Need An Honest Piano Review

My Dad wants to buy an acoustic piano for about

What are your intentions with the piano.

From my understanding of it, the price you are willing to put (around $6000 CDN) isn't much for a "professional level" piano.

On the other hand that price is fine for a casual-use instrument.

If you are a career-track pianist, then sure, you'll have to invest more, and get a really fine instrument. The amount you mention won't be enough.

If you're just taking lessons for fun, or really have another career in mind, then forget the nitty-gritty details of where the instrument is made and TRY the piano. If you like how it feels, if it has a sound you enjoy, and if it's within a price-range you can deal with, then that's the piano you should get.

Before buying our house, I was shopping for a new piano (professional level), and none of the instruments I looked at was under $20,000. Even the reconditionned instruments I tried were all at or above $10,000 (some were more expensive than the "new" pianos).

To the OP.

For

Thanks for the replies.

Last time I checked he was looking at second-hand, re-vamped Yamaha U3s online, I'll mention the C series and the idea of getting a digital piano to him.

A digital piano is nothing like a real piano. I have a Clavinova and I was really extremely impressed with it, it felt so real and played so beautiful and sounded very real. But after I'd been playing on it for a while, a few months, I got used to it and had a hard time performing on real acoustic pianos for recitals and things because all the sudden they feel different. Also, the CLP 930 I have broke down. LED is making annoying buzzing sounds and I broke almost half the keys from general use because I have a strong technique that a digital piano can't protect well against. Maybe the much newer Clavinovas are even better and are much more durable, but unless you are positively certain, always go down the route of a real piano if you have the money and room for it. And make sure you play as many pianos as you can and try different things on them. Play ones in different rooms, different stores. Just be very careful you don't get something you'll hate 2-3 years down the road but love for the first 6 months.

My CLP 280 is awesome. Not 100% like a real piano, but real pianos differ greatly from each other already, and it falls well within the realm of normal differences.

I have no problems transferring to any real piano.