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I'va been planning on buying a piano for a while now and have decided to go for a digital one. I'm just a beginner who has played a bit with a yamaha keyboard (the keys aren't even weighted). I've done some research and went to my local dealer and have come up with these three choices:

CLP-230 -1695€
CLP-240 -1990€
CLP-270 -3290€

Of course i should go for the best, which would be CLP-270 but I'm not sure if I can convince my mom to put that much money in a piano. Which one would be the best choice? What are the biggest differences between these three? I don't care so much about nice features and a lot of different sounds. The sound, touch and feel are the most important factors for me. Which one would be a good piano for a beginner?

The CLP 280 is somewhat superior in action feel to the 270 if you can stretch that far price wise. It also sounds a good deal better.

they all have the same action, so get CLP240 at least (if 270 is too much to ask), which has better sound than 230.

The 280 has wood naturals. The others use plastic instead. The result is supposedly a better action.

One advice: go and listen!!! It's not possible to judge a clavinova on specs. You really need to listen to them carefully. Apart from the 'touch' & extra features, the amplification and speakers are VERY important.
Good luck with choosing your Clavinova!

ps Clavinova is idd the best out there

Oh yeah, I forgot one thing. 230 and 240 are currently out of stock and they only have 270 in the shop, so I can't at least yet compare these three with eachother.

The wooden natural keys on the 280 make a big difference to the action feel. The entire key weight feel is different. You may not care though if you have never played an acoustic grand.

The 280 also is a big step up in terms of sound.

I have no idea what the price difference is though.

A

I had the chance to do a side by side comparison of the CLP270 and CLP280 when they first came on the market last year. Even though I am a very pedestrian player, it was very clear that the keyboard on the CLP280 was superior. I bought it and find it to provide a VERY realistic piano experience.

You should go with CLP-230 and save your mom some money. Last I checked online, the lowest price was $1,333 plus VAT in Europe. (I don't remember which country and what the Euro price was.) You can do a search at shopping.yahoo.com.

AJB and others,

I am interested in your comparisons of CLP-280 and Kawai MP8. I recall that you were somewhat underwhelmed with the MP8 from a previous post. Can you say more with respect to your observations?

thanks,
Stan

I've decided to go for either 230 or 240. The problem is, that they don't have 240 in the shop so I can't compare it with 230.

Saw - they are not really comparable.

The MP8 is a stage piano on a portable stand and requiring additional active speakers or passive speakers plus amplification.

The 280 is in a very sturdy and well finished case, with speakers etc and is intended for home use.

Both have a good action.

Kawai sound is very dependent on what you play it through. It was not suitable for my application.

Kind regards

Adrian

I don't believe that the main difference between the CLP-270 and CLP-280 is the material used in the white keys. The geometry of the action is quite different. The CLP-270 action is much shorter (from the front of the keys) and could be made to fit in a very shallow unit. The CLP-280 action has long key extensions into the main body of the piano that have a very simple flipper at the end. I suspect that this difference, more than the materials used, accounts for the difference in feel.

I tried both, and bought the 280. It really is a good piano. Although I truly loved the CF-III S at the local Yamaha dealer, I don't think I would play any better on it than I do on the 280.

I'm in exactly the same position with my local dealer only having the 230 in and I've gone ahead and ordered a 240.

The 240 has the exact same keyboard so should feel the same. But it seems the additional technology going into the sound quality is pretty significant - uprated speakers & amp and multi level sampling.

Admittedly I can't yet say what real difference this makes but the fact that theres little price difference I figured it would probably be worth it anyway. I could tell the difference between the 230 and 220 so I expect the improvement with the 240 will be equally noticable.

Other plusses for the 240 are that ithe usb drive which I don't remember seeing on the 230 and it has little 'arms' on the music stand to hold your page open (the lack of which drives me nuts on my old clp411)

Incidently have you checked around for prices? My local (Yamaha main) dealer was asking full RRP and didn't want to budge. When I mentioned I could get it cheaper elsewhere (physical shops with the same overheads as him - not just online sales) he finally agreed to match other shops prices but as a result I'd lose his special care package, which as far as I can tell means he delivers it to ground floor instead of third and I have to put it together myself.
He also blabbed about his 'quality aftersales care' which I found a bit dubious since it already has a manufacturers warrenty and being a digital is hardly going to need tuning after a few weeks!

So for the sake of carrying it in it's boxes up a few stairs and screwing it together (which I've done plenty of times with my old one) he's suddenly dropped his price by £300 - about $550 US. God knows what kind of profit margin he normally runs at but it just goes to show why you should shop around before handing your money over.