Consumers Digest, an independent publication that aims to help consumers make informed buying decisions, has conferred its Best Buy Awards to the portable, great-sounding NP-30 digital piano and to the full-featured YPG-535 digital piano.

Best Buys are products that offer outstanding value for their price and warrant special attention from consumers.

The new NP-30 Portable Grand Digital Piano represents an entirely new class of Yamaha Digital Piano. Designed to offer quality, value and unprecedented portability without sacrificing the playability of the key action, the NP-30 includes 76 Graded Soft Touch piano-style keys and AWM stereo-sampled piano voices…

Making its debut at Winter NAMM 2007, the new Yamaha PSR-S500 entry-level arranger keyboard includes professional features like large wave ROM for voices, a powerful sound system, full Style control, panel Voice and Style category buttons and Transpose and Octave buttons. The new model also provides USB connectivity, 644 instrument Voices and a backlit LCD screen that displays lyrics, chords and notation.

"The PSR-S500 opens the door to an arranger workstation level of product for musicians on a limited budget," said Mark Anderson, marketing manager, Portable Keyboards, Pro Audio & Combo Division…

It's a whole new world for keyboard players as Yamaha introduces the PSR-OR700 Arranger Workstation, giving Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Arabic music lovers the ability to play scales that differ from the Western system of music notation. Never before available in the United States, the PSR-OR700 is designed for professionals and provides the ability to play quarter tone notes, common to Arabic music, for instance, which fall between half steps on the Western keyboard scale…

Yamaha Corporation of America is now shipping the AvantGrand, a remarkable hybrid piano that digitally simulates the sound, as well as the physical experience of playing a fine grand piano-at a fraction of the cost of a traditional concert grand.

The piano's state-of-the-art technology offers an exciting and affordable new option to music lovers who have dreamt of owning and playing the ultimate concert grand in their homes. The instrument is drawing raves from several classical pianists, and pop superstar Alicia Keys was one of the first artists to perform on the instrument after its recent music industry debut…

Yamaha, the only digital manufacturer with over a century of manufacturing acoustic pianos, has upgraded its top-of-the-line slab piano, the P155. Geared toward the gigging musician who requires quality piano touch and tone, the P155 is also ideal for home use as a practice piano. Features include quality sound and a Graded Hammer Effect key action capable of building proper finger technique.

The keys are weighted—heavier in the lower registers and lighter in the upper notes—just like an acoustic piano. And, the P155 sounds like a real piano. The natural-sounding four-layer piano sample is a breakthrough at this price range…

Yamaha today announced that the most affordable addition to the company's popular line of Disklavier performance reproducing pianos, the DGB1KE3 Classic, is now shipping. This instrument is available exclusively in the North American market.

Making this entry-level model even more affordable, the new instrument, which expands options for potential Disklavier owners, features the newly developed "Damper Drive System" designed specifically for the DGB1KE3 Classic. This gives the instrument the same range of damper effects as a standard Disklavier by detecting and recording its damper motion continuously and directly lifting the dampers…

Providing unparalleled values, the PSR-E313 and the PSR-E213 portable keyboards, introduced at Winter NAMM 2007, offer a range of features and sound quality heretofore found only on models at much higher prices.

The PSR-E313 includes Flash ROM, which allows users to download and transfer songs into the keyboard for listening and learning. It also has 61 full-size keys with touch response, two-track sequencer, backlit LCD screen and a Music Database with over 200 preset records that make setting up the keyboard a breeze…

Recognizing the benefits of music education and restoring music education to public schools, the Pittsburgh Keyboard Project has distributed more than 400 Yamaha keyboards to aid music programs at needy schools in the Pittsburgh area since 2001. The program recently expanded to include schools in suburban Wilkinsburg, Pa., a district that ended specialized music instruction at its elementary schools in 1982.

The project is administered by Carnegie Mellon University and the Grable Foundation, founded by Minnie K. Grable, widow of the longtime director of Rubbermaid, Inc. The foundation funds educational programs throughout the Pittsburgh region…

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA®) has announced Yamaha Corporation of America, Consumer Products Division, as an International CES Innovations 2007 Design and Engineering Awards Honoree for the DGX620 Digital Piano at the International Consumer Electronics Show. Products entered in this prestigious program are judged by a preeminent panel of independent industrial designers, engineers and members of the trade press to honor outstanding design and engineering in cutting-edge consumer electronics products…