Yamaha P120

I just like to correct my review earlier. I meant to say that the Grand Piano 1 sounds a lot like Jazz Piano of the P-80 to me, *NOT* the Rock Piano. They're both really too bright for me...

Very easy to set up. Lump in the middle power transformer.

This keyboard is an upgraded version of the P-80, and has the same action the P-80, with built in speakers, half pedal effect, and new sound sample sets.

Ok, here's the low down. I bought a P-80 because the music store didn't have P-120's in hand. I really wanted the built in speakers and the half pedal effect. The music store received a few units around 2 weeks later, so I went to try it out, with the option of exchanging it. But I didn't take it! Why? The Grad piano 1 sample is new, and in my opinion sounded a lot worse that the P-80. The P-80 has more of a nice rounded, classical piano sound, which I really liked, but the P-120 has an extremely bright piano sound, like the "rock piano" of the P-80. With the Brightness slider all the way down, it makes it more bearable, but even then, if I play a little harder the rock piano sound reveals itself. Why Yamaha why???

I play mostly classical piano pieces, have been playing since childhood. The action on the P-120 and also the P-80 digital pianos are awsome. But I disliked Grand Piano 1 sample (and other acoustic piano samples), which in my opinion is worse that the P-80's. If you're in the market for inexpensive digital pianos with realistic action, Yamaha is great, but make sure you listen to the piano samples carefully.

All the listening tests were done with headphones.

This is an update to my previous review (below) ... I went for a more in-depth second look today. This time I took my own headphones, and compared the P120 side by side with the P80.

I particularly wanted to check out all four (i.e. 2x2) piano voices, to see how they compared to the eight piano voices in the P80. The salesman had told me last time that the main piano-1 voice in the P120 is the same as the one in the P80. It's not! I switched my headphones back and forth several times, and I'm certain that the main P120 piano-1 voice is not the same as any of the P80 voices. It's different ... better ... more high fidelity. The piano-1 variation is a little brighter. The two piano-2 voices sounded like the "Rock" piano voices in the P80 - i.e. pretty useless as far as I'm concerned.

And there's more good news. I played the e-piano-2 Rhodes voice some more. I found the velocity-sensitive sample switching still noticeable, but it's a huge improvement over the P80. It's also quite a different Rhodes sound to the one in the P80. More raunchy. I tried out the e-piano-2 variation voice this time too, and was *very* pleasantly surprised to discover that it's a really good Wurlitzer sample, unlike its equivalent in the P80 which isn't a sample of anything that I know of. Yet more good news ... I hadn't spotted last time that the "Symphonic" effect has been replaced by a much more useful "Phaser" effect.

So, to summarise again, I was even more impressed this time than I was last time. My concern about the absent "Classical" piano voice has evaporated, so I'm just left with the reluctant wife. And I can handle her.

10 out of 10 ... no hesitation this time!

I've just seen/played Yamaha's new P120 piano! It's in Yamaha's Ginza showroom in central Tokyo. (I'm here just for a few months - in January I go back to London.) It's priced at about 20% higher than the P80, and there was a notice saying that it would be available from October 15. I emailed Yamaha to check whether it will soon be available internationally, and they said yes. I would not have submitted this review had the answer been no.

This is my first posting to Harmony-Central. I've found the site a very useful source of info/advice in the past, so thought I'd add this review for the benefit of others interested in the new P120 (aka P-120, just so that this article will get found when searching for either expression!). Apologies to Yamaha if this review results in slightly reduced sales of P80s or P200s while people wait for the new P120 to appear in showrooms worldwide! In case you're wondering about my credentials ... I'm just an amateur jazz pianist, but a very keen one. Over the past 25 years I've owned quite a few epianos, including a Hohner Pianet-T, Wurlitzer, Fender Rhodes Stage 73, Roland RD250s, Kurzweil RG100 and Yamaha P150. I now have a Yamaha P80, which I consider to be the best epiano available (pre-P120!). I also have a good upright piano in London, and very occasionally get to play on grands.

So, what did I think? The P120 is clearly derived from the P80 rather than the P200. The salesman confirmed that it has the same grand piano voice as the P80 and the same graded hammer action. (The piano samples in the P200 sound inferior to my ears.) It also has 64-note polyphony. The positioning and sound of the built-in speakers reminds me of the Kawai ES1. A bit weedy, but fine for bedroom practice. Also worth having for on-stage monitoring - I personally find that playing through remote speakers alone can be a little disconcerting. The P200 has much better built-in amplification, but then it's a much bigger and heavier beast. The P120 weighs a little under 19kg, and is slightly bigger than the P80. There's a wood-grain effect covering which looks quite good from a distance but a bit tacky close up. You can see a picture of it at [http://the-soundfactory.net/TPS_El_Piano.htm]. I noticed that it uses an external AC-DC transformer, like the P80.

There are other improvements apart from the speakers. There's now "user 1,2,3" two-track recording - i.e. three times the recording capacity of the P80 - and some additional sounds including vibes, choir, electric bass, clavinet and guitar. Each sound has a variation, as in the P80. I didn't try them all, but I did try out the epiano voices. As in the P80 the epiano1 voice is a horrid DX7 sound, but the epiano2 Rhodes voice has been improved. The P80 Rhodes voice is pretty good if you set the touch sensitivity to hard and take care to avoid the awful velocity-sensitive sample switching, where the tone is either bell-like or quack-like with nothing inbetween, but thank god the P120 doesn't suffer from that problem. The P120 is the first digital piano I've played - and I think I've tried nearly all of them - that really does sound like my old Fender Rhodes. It sounded even better to me than the GEM Real Piano and Yamaha's own S80 synth in this respect, which were the two best that I'd heard prior to this.

That epiano2 voice alone makes me want to replace my P80 with a P120. However, apart from a reluctant wife, there's just one thing that might prevent me from doing this. I need to investigate further, but as far as I remember there are only two piano sounds (four including the variations) - i.e. only half as many as in the P80. In particular I don't think the P120 has the "classical" piano voice of the P80, and that's the one I think I like best. (I use the variation, set to soft touch, no reverb and with the brilliance slider pushed towards bright.) The question of which piano voice sounds best of course depends on factors such as amplification and

I'm giving it ten marks out of ten in spite of the absent classical piano voice!