I have been looking for a digital piano for a while and have almost decided on the Yamaha clp 430, I'm just wondering though if there is a huge amount of difference between the 430 and the much cheaper CLP 300 series?

Not a whole lot of high importance.

1. The 430 has better speakers (I don't know how much better, though)

2. The 430 has a newer tone engine. I haven't heard people raving about RGE being significantly different from AWM, so I assume this is a small difference in practice.

3. There are some differences in cabinetry.

Personally I'd save my money and get the 330 unless you try both and the 430 sounds better to you (either because of the speakers or the engine). They have the same action and I personally find all Yamaha Clavinovas to sound pretty similar to each other.

Thanks that's very helpful I was wondering about the usb record function, is it different/better on the 430? my son wants to be able to record multiple tracks, I think you can also update the sound samples by usb on the newer models but not sure if that's recent addition?

I don't think you can meaningfully update sound samples on any Yamaha pianos.

AFAIK the USB record function on the 430 and 330 are the same. They just wrote it up differently in their specs. Any Yamaha piano with USB-to-Device will probably work the same. Probably you should research this before buying because I'm not 100% sure on it.

The last time there was even a minor change to the CLP-x30 was the CLP330.

- The 230 did not have multi-level sampling ... just one sample level.
- The 330 has 3-levels.
- Not sure about the 430, but even if it has 4-level sampling, it won't make much difference compared to the 330.

The 300 series was discontinued a year ago, so you might be able to negotiate a sweet deal on any remaining stock.

Thanks for that..I have found a stockist online that has one but obviously can't test it. I have tested the 430 though..sounds like it's worth buying the 330 then and saving mysllf a few hundred, thanks for your help

Don't know where you are located, but in my neck of the woods, Kawais were a lot less money for more features than Yamahas.

I tried Yamaha first as I had previously owned several Yamaha grands.

Hi, Kawai is slightly cheaper and I had been looking at the CN43, but unfortunately there are no stockists near me so I wouldn't be able to try before buying. I did get as far as trying to order online but due to the earthquake in Japan they are still awaiting new stock , we would have to wait about 6 weeks for it. That's why I'm back to looking at Yamahas. I'm having a lok at Roland's at the moment too, how do peopel rate the HP305? It's a bit more expensive though.