are high impedance headphones that require a headphone amp on the AGs (but not, surprisingly, on the Roland RD-700NX) -- I'm sure there's a low impedance option that will allow you to avoid having to use a headphone amp with the AG). The AG samples are superior to the CLP 380 through headphones, but I prefer using Synthogy Ivory II with the N2, rather than its internal samples.

When testing digital pianos, try out quiet passages, where you might be attempting subtle voicings, articulations and dynamic contrasts (think anything Mozart and think interior melodic lines such as Brahms Op 118, No 2), to confirm that the instrument expresses these adequately. Also, play thick chordal passages in the middle of the keyboard to see if you like the sound. I find some digital samples will sound great with a single melodic line in a Chopin nocturne or waltz, but sound very "closed" or unrealistic with chords from, say, Brahms.

Finally, give the Roland SuperNatural pianos a try, especially if you need the digital for headphone practice, but would have an acoustic for other times. I really like the RD-700NX. The action is a bit light but nevertheless very good. I have played wonderful grands that have actions as light (e.g., a 7 foot Bluthner with a Stanwood touch design), but most pianos have a heavier touch than the RD-700NX. It is possible other pianos in the Roland line have a heavier touch than the RD-700NX, since it is a so-called stage piano. I haven't tried any of the other Rolands.

Finally, +1 to AlphaTerminus's final paragraph, though the Roland SuperNatural samples (and action) may be better still in bringing out the subtlety of Mozart.