Yamaha Clavinova CSP-170 Review: Ultimate Learning Piano (2023)

We may come across several pianos that help us to play and practice music, depending on our expert levels. Generally, we attend piano classes either offline or online mode or learn from our parents and friends to get the nuances of the keys. But have you ever come across a piano that teaches you to play the piano? Yes, the Yamaha Clavinova CSP-170 is an excellent teaching piano that helps pianists to play their favorite songs directly from the music library, which is stored on smart devices. It thus fulfills the lifetime dream of many people to start learning piano. 

There are dedicated stream lights on each of the keys of the piano to show the notes and also the time to play them. The pianist can adjust the speed and pace of learning based on their skill levels. They can also adjust the difficulty levels of this learning mode, as they improve their piano skills. There is also a score display in the smart pianist app, that helps the pianist to connect the dots between the notes of the page and the stream lights, to help learn music expertly. 

Yamaha Clavinova CSP-170 Review

Overall Editor Rating: 9.3/10

Features	Rating
Performance and sounds	9.5
Connectivity	9.3
Build Quality	9.4
Value for money	9.4

Specifications of the Yamaha Clavinova CSP-170

The Clavinova CSP-170 from Yamaha is a modern piano with a traditional piano appearance with a lot of technology built within. The piano features a natural wood keyboard action with escapement. The other specifications of the Clavinova CSP-170 are as follows.

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Features of the Clavinova CSP-170

The Clavinova CSP-170 is an expensive variant of the Yamaha Clavinova series and is noted by its cascading lights about the keys, which is great for engaging kids in some quality music. Let us discuss the unique and diverse features of the Clavinova CSP-170 piano.

1. Teaching Piano

The piano is known for its educational features and to activate these features, it is important to have a connected device with the smart pianist app to function. The main screen has a navigation tab, known as the music library. The users can tap the option to access the song library on the mobile device and tap the songs that they wish to play. While the CSP takes a few seconds to analyze it, it displays a chord symbol chart and the score. Whatever the song that is been played, the CSP puts the chord changes on the downbeats. To show the song on the CSP, the songs should be downloaded, so that the files are stored in the tablet or smartphone’s memory. The stream lights work great with any song and help the player to be more engaged with the keyboard for a long time.

2. Keyboard

The keyboard of the CSP-170 feels more like a grand piano with its keys that are made from natural wood. Similar to the grand pianos, the wood that is used to make the keys of this piano is cut from wood that is specific for making musical instruments. This quality wood is resistant to warping and buckling which is food in common laminated wooded keyboards. The keys are also graded with hammer action keyboards for intense piano sounds. Such high-quality keys render the same action as the three sensor configurations of acoustic pianos. All these features help the pianist to perform smoothly and expertly.

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3. Integration with Smart Apps

The Clavinova CSP-170 integrates with the smart pianist app that encompasses audio to-score function to create a piano accompaniment score automatically from the songs onto the smart devices. Thus the pianist can play their favorite songs along. The audio-to-score functionality makes use of songs that are saved on the smart device. Songs that are accessed with the help of subscription services will not be compatible with this feature. Players can also sing along, by connecting with a microphone and harmony functions. This function helps to create a chorus backup automatically for the performances, even when the players are singing along.

4. Sound Effects

The Clavinova CSP-170 features the immersive sound of two world-class concert grand pianos. These sounds are available at the touch of the piano and pianists can choose the perfect piano tone for the music that they wish to play. The piano offers more than mere sampled sounds and the series reproduces the sounds of the Yamaha CFX concert grand and the Bosendorfer imperial pianos. 

The piano also offers advanced binaural sampling technology and its specialized microphones capture location information and other nuances that the human ear discerns. Thus, the sounds that come out of this piano are very natural and enveloping, and the players will forget the fact that they are playing the piano with their headphones.

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5. String Resonance

The best feature of this piano is that its strings and sounds resonate all through the body of the instrument, without producing a rich reverberation. This is capable of enveloping the listener in immersive sound. Also, when one of the strings vibrates, the other strings ring as a reaction to the notes that one plays. All these effects make the sound of the piano feel so complex and rich. This phenomenon is reproduced perfectly in the Clavinova, with the help of its Virtual resonance modeling technology that calculates the different states of strings, for each of the 88 notes in the keyboard, from one moment to another. Thus several factors are responsible for playing the piano like an expert.

6. Accompaniments and Instrument Voices

The Yamaha Clavinova CSP-170 features hundredths of instrument voices, that include natural, cool, and sweet voices that are sampled to complement the instrument types. The performance attributes and the articulation voices feature of the piano add great quality to the performance. The resultant music seems so original and natural as though they were coming from a grand acoustic piano. A pianist can vary their playing techniques and touch and also use pedals and the SA voices to add more authenticity to the sound. 

The pianist also can enjoy karaoke songs that are stored on the piano, and alternatively, they can also be downloaded from the app. The lyrics of the songs can be shown on the smart pianist app and the words also change their color as the pianist play and the song advances. There is a recording feature to record the performances, which is useful for reviewing the playing. It is possible to record up to 16 tracks for simultaneous playback. 

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Pros & Cons of Clavinova CSP-170

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Alternative of Yamaha Clavinova CSP-170

Clavinova pianos are hard to replace as they come with such high-quality features, but in case you need an alternative to CSP-170, then you can try out Yamaha Clavinova CLP-775 as it comes with similar high-end features, although it costs a bit more.

Final Verdict

There is no other piano in the market that integrates the educational features of a music device like the Yamaha Clavinova CSP 170. The piano renders a lot of useful and premium quality sounds and action. It features several distinguishing features such as audio-to-score features, stream lights, etc., making this piano a top recommendation for novice and intermediate pianists. No other piano has this magic in its unit and is great for learning music.