Yamaha DGX-205AD Portable Electronic Keyboard with Adapter

 Amazing Keyboard
With hundreds of voices and many many features, this keyboard really does stand out from the crowd. It arrived here the day after it shipped on the free shipping by Fedex and I was hooked up and playing in no time at all. This is an excellent buy.

I recommend reading the manual to understand its many features, as I was quite overwhelmed by all of the functions I was seeing on it. This is an extremely good starter keyboard, or just something for the general player to have. The piano sounds nice (especially with an optional sustain pedal) and because this comes with an adapter, you're all set.

 Best piano sound for the price!
AWESOME!!! I was looking for a keyboard to learn how to play piano on.The quality of the Piano sound was the most important feature to me. This keyboard has a grand piano feature that allows the grand piano sound at a touch of a button.Excellent piano sound.There is a lot of great features on the keyboard including a large lcd screen, chord dictionnary ,lesson mode great voices, midi and pc compatible with a standard ubs cable...just read the features of this keyboard.......there is so much more..i compared it to a casio and the sound of yamaha is much better!!!

This is perfect for anyone who is just learning how to play or is advanced it does have 76 keys which is very good if you want to learn piano. It also looks great with the keyboard stand LW15 which was design for the DGX keyboards. i also recommand this stand since it securely attaches the keyboard to the stand for more stability.

This keyboard is for me...the best quality for the price

 Fabulous Keyboard
This is an excellent keyboard if you're looking to stay in the low price range but still want a decent instrument. 487 great voices and sound effects, 135 accompaniment styles, extra features, flexibility and control. You can record multi-track songs, layer voices, play along with songs... The pitch bend wheel is a bonus and the jog dial is nice for scrolling through all of teh wonderful sounds. The "portable Grand" is a decently realistic piano sound. Touch sensitivity is a very, very nice thing to have (this one has 3 settings for touch). Sustain pedal would be nice, but that can be bougth separately. Overall, it's a fabulous keyboard and I would buy it again.

 Great for budding beginners(with or w/o tutorials)
I got mine today! I can't beleive how fast I have learned dual instruments such as slap bass and right-hand overdrive lead setting(typical Rock gitars). weather you like the grand piano(in full form I might add), or a bit of trashy stark R&R(as me) you can practive to perfection with or with out the tutorials(who give you detailed info on notes and placement of them as well as symphony snyc). The instructional video(DVD) that comes with it is only "getting started" however talks of basic functions. I recommend messing around with settings and then watching DVD for better comprehension. Unfortunately(for marketing purposes I guess) the DVD for each individual model is not included in any package.(with or without accessories). mine came with a very nice stand(double ply) and the AC which rarely is included but desparately needed if your serious about this in any way. For the casual inthusiast there's sound FX such as "Starship", "Jet airliner" and many environmental effects and animals(+ Rap V/O though no vocals just laughing and grunting). it includes close to 450+ settings listed under "VOICE" and can "split" into two.(limited key fucnt). Save and mix data and layer if you want a complete production.(On this it's possible). No pedals. Get them(it) separate. For piano purpose only get the three set of the following: dampener, bass sustain and treble/bass sustain. for all other effects, the single sustain pedal is suficient.(though not as durable). If you whack at keys and kick on pedals(like I do) you need durable equipment. This is it. the 500(something) has weighted keys and not much more. Since my parents(mother in particular) got me this, I am getting them the 500 next year.(+ tri-pedal kit)

 Great piano, missing accessories.
I really enjoy this piano. It sounds almost real and it has over 100 voices. I got it at Costco and the manual, songbook and software cd were missing. I am done buying durable goods at Costco. I wonder what songs, voices, etc. I am missing?

 Serious flaws
The following serious flaws are present

Keys are feather touch, springs are not stiff = makes playing touch sensitive almost impossible since there is so little resistance. So you will most always be banging away at close to one volume.

No way to secure keyboard to stand, very easy to knock over when sitting down to play since the legs make a nice X where your knees go.

Sound quality is so-so.

The buttons above the keys do not respond very well to touch. Sometime you have to hit 3 or 4 times to get a response (the lower end model the YPT 300 has nicer buttons which are very good)

Takes abt. 5 seconds to boot up (which actually not that serious a flaw).

Ok for the price. If you can afford it, definitely go for a higher end model with really weighted keys.

 Serious glitches mar an otherwise adequate piano
(this is going to be a long review, because music is a great thing, and if this is your first entry into pianos, i think it is really important that you know what you are getting yourself into with the yamaha dgx-205ad)

i am worried that many of the other reviews here were written within days of buying the piano, you should take them with a grain of salt, it takes more time to figure out all the quirks this thing has
i've had this thing for almost 2 years now, and have to say, it is simply not satisfactory, even for a beginner like me

Pros:

- a reasonable sound for the price
- easy to use
- hundreds of decent voices
- ample polyphony for a beginner
- light weight, so fairly easy to move


Cons that are merely a result of a low-priced piano:
(these will not be a big deal to you at first, but if you use this piano for more than a year, you are going to find that these things greatly hinder your ability to continue learning and playing)

- sound is nice if you've never played a real piano, but if you have, you can tell this thing is pretty far off
- keys, particularly the black keys, are very very difficult to press near the top - this is unlike a real piano - and makes some chords very hard if not impossible to play
- key resistance is unrealistic - you'd be looking at paying 700+ for a piano with hammer-action keys, so it's understandable that this feature is absent, but these keys get pressed at the drop of a feather, they are very easy to bump - even a low end piano could have put in a stronger spring to give the keys more resistance
- bulky, feels like a ton of wasted space, makes it a pain to carry


Cons that are a result of bad design:
(these will drive you crazy, and should be enough reason to not even consider this piano)

- if you press the "on" button, the piano takes about 7 seconds to "boot" up - you can play during this time, but you can't use the pedal - if you try to use the pedal, the piano will recognize the pedal in reverse position until you turn the piano off again - that is, you will get the sustain effect only when the pedal is NOT pressed - whether this is a "feature" or a bug, i don't know, but it is extremely irritating.
- every once in a while, maybe every 500 times you play a note, particularly when you are playing the keys very softly, the volume comes out loud enough to hurt your ears (as if the piano were suddenly on max volume and you pounded a key) - if you are in front of people, this butchers your performance. if you are alone, it ruins your mood.
- every once in a while, maybe every 2000 times you play a note, no sound comes out at all
- speakers very occasionally hiss, as do headphones plugged into the headphone jack. piano is overly sensitive to interference, a cell phone in the room will cause this thing to go wild


Conclusion:

I *strongly* recommend against this piano. Yamaha is a good name in the business, but perhaps not for pianos in this price range - I would recommend any other brand, even a Casio, instead. It's not as if this piano has some good features and is lacking others - the serious flaws should be enough to rule this off of your "might buy" list.

Even without the glaring defects like the random volume changes, this piano would only suit your needs for about 8 months of moderate practicing. After that you will find that you need to upgrade. So if you think you might be practicing for a while, you should go ahead and invest a little more in a piano, yamaha and others make some really great pianos for around 500 USD. You will thank yourself in the future.

 SUPERB
EXCELLENT! Easy to use with SUPERB WONDERFUL SOUND. I would recommend YAMAHA DGX-205 to everyone who has a great interest in and love of Music. Easy computer set-up with the free software disks. Quick Start DVD Information Guide is a PLUS. It also came with FREE SPECIAL BONUS POWER ADAPTER.
You also can't beat FREE SHIPPING, NO TAX, and UNITED PARCEL SERVICE(UPS)STRONG PERSON who delivered it right to my FRONT DOOR (Fifth floor walk-up). Note: When I purchased this at AMAZON.COM 8/24/04, there were 3 in Stock. When I was browing at it again 8/27/04 there was 0 left(more on the way)in stock. I felt very lucky to have made the decison to make this Purchase for my family of 5 without hesitation. It was love at first glance. EXCELLENT! SUPERB!

 Wonderful sound, nice features
This keyboard seems to fall near the low end of Yamaha's middle series of electronic keyboards, judging by price and features. But it has everything I was looking for: large number of voices (400+), great sound, 76 keys, MIDI capability, USB interface. It also has teaching/learning tools, sequencing, styles/rhythms etc., but I wasn't as interested in those. The sound that comes out of this machine is wonderful. Even just the basic grand piano sound is terrific, and all the other instruments are incredibly realistic. The touch-sensitive keys are also a nice feature, and you can hook up an external sustain pedal (not included).

The previous reviewer who blasted this machine for having a long boot-up time and hissy sound is just plain wrong. This thing switches on and is ready to play instantly, and I haven't heard any kind of hiss, even at full volume.

This package came with a power adapter, which you would think is a given, but apparently is not in this product segment. It also came with a CD-ROM with software and drivers for the computer, and a DVD with some training videos. We've watched a couple and they're very easy to follow. The keyboard seems reasonably well built, but is also very light weight for its size so it should be easy to move around. I bought the Z-lock stand to go along with this also through amazon and it's a good fit. My only complaints are that some of the controls (like the jog dial and some of the pushbuttons) have a somewhat mushy feel that makes me wonder how they will hold up over time, and there doesn't appear to be a way to secure the keyboard to a stand. The piano keys themselves have a nice, springy feel with a decent amount of resistance that makes it easy to modulate the touch-sensitive response.