Yamaha Arius YDP-181 Digital Piano – Review

What Is Yamaha Arius YDP-181 Digital Piano?

Product Specs 

Pricing 

How It Compares

This price is mid-Range For A Digital Piano. It's sonically superior, yet affordable.

If you know how to press the power button, you're good to go! Please note that all the models we examine here require some assembly because remember, this is, after all, a beautiful piano designed to look as good as it sounds in your home or on the stage. So be sure to have that Philips-head screwdriver ready for the initial assembly, or ask your salesman to see what options are available for their installation. But Yamaha has really made it super-simple. So plug and play away!

With graded hammer action, you've got as full control over the dynamic volume range as you can possibly get in the $$ mid-range digital piano price category. No clunky adapters to worry about stowing away when the piano is not in use; this pro-tool plugs right into your U.S. outlet. 

Another cool feature for the composers, recording artists, and the professional performers is that Yamaha Arius employs the now standard USB outputs. That means for your live stage performances; if you want to get fancy with your instrument libraries, you can bypass the Yamaha's already excellent built-in tonal wizardry and use your own choice of any number of sophisticated performance or recording MIDI-compatible synth boxes.

Perhaps, for instance, you're recording the next viral YouTube vid. The Yamaha Arius YDP-181's USB connectivity means you can run your signal digitally via MIDI into your DAW's built-in library, so there is no analog distortion whatsoever between your Yamaha Arius YDP-181 and Pro-Tools.

While USB connectivity is, of course, generally standard among most digital pianos on the market today, what also sets the Yamaha Arius YDP-181 apart is what you can do with that USB capability. We all know that because it's a Yamaha, it's going to last a long, long time. But - say your friend, child, or wife spills something on the digital piano. It happens to the best of us, no matter how hard we try to take good care of our things!

Well, the three-year warranty that comes with your Yamaha protects your piano, but what about all those masterpieces that you've been agonizing over to make that next viral vid, or that symphony, or that next indie album? The prospect of losing any work we've put a piece of our soul into can give any musician the jitters!

That's where Yamaha's USB connectivity really pays off. You can back up all your most important work. And with USB storage so inexpensive these days, it pays to back up work! Besides, who among us has never forgotten to back up our work enough? Yamaha makes it easy for you, allowing you to plug your USB storage device directly into the digital piano.

You're probably wondering, why not 5 stars? Well, our editors have extremely high standards, and frankly, I think you'd need a diamond-studded bench to impress them that much. But the truth of the matter is, for this price range, this Yamaha YDP-181 takes the cake. Let us put it this way. You've heard every cloud has a silver lining? Well, this majestic dark instrument has got a golden lining for your darkest performing days and the brightest alike!

Don't be fooled by its modest-sized, elegant cabinetry. This space-saving marvel has a sound not too far off from the monster uprights that used to dominate the home piano market just decades ago. Plus, of course, this little guy never needs to be tuned! And it's even got all the pedals you need for that serious sound control in a super-small space. And yet, it's got the kind of visual ambiance, presence, and smartly-dressed charisma you've come to expect of any great performer!

Yamaha offers a limited 3-year warranty on all of its YDP digital pianos. Just make sure you buy the Yamaha from your Yamaha-authorized dealer, though, to ensure your device is covered. Not that you'll likely need it! After all, Yamaha products are designed and manufactured to provide a high level of defect-free performance. We know because we've played them and - well - because that's what Yamaha's warranty reads!

You might begin to get strangely sentimental around this vintage Korgie which may lack some of the functionality of other digital pianos in its class but yet serves as a highly-capable throwback to the olden days of keyboard instruments that didn't possess a full-fledged 88.

What it lacks in keys some would say the Korg SV-1BK makes up in durability. But that doesn't mean it doesn't look classy - in a live tour kind of way - on any stage or in any coffee house honky-tonk corner. If Yamaha's reputation is the excellent quality and craftsmanship we've come to expect from the orient, Korg's legacy is more one of rugged, take-it-to-go, lasting durability. And in this regard, your new Kork SV-1BK won't disappoint. MSRP's come and go, but this

This price is also mid-Range For A Digital Piano. You might snag one cheaper than the Yamaha. We've scoured all the major players in the digital piano market, and we've found that among mid-range keyboards, this throwback Korgie isn't bad, and it's not going to break your bank either.

Although you might find some of the bells and whistles a tad bewildering, if you can plug it in and find thie power button, you're well on your way to the road tour of your career. It also makes for a rugged learning tool for the kiddies - with proper supervision, of course. It's not indestructable, mind you, and it's definitely not a toy. But it's got that look and feel that makes the seasoned roadie well up with memories of the glory days.

This vintage classic points to an era when this style was among the top anywhere; and even now, the Kork SV-1BK holds its own. Don't like the grand piano sound? There's another one that might better suit your fancy. And don't get us started on the magical soundbank featuring everything from your string machines to top brass!

And though cares have been taken to make it look old-fashioned, don't worry. It's decked with fully-functioning USB 1.1 capability if the polyphony is somewhat anachronistic in today's market.

When you buy a Kork SV-1 BK, you're buying the look and feel of yesteryear, with, we'd hope, the masterful technology of today. That said, our style experts in the editorial department don't wish to pass judgment on items that clearly don't seem to be intended for the Ritz or the Taj.

So, we're going to go ahead and rate this a 4 out of 5, because in the setting it's intended for, that's likely how it measures up. Just make sure that glass atop your Korgie's got dollar bills and not alcohol because the warranty only lasts a year. But before we go further into the details about the warranty, let us indicate one big positive.

Not that you'd ever do this, but if your precious Korgie fell off the back of a truck - we'd guess from the functional casing that it would be more likely to survive still working than the Yamaha. So that's another reason to keep this design from slipping into the 3-star range.

The odd thing about the Korg Warranty as compared to the Yamaha Warranty is that they don't seem to have put as much thought into writing the thing. Now, you may think this is no big deal, but as we scour the applicable warranty from Korg, Kork lumps all of its products into one generic warranty.

Sure, this generic provided Korg warranty is snappy and to the point, but its lack of detail as to the specific keyboard of the product suggests that this keyboard is just one of many products Korg is in the market for. The warranty goes so far as to specify other brands it covers. The warranty we saw from Kork just says, in general, that the Korg warranty covers labor and parts, almost reminding the buyer more of a car than a finely-crafted instrument used to craft an effect in hertz and decibels rather than horsepower.

Maybe it's just us, but lack of care in one department generally indicates lack of care in others. And here, the warranty department of Korg seems to indicate, in a likely unintended way, that their game just isn't up to snuff with those quality-control experts at Yamaha. Maybe that's why you can snag one of these Korg's maybe a little cheaper than their Yamaha counterparts.

Piano salesmen all know it. I know it. ou know it. Unless you've been living under a rock, or unless this is the first time you are buying a piano, you know what Casio is. It's that toy that's always pretending - often pretending really hard, to be one of the big pianos. Now, the upside of that game for Casio is that it's hitting a lower-income market. So if you're looking to save big over the other guys; and maybe you want to buy for your kindergartener, the Casio PX860 might be for you.

Now, let me be clear, even for my pre-schooler, I would have never considered buying Casio, because as far as toy pianos go, the Casio makes for a rather pricy kind of toy. The PX860 would qualify as that one big toy you ask Santa for, to be sure, but even at a price point teetering below the comparable Korgie and Yamaha, it leaves our editors scratching their heads as to whether this PSO ("Piano-Shaped Object") even belongs in the same grouping of products.

In any event, we feel compelled to include it here because the price isn't far enough beneath the Yamaha Arius and the Korg SV-1BK so as to warrant exclusion here. In other words, it's close enough to the price range of the other pianos that we want to give the Casio PX860 its due. The reason? Well, let's delve into the price factor.

Again, this product is also mid-range for a digital piano—not quite priced like a toy. Our digital piano editorial staff is shaking its head, wondering, why on earth would you shell out so much for such a shell of a piano. Granted, nothing is as good as an acoustic piano, try as they might. Call us piano snobs, but unless it's a just-tuned piano, we smell something amuck and can't sleep completely at ease. Kind of like that feeling a car mechanic gets when you sense the faint whiff your transmission is just beginning to turn to glue right after hitting 100k miles.

We're going to go even further than that. We're going to recommend that you don't buy this. Reputation isn't anything, but it's got to mean something. And here, again, all the insiders know that Yamaha has spent a long time honing a craft born out of an Asian corporate culture where quality control is key.

The PX860 sits just ever so slightly beneath the Yamaha and Korg models we've looked at, which might tempt you to just go for it, especially if money is tight. But the truth is, you're shelling out half a grand. Don't let the price you pay up front be the only factor you look at in deciding upon a digital piano. If you want a toy, buy something in the $100-$200 range. But if you're going to invest in a digital piano, going in over a half a grand, we just don't see a good return on what at first appears to be a competitive price point.

So like its Yamaha and Korg competitors, the Casio, or "Cassie" as some of its loyal adherents call it, is built to use out of the box, more or less. Yes, you have some limited assembly comparable to the Yamaha Arius YDP-181. The Casio actually makes plugging the piano in a little complicated over the Yamaha. More on that in "Design Quality" below. But, more or less, operating your new Casio with the most basic Grand Piano functionality is fairly straightforward.

If you can operate the power adapter and turn it on, you should be able to start playing your Casio - after assembly - right out of the box.

Casio has its own brand names for its hammer action, involving "tri-sensor" action, as opposed to the graded hammer action of its more nuanced, more serious competitors. As we said, a very expensive toy. They can't even get the brand names for their toy to sound more sophisticated. And eventually, they probably will, which will be a shame for those looking for good sound.

There's just a tinny feel and a tinny sound to the playing experience compared with the others we've looked at here so far. But please, we don't want to bias your decision; try it out for yourself at your local digital piano showroom.

At first glance, it looks like a Yamaha. So why only two stars? Well, it starts with the power adapter. See, if you're going to charge this much, we figure the least you can do is attempt to imitate some of the best. Kind of like that easy-to-use phone that's all the rage these days, we take something out of the box and expect it to "just work."

Since we're talking about design, we should take power supply into consideration here. We're not a fan of the fact that this doesn't simply plug directly into the wall (or surge protector) with a wire, yet requires another breakable piece in between, an adaptor that needs to be hid in the elegant setting you'd likely want to buy this style of console-looking piano for.

Also, however much like the Yamaha, the looks of this fiend are, again, the sound isn't matching up. You don't have to be an engineer to realize that the sound just doesn't seem to be on up to par with comparably priced models. Maybe the pedals just don't seem as shiny as the Yamaha's. Maybe it's the reputation. For whatever reason, this model leaves us, if not on a bad note, then certainly a tinny one.

It's got a 3-year manufacturer warranty, with terms comparable to the others. Price and warranty would be the highlights of the highlights of the Casio PX860 Privia.

Into this market of already congested digital pianos the Kawai. If the Casio is a kind of second-mover after Yamaha in the digital piano market, Kawai brings its distinct flavor of piano, borne really out its shrinking portion of the shrinking acoustic piano market.

Let's face it; you just don't see many acoustic pianos anymore, and the acoustic piano was really the sweet spot of Kawai until relatively recently. So what do you do when horse and buggies go out of favor? Why, you move into the digital piano market, of course. They require less maintenance than your old horse, and of course, you can buy one for much the price of the comparable Casio, Yamaha, and "Korgies" above.

So how is Kawai faring as it ventures into the digital realm? Here's what we found, as it pertains to Kawai's MP11, a kind of third-mover in the home retail digital piano market after Yamaha and Casio. It's taking another strategy, positioning itself more in the realm of the prosumer and professional, as you can clearly see in the title of this model.

This price in on the high-end for a digital piano. Be prepared to shell out over $2 grand for this guy. That said, it's got tons of functionality that make this price a good investment for the pro equipped to use that investment well.

The dizzying array of functionality might bewilder the consumer-level or even the prosumer-level user, however, the level of customization achievable with this model makes it a functionally formidable competitor to its competing counterparts in the industry. Kawai is clearly taking on its competitors, functionally, in a big way here.

Just, hands down, high quality, with tremendous attention to timbre and the kind of functionality you need in an increasingly electronic music world. Like becoming a good musician, it's not for the faint of heart; but if you're serious about learning the art of all things keyboard, this is as good a tool as any for project ranging from live performance to cutting a studio album.

Kawai brands its MP11's key action as "Grand Feel" or "GF." Who doesn't want a grand feel in their living room or stage presentation?

What we care about, and what has really been the focus of this is less the visual aesthetics so much as the unparalleled functionality regarding any other model we've seen targeting the home user. Without a doubt, this is a keyboard that, while it might look a little unsightly in your living room, will take you to Carnegie Hall if you treat it right - and - maybe practice a little, too.

We're withholding our five-star rating here only because the fact is it's not an acoustic piano, and digital pianos simply have not matched the piano standard including this one. Also, because we're considering mostly home-worthy digital pianos, this model is slightly out of the things we look for in a home piano in the visual aesthetics department.

That said, this model of Kawai really makes an earnest attempt to carve out its own niche in the home market by providing the beginner and professional alike with a high degree of functionality which can facilitate a beginner's rise to technical excellence in both piano technique and all manner of live and recorded technical audio production.

Kawaii's warranty on all MP Series models is 3-year parts, and 1-year labor.

Conclusion