REVIEW - Yamaha CLP525 Digital Piano - Recommended - New lower price Yamaha Clavinova for 2014

REVIEW - Yamaha CLP525 Clavinova Digital Piano - Recommended - New for 2014. The Yamaha piano company makes some great music products and I own some of them so I know about it first hand. I own a Yamaha acoustic piano, Yamaha guitars, Yamaha keyboards, and other Yamaha products. They have been reliable products and I have had them for many years. Yamaha is certainly not the only good name in digital pianos as there are other great brands out there such as Kawai, Roland, Casio, and a few others. However I think it's pretty safe to say that Yamaha is the most well known brand in digital pianos and that's partially because they produce thousands of acoustic pianos every year for students, recreational players, and professionals and have been doing it for decades.

Yamaha Clavinova CLP525

The new Clavinova series model CLP525 is Yamaha's new low price Clavinova digital piano for 2014 and is only available at authorized piano stores in the US, and not on the internet or the pro music stores like Guitar Center, etc. In other countries the Yamaha Clavinova brand may be available on the internet and/or in piano stores. As far as I know, US retail price is about $2500US and store discount selling price is somewhere between $1900-$2000US. As far as I can tell, the CLP525 is basically a Yamaha Arius YDP162 ($1499US internet discount price) but with the GH3 key action which has one additional key sensor in each key as opposed to two sensors in the YDP162, and a 256 note polyphony

Yamaha Arius YDP162

chip as opposed to the 128 note polyphony in the YDP162. The extra polyphony memory is useful especially if you are a more advanced player playing more complex music. However, 128-note polyphony piano sound memory (depending on how it is allocated) is usually more than sufficient for most people, especially in this price range. The additional key sensor (GH3) in each key is important in that it allows for better electronic sensing and response for faster repetitive key movements, especially for more advanced players. There are other brands and models in this price range that also use 3 key sensors (Casio, Kawai, Roland) so Yamaha is not the only one to do it under $2000US. Both Yamaha pianos look the same except with a different Yamaha logo on the front of the CLP525 and front legs were added to the CLP525 which does make it look more elegant and adds to the furniture look of the that piano as compared to the Arius YDP162 which is a pedestal style with no legs. The CLP525 comes in two colors (with matching bench) which is dark satin rosewood with simulated wood grain, and satin black color (they are attractive), just like the YDP162, although the trim color of the key cover is different. In certain lighting conditions the dark rosewood finish on the piano can look almost black. Both pianos are pretty basic otherwise and have many of the same digital features.

The physical key action movement on the new CLP525 feels the same to me as compared to the Yamaha YDP162. The key action is the #1 most important thing to look for in any piano and although the key action is solid, and quiet when it moves, admittedly I have not been a big fan of the GH/GH3 plastic key action because of the resistance of the key when pressing down on it from key resting position. The action is the GH series which stands for graded hammer. Nearly all good digital pianos in this price range have a graded hammer action which means the keys are weighted slightly heavier on the left side and get slightly lighter in weight as you go up the right side of the keyboard. However the overall weight or heaviness of all the keys when you push them down is what I don't particularly like as compared to other digital piano brands. This weight or extra resistance to finger pressure is called static touch weight. What I notice about this GH3 action is that the keys take a lot more pressure to push down whether your fingers are on the front part of the white keys or on the back of the white or black keys. As an example, if you were to go and press the keys on the new Yamaha NU1 digital upright piano
(approx $5000US store discount price - left pic) with a real wood key action movement in it, you would notice right away how much easier it is to press the keys. This is the way a good digital upright style key action should be but the Yamaha CLP525 as well as the lower priced Arius YDP162 have key actions that are much stiffer to the touch, even as compared to other brands I have played in this price range, especially when playing lighter or softer pieces of music. So with that in mind, I do not personally enjoy playing the GH/GH3 plastic key actions near as much as I do playing the keys on the newer Kawai, Roland, and Casio digital pianos. I certainly can play the GH/GH3 actions and make some good music with them, but I prefer a key action that allows for a quicker response and easier touch. Did you know that good grand piano key actions are even easier and quicker to play than upright key actions? Yep...it's true so with that in mind, the Yamaha GH/GH3 key action doesn't come anywhere close to a grand piano key action, but it obviously wasn't designed to do that either. Apart from that, I like the reliability & quietness of the key action as well as the feel of the keys because it has the ivory feel (simulated) key tops on the white keys, which is a nice touch, instead of just the white plastic tops. However, most acoustic pianos do not have simulated ivory feel keytops so that feature is nice but not "necessary" to have a good playing experience.

The pedaling is quite good with 3 full pedals at a reasonable height that respond to the normal acoustic pedal functions including damper/sustain with half-pedal control, sostenuto pedal, and soft pedal. The soft pedal also triggers other functions such as being able to speed up and slow down the simulated rotary speaker sound of the jazz organ tone when that tone is selected. That's a cool feature (if you like the jazz/rock organ sound) and it's also on some of the Kawai digital pianos I have played. The piano pedal decay sustain time is also good and that's important when playing in a legato or slower fashion. The pedal color on the rosewood finish piano is brass while the pedal color on the black finish piano is chrome, so that is a nice touch.  

There are 10 basic (but nice) sounds on this CLP525 which is fine and 3 of them are acoustic piano sounds (brighter, more mellow, etc). There are a couple of good organ sounds (church, Hammond B3 jazz/rock sound), strings, harpsichord with plucking (very nice), etc. The stereo acoustic piano sound reproduction is actually quite nice and there is good sustain and resonance coming through the piano. Yamaha also uses a feature they call "smooth release" which helps with producing a more natural sustain when releasing the keys more slowly as opposed to playing in a staccato fashion. Both pianos have their acoustic piano sounds sampled from Yamaha's CF series grand pianos (this is true for all of the lower priced Yamaha digital pianos I have played down to about $600US) and both pianos sounded the same to me in that way when I played them. 

CLP525 left side control panel

Some of the features that are included in this model are being able to combine any 2 instrument sounds together to play live on the piano, record 2 instruments/tracks one at a time in the MIDI format for playback to hear your music and save 1 song into memory of the piano (there is no .wav audio recording), use key transpose function to shift into any pitch/key up or down and not change the physical keys you are playing, playing in a duet or duo mode so two people can play at the same time with the keyboard electronically split in half with the two sides playing the same notes & pitch with one person being on the left side and the other person being on the right side, select a digital metronome with different time signature settings & speeds to help with timing and counting, and being able to change key touch sensitivity from hard to light, although that does not change the actual physical key resistance and firmness. The CLP525 does let you transfer basic MIDI songs from a computer into some digital memories  in the the piano, but these MIDI songs are limited to basic standard MIDI files and most of the good MIDI file songs that are out there are in the General MIDI/multi-instrument format which cannot play back on the CLP525 correctly, so you would be limited to basic piano or organ type playback music.

You can connect the piano to an iPad or computer using the USB output on the piano which is helpful for using software of iPad apps, which I like and use in my studio. There are no audio output or input jacks so the piano cannot be connected to external audio systems except through the stereo headphone jacks (there are two of them)...which I do not particularly like because of limitations connecting it that way. It is important to note that when using an iPad connected with this piano, you would need to rely on the internal iPad speaker to hear the music or sounds coming out of the apps. Unfortunately in most cases, the iPad sound through it's tiny speaker gets drowned out by the piano when your playing on it. If the piano had an audio input jack(s) built into it, then you could run the iPad sound through the piano speaker system and hear the iPad at a good volume and in stereo, which would be very helpful. This is not the case with the CLP525 since it does not have an audio input jack and this is an unfortunate omission in this day & age of technology, especially at this price.  Also, the additional extra built-in features/functions of the CLP525 need to be accessed with a special function button on the piano while referring to a menu inside the owners manual so it makes using those functions more complex. But this is true of some other brands and models as well in this price range. It's a way to reduce the amount of buttons on these pianos which is not necessarily a good thing when trying to figure out how to access the functions. 

The internal sound system of the CLP525 with 40 watts of power (20x2 stereo) into 2 separate internal speakers is certainly adequate for most rooms and 40 watts of power is fairly standard in most brands in this price range. The lower priced Arius YDP162 has the same internal speaker system so there is no difference there. There are also good digital pianos in this lower price range (under $2000US selling price) with less audio power than 40 watts but in many cases they are more than sufficient in volume output for a variety of rooms so you don't necessarily have to get 40 watts of power to enjoy playing or listening to the piano. Ask me for more info on this.

CLP525 with closed key cover

As I mentioned earlier, this new Clavinova CLP525 is really a combination of the Arius YDP162 in a slightly nicer looking cabinet with the front legs along with the better piano polyphony memory chip of other Yamaha Clavinova digital pianos including the 3 key sensor capability. It's a more affordable Clavinova digital piano available at less money than previous Clavinova models, but overall it's very basic in its features but is good for what it does. It's for people who mainly want to play piano and want something minimalistic with just a few additional features combined with a basic but fairly easy to use control panel at a selling price under $2000, which is where most digital piano shoppers want to be.

This is the first time in quite awhile that Yamaha Clavinova's have been competitive in this lower price range so that is a big step for Yamaha with this model. I do recommend the new CLP525 as a good instrument and it can satisfy many people at many skill levels with its high quality features, although as I mentioned earlier, I do not personally like the key action movement as compared to other brands and models of cabinet digital pianos under $2000 selling price such as the Kawai CE220 ($1899US), Kawai CN24 ($1799US), Kawai KDP90 ($1149US) Casio PX850 ($1099US), and the new Roland RP401R ($1599US). In my opinion for its price, the CLP525 also should have a lot more technology built-in such as audio recording, USB flashdrive input, audio connections, multi-instrument MIDI lesson song playback from flashdrive, rhythm accompaniments to help
with timing & rhythm practice, and keyboard split function like some of the other models under $2000, because I have seen these things be very useful to students and players. This would have made the piano much more competitive and given it a huge advantage over other brands. As it is now, it's nice, but it could have been great for its price. To get some of the extra upgraded features you could always move up to the next model in the Clavinova line but that would put you well above the $2000US selling price. Or you could use some interactive iPad apps with the CLP525 or go to another brand with more digital features at less money but with more realistic key action movement and piano sound (in my opinion) such as the popular Kawai CE220 including bench ($1899US internet discount price). The Kawai piano has an actual wood key piano key movement along with 88-key piano sampling, USB flashdrive input, multi-instrument MIDI playback, more educational features, easier access and more intuitive control panel, etc. It is a strong competitor of this new CLP525 and can be purchased in the US on the internet and in Kawai authorized piano stores. Go to the following link for my review of the Kawai CE220: Kawai CE220 Review 

At the end of the day it's about what YOU want, what satisfies your musical and/or piano learning needs, what type of piano cabinet you want, and the amount of money you can or want to spend. Although there are many good options and I know it can be confusing, do your homework and if you have specific questions you are welcome to contact me as I am happy to help.

If you want more info on new digital pianos and LOWER PRICES than internet discounts, please email me at tim@azpianowholesale.com or call direct at 602-571-1864.

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