Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Yamaha YDP 233 or the Casio Celviano 420 (or even the 620)?

Hi all, I am new to this site and would like to seek some advice. Sorry for the cross posting, I had this in the general forum page earlier..I am still learning my way around and notice a specific forum on dps.

I am about to buy a digital piano and have narrowed choices down to two. What would be a better buy: the yamaha YDP 233 or the Casio Celviano 420 (or even the 620). I would love to get a yamaha clavinova but am priced out. One other specific concern that I have on both is the quality of the pedals. Are they durable and can they reasonably last for a 5 years and above. Appreciate any advice from fellow piano enthusiats, especially those with experience with one or both of the mentioned digital pianos. Many thanks.

Do you mean a YDP223? If so, I think the Yamaha "GH" key action is better quality then Casio. But there are many Yamaha digital pianos with the same "GH" key action, some are maybe newer. The 223 has been out for a long time. The YDP160 and p155 are newer. The CP50 will be out soon. But the YDP223 is being discounted right now, has good speakers and control layout.


Don't worry about the Yamaha pedals. I've not read any report of a failure. But if you do it's an easy screwdriver job. Installing the pedals is part of normal unpacking and setup of a new DP.

I've had 4 casios, including a Celviano AP65, and never had a problem with any of them. My only complaints were the limited means of adding new accompaniments and registrations and the voices could be better. But the voices have improved a lot in the new Privias and for the money I think they can't be beat.

I looked at the specs and I would go for the 620, 100's more voices and above all, 180 accompaniment rhythms (the 420 has none I believe). Auto rhythms really put the fun into dp's. I play gigs with just a sax player and rely on the kb to provide drums, bass and some harmony while I just play LH chords and RH melody and improv. I admit I'm a pretty poor pianist and have only been playing a couple of years off and on but that doesn't seem to bother our audiences. You can make a lot of music with a sax and an arranger kb.

I use Yamaha 61 key portable kbs (psr 3000 and psr-s910) for gigging and playing at home now mainly due to the ease of adding rhythms and regs, and just use the AP65 when I want 88 keys.

If you want a lot of handsome 88 key dp for the money I think the Celviano 620 is a good deal. If you want to gig though I would go for something like the Yammies.

All the best, Ed

Thanks Chris for your advice. On your advice, I am looking at the 160. I also just stumbled upon the Kawai Ce200. Any thoughts on this one, would Kawai be an inbetween the Yamahas and the Casios? Thanks again.

Thanks Ed, as mentioned to Chris in the thread above, I also just saw the Kawai Ce200. Any experience with this one too? Thanks again for your advice.

Kawai CE-200 Thread

Thanks Susan for your prompt assistance.

I did try e CE200. THe keys are nice, wooden and with a kind of "damped" feel. I think the keys are always Kawai's best feature, Both their wood and plastic keys are good. But the sound generation inside the CE200 is not Kawai's latest and greatest. It is pretty "synthetic" sounding. But not bad. It's "musical" but does not sound as "real" as the P155 or other better Yamahas. My impression is that it is too "clean". Most of the other Kawa's have newer sound technology inside. The CE200 has been around for a while

I'd rate Kawai right a long side Yamaha. But while Yamaha does not build low cost DPs Kawai ignores that end of the market, I think Roland owns the high end of the market and casios the low end.

Take a look at the YP160. I bought the P155 and it's matching LP140 stand. I think it has slightly better specs than the 160 and much better controls.

I agree with ChrisA on the CE200 from what I noticed while testing it out recently (and thanks Susan for your input!). The action certainly is different from Yamaha and Chris describing it as "damped" is pretty accurate. Seems like Yamaha has a quicker action for some reason but they both felt just as heavy in my opinion and pretty comfortable. I've only been playing seriously for a couple of years though. I also tried out the YDP160 and the P155. You can tell that the P155 sounds better even though the speakers are not as good. The P155 does have a USB port and better controls which is nice and it also doesn't have the cabinet look that the YDP160 has if you're looking for that. The only other thing I noticed between these two was that the keys of the P155 felt different to me. Not in the action but in the actual material and maybe it was just me or I was playing a dud, but the keys didn't feel very smooth if that makes sense. The YDP160 keys did have the feel I was expecting. Anyone else ever notice this???

Thanks for all the advice folks. Much appreciated. It really helps me narrow my search.