My dear friend Stu Harrison. This was once again a very successful presentation of Digital Piano DDP-300 from Thunder. Since I buy a digital piano at Amazon in the near future, this was very helpful for my purchase decision. But now I fell in love with one or better two digital pianos from the manufactory Fame and on the one hand the FAME6500DP and the FAME8600DP. I would be very thank you very much thank you to test these two models too. Thank you very much in advance. Greetings from the beautiful Lower Saxony Langenhagen near Hannover in Germany sends you André.
Stu is absolutely right. We can be picky about DPs if we have the cash, but 30 years ago I was performing alongside some excellent musicians using very simple DPs. They made them sound surprisingly good. It wasn't about fooling our ears that it's an acoustic grand piano, it was about playing satisying music on workable instruments. If you can really get this DDP-300 for under $400 US, complete with built-in home furniture support, that is excellent, because the basic sound and action seem very reasonable. As a cheap beginner piano it only needs to last and satisfy for three years - after that it owes you nothing! Regarding sound output - it's time that all manufacturers admitted that the sound systems on most of their DPs are inadequate, at least by themselves. There is a modular solution: A discrete 8" woofer or subwoofer plug-in speaker designed to compliment several models by the same manufacturer, and look nice in a home. There could even be a smart crossover built into a DP itself, for onboard speaker efficiency. This extra speaker would be a great additional sale for manufacturers and dealers alike.
I get what your saying. I know a pianist who makes great music on an old grand piano he's name is Martin Avila he plays on an old Kimball however, he's playing makes it sound very nice🎹🎶
They don't even need a subwoofer that large to achieve reasonable bass notes. The Roland DP603 has a large box with a couple of 12 cm (4.75") speakers in a sealed cabinet that produces more than enough bass. The Kawai ES8/ES520/ES920 have great bass with just a pair of very small full range speakers (no tweeters) in a ported plastic enclosure. The Yamaha DGX 670 has also great piano bass tone since it has also ported full range speakers (and tweeters). For piano tone, it is better not to use a ported subwoofer, due to the air shuffling and their high rolled-off bass slope (due to their design). A better choice is a sealed subwoofer. And believe it or not, you can also place a speaker in an open baffle and the bass will be more than enough (you will need either an inductor to limit the frequencies to less than 200 Hz or so, or an amplifier designed for subwoofers with frequency adjustment) I know that because I design speakers for digital pianos as a personal hobby and I have tried all of those designs. In fact, grand pianos don't produce bass by means of boxes (ported or sealed), but by means of a very large membrane vibrating in an H-frame (the effect on the outer rim), which is exactly how open baffle speakers produce bass.
@@Instrumental-Covers Accordingly, the Fostex Mini (5" sealed sub) could be useful. I'm not sure I agree about those portable Kawai pianos having plenty of bass. I've not yet heard a portable piano that doesn't beg a little help in amplification.
@@Zoco101 The Kawai pianos I mentioned are the weakest of the 3, but they are still better than many vertical pianos. For example, the Yamaha CSP170 will easily overpower a Kawai or Yamaha upright piano of any size when it comes to bass. I am mentioning that specific model, due to a test I did in an actual piano store. The CSP170 has just a couple of 6.5" speakers (and 3" mid/highs full range speakers). Most baby grand pianos don't have much bass at all, and my DGX670 produces more bass than most of them. The problem with digital pianos is not bass, but midrange expansion: pianos have huge soundboards vs a couple of tiny circles (speakers). Soundboards have difficulty playing great bass for simple physics: there is a formula between area of a radiator (membrane) and bass output. Bass frequencies produce very large waves that meet from the front and back of a piano, and cancel each other out, leaving weak bass. On the other hand, even a 5" woofer in a box can produce a lot of bass due to the box preventing this cancellation. Pianos are large, and their sound is large as well, even if they don't go that deep in bass, they fell powerful. In contrast, digital pianos may have more bass, but since their speaker systems are so tiny, they feel underpowered. Adding a subwoofer is likely to produce an unnatural piano sound. It may be satisfying for some, but it is not a realistic piano sound. Even a 9 foot concert grand does not sound like a subwoofer at all. The bass sounds more like 60 Hz, and that is because the lowest fundamental tone, 27.5 Hz, is basically silent, and only the 2nd partial (27.5*2=55 Hz) starts to make its appearance.. the 27.5 Hz is about 60 decibels quieter. A bookshelf speaker is more than enough bass for a realistic piano tone, unless you just want to create a fake mega-bass piano. Again, the problem of digital pianos is their small size, not the bass output. I have used a pair of 15" full range drivers (up to four of them) in an open baffle configuration, and that is plenty of bass, with the proper crossover.
@@Instrumental-Covers That's interesting. Some studio monitors are very mid-oriented, so the 4" woofers on my P-121 produce more convincing bass than the 5" speakers on my MSP5 monitors. The sound seemed just a little incomplete, even with both sets of speakers. The sub I added has a tight sound, and I use it discretely. I believe it improves my piano sound, but I'm not a purist. Admittedly, I had a more complex agenda anyway, because I wanted a studio sub, and I wanted to be able to play the upright bass patch and organ patch more convincingly. But now I have to replicate the effect on small gigs. I'm considering the DB Technologies unit with a "bass reflex sub" and an array of 4x3" speakers in a top unit. I'll probably use the onboard speakers too. Do you think the bass reflex aspect will cause problems then? Could it be a glorified woofer in a ported sub cabinet? Update: Ooops, I meant to say P-255. That's what I have.
After listening closely to several reviews on your channel of similarly priced products including Casio and Kawai, I still like the sound of this Donner piano despite how I can see some would call it “thin”
You make this piano sound fabulous! I love hearing u play & ur reviews as I'm sure everyone does! Thank you for these videos! I just realized I had already watched this, but u r so good I still loved it!(& Freddy Mercury poster!👏👏👏)
I was considering an Alesis top model I think the artist one but for the similar price it doesn’t even come with a stand. This Donner looks amazing and you said it sounds better. It still sounds pretty good just coming through my iPhone speaker
Hey, thanks for your great videos! There is just no other channel on RU-vid that actually makes good piano reviews like you do! Are we by any chance going to see reviews of higher-end Yamaha digital pianos such as the CLP 785 or NU1x any time soon?
Amplifier power is a complicated subject. This is not equivalent to a car speedometer, where 40 km/h is twice the speed of 20 km/h. For example, to hear music twice as loud, you need 10 times the amplifier power. So, you need 10 watts of power to hear your piano twice as loud than at just 1 watt. And 10*10=100 watts to hear it at twice the volume produced at 10 watts. So, 20 watts does not give you 2 times the volume at 10 watts, the volume increase is very small. This is why you don't get a lot more if you go from, let's say, a Kawai KDP75 (18 watts amplifier output) to a KDP120 (40 watts). You get almost nothing in overall loudness, as measured by a decibel meter. What about the bass? Do you get better performance with more watts for the bass? Well, again, it is not that straightforward. Our ears are most sensitive around 2 kHz-5 kHz, and we need more bass volume to compensate for our lack of sensitivity for lower frequencies (Fletcher-Munson curves). That means we need to provide the loudspeakers with more current to move the cone enough for those low frequencies... But this is the thing: most of these digital pianos don't have large drivers in proper enclosures to produce those bass notes anyway. Digital pianos typically use a small full range driver, sometimes fitted inside a box without proper frequency tuning. Driving more power to them for the low frequencies does not result in proper bass anyway. So, for digital piano use, I wouldn't worry about an amplifier doing 18 watts vs 40 watts. In the case of the KDP75 vs KDP120, the speakers are not the same size, as the KDP120 has larger speaker cones which contribute to a more rounded tone with more bass. So, in this case, it is not just the amplifier but the speakers. In fact, you could make the KDP75 sound way better than the KDP120 by simply connecting its internal 9 watt/channel amplifier to a large, properly designed, high sensitivity speaker system. Can we say that the KDP120 has better bass simply because it has more amplifier power? The answer is: no. You need to look at the speaker size as well. If you fitted the KDP120 with a smaller speaker and the KDP75 with a bigger speaker, chances are the KDP75 will sound fuller. In general, can we say that more power directly translates in louder or more bass heavy sound? No. You need to also look at the speaker system, which includes both the drivers and the box design and tuning. The amplifier power rating alone is not enough information to make a statement about the performance of a sound system.
thank you so much for the logical and thorough review. I've been looking at these along with the Donner DP-80. Do you have any comment about the 3 pedal system, perhaps specifically related to the sostenuto pedal and its clarity, or functionality?
The first product to get killed in the market is probably a Casio CDP or CDP-S, as you get a complete console with higher specs, while Yamaha P45 would still be safe right now, for its brand value. Anything that could save Casio would be its Chordana apps perhaps?
Don't all the CDPs have dual sensors at least? The PX's have tri-sensors I believe. I wish Stu had said exactly which Alesis models are pipped by this DDP-300. I'm sure he hasn't reviewed the full Alesis range. I have checked Amazon here in Europe and the DDP-300 isn't available. The DEP10s & DEP20s are avaiable, and they cost a little more than $400 here, or at least the DEP-20s does.
@@Zoco101 ha definitely a slip of tongue yes 88-keyed CDP are dual sensors. Casio CT-s100/200 are single sensor, but that's totally off discussion here.
Hi Stu! Have watched almost all your videos, and I'm curious to know what are your thoughts on the Yamaha NU1X.... Could you share what do you think of it if you have tried it? Thanks!
Hola! ¿Podrías hacer una revisión de la colección de pianos (4) de "EAST WEST" por favor? A ver cómo andan en comparación con VSL. Buen año 2022! ,🙋🏼♂️
Thanks for the suggestion! We are not Donner dealers, so it is a bit tougher to do reviews and comparisons with their models. However, every now and then, we do receive them as trade-ins, which allows us to tackle reviews/comparisons. :)
Hi! Brent here! The VPC1 is pretty much unparalleled when it comes to velocity sensitivity and expressivity tracking. The only other pianos that I have personally found compare to the VPC1 in this regard is the NV10S. Thanks and hope this helps! :)
@@MERCEDES-BENZS600GUARD_V12 I wonder if these are just impressions or actual characteristics of the piano. For example, Stu says he can tell it is not individual sampling, that it sounds like they only sample about 3 or 4 keys and stretch the other notes. He says that sounds like it is a single layer. He says that Kawai sounds like it has at least 5 or 6 layers... the reality is that there is no information about that from these manufacturers, so these are just speculations. In addition, listening to these pianos through their speaker systems instead of a highly resolving pair of studio monitors adds to being more subjective than objective. Even if you were using a pair of studio headphones designed for forensic audio, like the Sennheiser HD800S or some planar magnetic reference headphones, it is still a guess, not an objective evaluation. 👀
@@Instrumental-Covers I see where your geting at the information on these things are very limited and, the fact that it's a low cost instrument no one would really care if it's a stretched sample or an 88 key sample🎹🎶
BENZ I doubt that it's worth buying any expensive VSTs for a piano like this, but maybe there are some very cheap ones or freebies. In fact I wouldn't bother getting a valuable VST for any keyboard/piano worth less than $1200.
People that repair digital pianos are usually referred to as digital piano technicians. An experienced digital piano tech should be able to assist you with your issue. Best of luck! :)
Open up ur digital piano & see what the problem is. It could just be dirty & a graphite pencil will do the job, or the pad thing broken or torn, u can buy replacement for very little & anyone can do it in about an hour or so...hard part is taking out & putting back in all those screws! If its a DONNER, they'll replace ur piano free.
Digital pianos can last 10, 15, or even 20 years if well-maintained and cared for over the years. Unless there are issues with the instrument or speakers, there should be no degradation of sound quality over time.
Nice, I would really loved to have the ddp80, but one day I went to a music store and I found. a Kawai, and I played, and just in that moment I perceived some magic, in my country I had an acoustic Kawai . So I chooses KDp75 ,for other reasons, I am not professional and I am not able to distinguish between sounds . Ddp80 would e my second option.
Hi! Brent from Merriam Music here! The DDP300 has an attractive price attached to it for a console-style digital piano. The only other console-style model at this price point that I would suggest comparing and exploring would be the Casio PX770. It took packs a lot of value for its price point! :)
Inflation has been pretty extreme and rough on the piano industry. The pricing also varies from market to market. In some cases, it is much more expensive for certain dealers/manufacturers to import/export product, which can affect the retail pricing as well.
Why do the VAST majority of digital piano and electronic keyboard reviewers play jazz to demonstrate an instrument? Even the classical offering in this video isn't a "purist" piece like Chopin or Debussy. I get that the traditional 80s "electric piano" sound lends itself perfectly to jazz, but accoustic piano is surely aimed more at the classical/purist player than the more "niche" genre of jazz. Personally, as soon as jazz rears its head in a demo, I'm immediately turned off the whole demo!
Music and art will always be highly subjective. As a musician myself, I am of the philosophy that there is something to be gained from having an open mind to all styles of music. With that said, we appreciate the honest feedback and will certainly do our best to integrate more classical repertoire for these video reviews and comparisons. :)
Yes indeed, an eclectic mix of styles and genres would be fine, but my point was that, as I first stated, the vast majority feature only jazz, and NOT a mix.
It's a factor of the speakers, I bet. If it is piped through a decent sound system (I have never seen a keyboard like this with an explicit speaker output) it might not be half bad. Acoustic pianos don't have big soundboards for naught.
Are you referring to the action? Many digital piano use plastic key actions. While most wood key actions are more sophisticated and superior actions, there are some great plastic key actions on the market. :)
