Casio and Yamaha are two well-respected companies and both offer a wide variety of pianos both digital and acoustic. Especially Casio has a better place in the market and fixed some of its previous flaws like bad build quality or their hammer action system which wasn’t great. Casio has delivered a great product line-up, including the PX-160 which clearly shows that the company learned from there previous mistakes. Yamaha on the other side has a great reputation and has only improved this with its line-up of modern pianos with the excellent build quality and design.
The two digital pianos both come from their perspective portable series (PX and P). They are both lightweight pianos which have a comfortable carrying weight for anyone who is used to transporting their instrument to gigs or similar. Both pianos got 88 keys and around 20 different sounds which don’t vary much in quality compared to each other. These pianos are quite similar but have some important differences, let’s find out.
The most noticeable difference
The Casio PX-160 got more accurate and nuanced keys due to an extra sensor (Tri-Sensor instead of Duo-sensor like the Yamaha P45). This can be significant if you are used to playing on real pianos or more expensive digital pianos. The feel of the keys will be a noticeable difference compared to a real piano but the two pianos will feel quite alike. The PX-160 also uses stereo resonance to simulate the sufficient details of that classic piano sound.
The Yamaha P45 features many of the same features and they even weight the same, around 11 Kg or 26 Pounds. Both pianos have a “Duet” function which splits the keyboard into two identical sections with the same range of nodes. This can be quite useful when having lessons at home.
Side comment: The Casio PX-160 features 128 Polyphony instead of Yamahas 68. This means that more keys can be played simultaneously and still sound like it should. (You probably won’t hit this limit, even with 68, but more is better). It can be understood as the maximum of simultaneous sounds that the piano can handle.
Design
The Yamaha P45 has the standard beginner design of a stage piano, not too many buttons but the most important ones. You get a button for power, volume and the “grand piano function” which can be combined with the different keys to change the sound, metronome and much more. Many people will not like to use the buttons to change settings and therefore the PX-160 could be a more comfortable choice.
Casio’s PX-160 has a wide range of setting which can be controlled with the keys but it also got buttons and slides to control the most basic functions like recording and sound selecting. Besides that, the design doesn’t differ much and keeps the design clean and “normal” look as expected of a mid-range digital piano.
If you want to see my favourite design of a digital piano take a look at Yamaha’s Arius Line-up (Yamaha ARIUS-143).
What you should know about the two pianos
Both keyboards were bold by companies with over 100 years of experience, easily. They are good choices for upcoming musicians or the hobby pianist. They both got a USB to Host connection to use an Audio Interface. The features are nearly the same but some would say that they prefer the “cleaner” sound and feel of the P-45. I personally like the feel of the P-45 but wouldn’t have a problem with the Casio PX-160 keys or sound.
You can look at some more pictures on the Amazon pages of each piano:
Casio Privia PX-160, 88 Key Full Size Digital Piano (Amazon)
Yamaha P45, 88-Key Weighted Action Digital Piano (Amazon)
Conclusion: Which piano is better?
This is more a question of the price than the features. There is no significant difference in the features or hardware of the two keyboards so it’s about which has more bang for the buck. At the time of writing the Yamaha, P-45 is the cheaper option but this can change as time goes on. It’s also good to look out for bundles where you get a piano chair. an X-stand and some headphones with the piano. These are usually good deals. The two pianos are great and I would recommend both.
Feel free to comment and leave some much appreciated feedback! Thanks
