Yamaha Clavinova CVP-505 Review

By: Hiram LeCedre—December 9, 2009 11:46AM
"The piano sounds are the same as the CVP-503's so there was nothing for us to add here other than they are wonderful, expressive and very realistic!"

Product Summary

  • Product Name: Yamaha Clavinova CVP-505
  • Performance Rating:
  • Value Rating:
  • Review Date: December 9, 2009
  • MSRP: Check with an authorized Yamaha piano dealer.

Pros

  • All new beautiful 4-level CFIIIS piano samples
  • 128 notes of polyphony
  • Way more new sounds (see table below)
  • USB audio recorder with MIC/LINE IN input
  • 16-track sequencer
  • 2.4MB vs. CVP-403's 1.4MB data capacity
  • Color LCD

Cons

  • Would have been nice to be able to record a sequence to audio and record directly to .mp3 instead of .wav
  • 40W amps and speakers don't truly do the CVP-505's piano sounds justice

Introduction

The Clavinova CVP 500 series is here! As amazing as the CVP 400 series have been, it was time to take a great digital piano and make it even better! From the new 5-level (CVP 509 only) CFIIIS piano samples to the Super Articulation 2 voices (CVP 509 only) and .wav audio recorder (CVP 503-509), the CVP 500 lineup is Yamaha's most advanced Clavinova CVP to date.

Overview

Today, we review the CVP-505. The CVP-505 is the next model up from the Clavinova CVP-503. Just like the CVP-503, the CVP-505 features a new and beautiful 4-level CFIIIS grand piano multi-sample with 291 new voices and 4 more drum/sfx over the already wonderful CVP-503 voices.

What are some of the added enhancements to CVP-505 compared to the CVP-503 and CVP-405? Here are the comparisons:

Features CVP 505 CVP 503 CVP 405
Polyphony: 128 128 128
Piano Sample Levels: 4 (new CFIIIS piano samples) 4 (new CFIIIS piano samples) 3 (max)
Keyboard: GH3 with synthetic ivory keytops GH3 with synthetic ivory keytops GH3
Onboard amps & speakers: Two 40W amps & 2 16cm speakers & 2 5cm Two 40W amps & 2 16cm speakers & 2 5cm Two 40W amps & 2 16cm speakers & 2 5cm
Data capacity: 2.4MB 2.4MB 1.4MB
Preset Voices: 689 sounds + 480 XG sounds & 23 drum/sfx kits + GM2 & GS sounds 398 sounds + 480 XG sounds & 19 drum/sfx kits + GM2 & GS sounds 414 sounds + 480 XG sounds & 19 drum/sfx kits + GM2 & GS sounds

Voices/Sounds Breakdown CVP-505, CVP-503 & CVP-405:

Voices/Sounds CVP 505 CVP 503 CVP 405
Super Articulation Voices: 38 None 24
Mega Voices: 18 10 15
Natural! Voices: 22 21 21
Sweet! Voices: 24 13 22
Cool! Voices: 46 18 26
Live! Voices: 29 14 20
Organ Flutes!: 10 10 10
Regular Voices: 502 276 276
Total: 689 398 414

Aside from these tables the Clavinova CVP-505 also comes with the following additional enhancements:

  • USB Audio recorder: Capable of playing .mp3 files in addition to recording and playing .wav files
  • Color LCD vs. monochromatic LCD (CVP-503/501)
  • More accompaniment styles: 362 vs. 272 (CVP-503)
  • More Music Finder storage (we'll go over what these are): 2500 vs. (1200 CVP-503/501)
  • More USB ports: 2 vs. 1 (CVP-503/501)
  • Video output port

Depending on what features are important to you, you may or may not think that the Clavinova CVP-505 really adds that much more over the CVP-503. For example, if you have a thing for pianos, and were deciding over the CVP-503 and CVP-505—you might want to go for the CVP-503. On the other hand, if super articulation voices and a ton of other interesting voices, styles and a refreshing color LCD are important to you, you might be happier with the CVP-505's features (or maybe even the CVP-509. That'll be our next review).

Music Finder

Before we conclude, we want to mention what are Music Finder presets since we've neglected to mention them in our previous Clavinova CVP-500 reviews. Music Finder presets are setups. What are setups? Setups are a collection of settings such as voices, styles, etc. that match the musical genre you would like to perform at the moment. The CVP-505 (as well as the other CVP-500's) come with some presets; however, you can download much more of these directly from your Clavinova if you need to. Overall if you are into live performances and looking for some inspiration and ideas, the Music Finder feature is a good feature to have.

Conclusion

The Clavinova CVP-505, overall, is a great digital piano—it builds upon the CVP-503 which if you read our article, is an extremely capable instrument with lots of great features. The piano sounds are the same as the CVP-503's so there was nothing for us to add here other than they are wonderful, expressive and very realistic (listen to our video demo above).

The bottom line here is: if you like a lot of sound variety such as saxophones, guitars, strings, horns and many other sounds as well as nice touches like a color LCD, mp3 player, and more styles over what the CVP-503 offers then we would recommend the Clavinova CVP-505 to you.

 

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