Yamaha P250 and Yamaha Nocturne

[Jake Johnson]

I played the newish Yamaha Nocturne for about thirty minutes at Sam Ash today and really liked it, but I wished they had a P250 that I could have compared it with. Then I went home and looked up the P250, and found that a lot of stores don't seem to carry it at all. Is the P250 a thing of the past, replaced by the CP line? Or by the Nocturne? I guess I'm confused--the P250 had a great sound, but it was only out there for two years or so? And now the Nocturne has a good sound, but it doesn't seem to allow much control---a good action and good sound, but no buttons or screen, yet it's around 2k--about the same price as the P250? (Maybe it's meant as just a good home piano thing, in which case it's a very good one.) If so, is the CP series a logical continuation from the P250? The same controls? I've only listened to one or two, and in loud stores. I remember not liking the sound, actually. Was I just in a hurry, or has Yamaha gone in a really different direction, now?

[kensuguro]

cp300 is the continuation of p250. p250 has been discontinued. I have the p250, but never use the internal sounds anymore since its limited velocity layers start to sound quite obvious after a while. cp300 also suffers the same (or similar) architectural limitations. I guess it might not be too important if you perform live in a band, etc.

I've played with the cp300 a bit.. all I can say about the sound is that although I hear some differences, they're both still in the same vein. Also, the controls are very similar with p250, I actually didn't notice any changes during my limited time with cp300. But I'm sure there are if you compare the manuals.

[Jake Johnson]

Hm...After doing the research I should have done before posting, I see that there's more info than I thought about the CP300. And that there's a CP-33, which may have been what I played. Sorry to hear that the velocity layers became obvious after using the P-250 for a while. I remember liking the sound. The Noturne I played didn't seem to have a lot of layers--the usual problems with soft strikes sound like low-volume hard strikes--but it played well and sounded good. Great action and a very believable sound. It may just be a CP300 without the controls (and the same price???). Regardless, I'm not sure I understand why Yamaha added the "C" to the front of the name, since it would throw off anyone looking for information about what came after the P-250.

[kensuguro]

ya, I thought the same thing too, about the naming. I could care less what a keyboard is named, but still. Turns out that CP is the name Yamaha used to use for an earlier keyboard series, and now they're supposedly going back to add to that series. Who cares eh? Seems it's more of a marketing gimmick. All the "keeping with the tradition" crap.

Sounds to me they just needed a new model out, so took the p250, sprinkled some salt on it.... and since they couldn't call it p255, they just went ahead and bumped the number up to 300, and stuck it together with the legacy of the cp series... Unfortunately, only a demographic of above a certain age has even heard of the CP series so the legacy doesn't really carry across.. at least it didn't work for me. I was like, eh? It's a very good keyboard nonetheless, but within the series, CP300 is just in a strange place I think.