Brands like Steinway and Bechstein are forever associated with the very origins of the piano industry, as well as the innovation of what really a lot of us think of as the modern piano. But few brands have had as large an impact on the modern piano industry as Kawai and Yamaha of Japan.
In this article, we’re going to take a fairly deep dive into how these two industry-leading companies stack up against each other in terms of the design, manufacturing, and musical philosophy of their Japanese acoustic piano offerings (we’ll leave the Indonesian products and digital piano comparison for another article).
If you’re shopping for a new acoustic piano and have a piano teacher, there’s a very good chance that they have recommended you go with either a Kawai or a Yamaha.
We hope this article will help you figure out whether a Yamaha vs Kawai makes more sense for you.
Yamaha vs Kawai – General Overview
Background
These two complete titans of the music world both began in Japan and as a lesser-known fact to some people, they actually share an origin.
Beginning in the early 1900s, Koichi Kawai was one of Yamaha’s leading engineers responsible for its very first grand piano designs, as well as a lot of the machinery that would power Yamaha’s first piano factories.
Following the death of Yamaha’s patriarch and their subsequent exit from the family business, Kawai departed and he formed his own piano company close by in Hamamatsu and slowly became quite prolific within Japan himself. The onset of World War II and its horrific and fairly definitive conclusion for Japan was obviously devastating for both companies, and it would be over a decade before the companies were back to full steam.
Yamaha and Kawai both became focused on consistent and efficient manufacturing processes and went through the rigorous refinement of their musical designs.
As Japanese manufactured products became more widely accepted in North American markets, very similar to how German products also became accepted again, the two piano manufacturers were ready with vastly superior products to equally priced domestic instruments from the likes of Baldwin or Heintzman, Willis & Co, and Mason & Risch among dozens more.
Kawai and Yamaha came in and absolutely steamrolled the North American market. The dominance of the global piano industry truly arrived in the late ’70s and ’80s with more and more conservatories, universities, schools, and homes selecting the Japanese product as high value, low maintenance, and musically satisfying instruments to play and to learn on.
There are many parallels between the two brands’ lineups, both in the acoustic as well as digital realms, though for the purposes of this article, we’ll keep the conversation focused on the acoustic side of things.
Comparison of Acoustic Product Offerings
Yamaha and Kawai have top-level concert grands. The CF series is the most recent from Yamaha and joins the well-established and widely beloved Shigeru Kawai line that’s been out for a couple of decades from Kawai. Their institutional high-end series are basically machine-made versions of those top series – the SX series on the Yamaha side and the GX Series on the Kawai side, which are really just factory-built Shigeru Kawai’s.
Kawai’s GL and Yamaha’s CX series are the closest in terms of specs, and this spurs a lot of debate among shoppers and dealers about whether the CX and the GX are truly parallel since they are positioned against one another in terms of price.
The upright piano lines on Kawai’s side have thankfully been simplified and streamlined into their current K series, which match up against Yamaha’s U series. Historically, Kawai’s always had a much more fragmented upright line with more than a dozen different series appearing over the decades compared with Yamaha’s consistent use of the U series.
Despite the similarities in the lineup and the company’s history, the musical instruments themselves have quite a few differences. This is where a lot of the shopping and research occurs for many mid-range piano shoppers because these are often the only two choices that folks will zero in on. Now we’ll dive into some of the specific differences.
Piano Action Design
One of the most obvious differences between these two companies is Kawai’s use of the Millennium III Action throughout their entire lineup. It’s a combination of wood and abs carbon fiber reinforced action parts, which Kawai claims have several benefits.
The maintenance advantage of composite materials over wood parts that are more likely to flux in different temperatures and humidity is a pretty obvious one and doesn’t spur a lot of debate. The musical benefits are a little more subjective, but Kawai has done measured tests and proven that their action actually does repeat faster and it seems to be more accurate at lower dynamic ranges.
Although many of the harshest criticisms of the new Kawai actions have actually, historically, come from Yamaha dealers, (maybe not that surprising), Yamaha has also used synthetic plastics in their action design as well. This took the form of them replacing their wooden jack with an ABS plastic jack and has been featured throughout several models over many years.
Although customers may still hear an occasional dog whistle from salespeople suggesting that there’s a major quality gap between these two brands specifically because of Kawai’s use of synthetic materials, the history of their pianos in the marketplace at this point over the last few decades is completely reliable and one of very high quality.
This isn’t to say that some performers still may prefer the feel of a Yamaha over the feel of a Kawai, but it really is down to a subjective preference of feel rather than any other quality consideration.
Along with the action design itself, there is another action-related difference that needs to be noted which is key stick length on both the uprights and the grand pianos. Kawai’s have anywhere between a 1 to a 3 centimeter longer key stick right across their upright and grand line compared with the similar new Yamaha models.
The idea behind the lengthened key stick is that it can both further increase the repetition speed of the action, and lead to better control when you’re playing further up in the key bed just in front of the fallboard.
Piano Soundboards
Moving on from action, the second substantial difference between these two brands and their approach to design is the soundboards.
It’s a less often talked about subject, but it’s actually really important since soundboards are a major contributor to the tonal differences between these instruments.
Yamaha uses tapered soundboards in its top two grand series, the CF series, and the SX series. Kawai uses tapered spruce soundboards throughout its entire lineup, both uprights, and grand pianos, except for its most basic continental uprights like their entry-level K15.
In certain settings, a non-tapered soundboard is going to have improved tuning stability, meaning it’s not that one is exclusively better than the other, but most players are going to agree that when it comes to improved sustain, better response, and a better dynamic range, tapered soundboards deliver that more consistently.
Piano Scale Design
A third difference is the scale design and the string lengths for comparable models. For example, the Yamaha U1 has a shorter string than the comparable Kawai K300 when it comes to the longest number one bass string.
The GB1 Grand from Yamaha is shorter than the Kawai GL-10. The C1X is shorter than the G1X, and so on and so forth. Yamaha tends to use a higher tension scale design with a shorter string, which actually produces a slightly brighter and slightly more clear mid-range and treble.
The slightly lower tension Kawai with the longer strings and tapered soundboard gives a much more resonant bass, longer sustain, more cabinet resonance in a lot of cases, and slightly less mid-range projection.
Piano Sound
This leads to a fourth and probably the most widely known reputational difference between Yamaha vs Kawai, which is that Yamaha has a bright sound and Kawai has a dark sound, often favored by classical pianists.
For the most part, the reputation still has its roots in reality as there definitely is a tonal difference between the two lines. Although Yamaha has started voicing their hammers darker, which means softer than they traditionally did at the factory, there are still design differences.
We’ve mentioned a few of them here, which innately contribute to that sharper tone. So, in a way you’re never really going to get away from the fact that Yamaha’s will always tend towards a more bright, a more mid-range bias, whereas Kawai’s certainly have a kind of bass and treble bias it sounds just a little bit richer, but maybe not quite as punchy.
Conclusion
We hope that you’ve enjoyed this synopsis of some of the key differences between the two best piano companies producing instruments today, Yamaha vs Kawai, and we wish you the very best with your piano shopping experience. If you can get to a showroom where you can compare these two companies side by side, it’ll absolutely be worth your time!
