Goodbye beloved grand piano…welcome Yamaha CP-88
Updated 30 Jan 2022 In 2020, I sold my Yamaha G-1 grand piano — even though it was the smallest Yamaha grand, it just wasn’t practical in my living situation. Fortunately, I live near a metropolitan area with a good selection of music stores, so I tried many, many digital pianos. I did so well with the Casio CDP-100, I set my price limit to about $1500 figuring I could sure get something good for that.
Everything I played had good and bad things about it: the touch, the sound, the features, etc. But nothing got an “A” in all categories. Well, I was about to give up on getting one I liked in that price range when I noticed a Yamaha CP-88 at a Guitar Center. Even though it was priced at $2500 (what I paid for the used G-1!) I was stunned at both the incredible feel of the keyboard action as well as the sublime sound of the units various grand piano. I pretty much almost immediately decided I was going to have to have it. 
All I can say is: WOW. When I purchased it, the firmware version was 1.31, and since then there have been some updates. As of 1.40 it includes complete sample sets for the the Yamaha CFX, CF3, S700, and C7. These are pianos which range up into the US$100K – $180K price range. If you can’t find an acceptable grand piano sound among those…I don’t know what to tell you. There are plenty of electronic pianos (Rhodes, Wurlitzer and others) and a very large range of other instruments… But if you’re looking for a detailed Hammond emulation you need to get the YC-88 which also adds drawbars. Since I use it as a piano 99% of the time I am not too annoyed that that model came out so soon after the CPs.
Even now in 2025 I don’t have any desire to replace it.
The list of patches in the instrument included in the update package was hard for me to read, so I reformatted it.
You can get a copy of it as a PDF at the link following. This is current as of firmware version 1.50 which is the latest firmware as of now (30 Jan 2022) The V1.40 list dated 25 April 2021 is also available. I don’t know if these files are relevant to the CP-73,
The Casio CDP-100
I think in another post I wrote about the Casio CDP-100 I played before getting this. When I was selling the Yamaha grand, I wanted to have something to play on so I wouldn’t completely lose the little momentum I had teaching myself to play. After trying a number of low-priced electronic pianos at local music stores, I found a CDP-100 at a Guitar Center on the demo floor. I tinkered around with it for a few minutes, and was pleasantly surprised at how good the keyboard felt compared to a real grand, and the piano sound was not bad at all, either.
Ii think I paid around $300 for it, and got quite a bit of use out of it until I replaced it with the Yamaha CP88.
Casio has a lot of pianos in this line (CDP-110, 150, etc.). If you’re looking for a good quality electonic piano on a budget and only remember Casio as producing ultra-low cost keyboards with all sorts of weird sounds and loops included, consider the brand.
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