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I recently purchased this unit from Musician's Friend for around $300.00. It arrived quickly and I immediately set it up and took it for a spin.
The pros: The keyboard itself is one of the most realistic I've seen in a digital piano. The keys are weighted, not "graded", and there is a very big difference. I haven't been playing piano for awhile, (synth fan) and it took a bit of getting used to. Today, I had the opportunity to play a Yamaha Grand piano and I can say that the feel of the Williams was somewhat comparable. Amazing! The sounds are quite realistic as they should be as these are digitally sampled. The little built in speakers are not worth the material they're made of, but I fed the output to two fender amps and it made a world of difference.
The cons: While the controls are fairly straight forward, there are sub menus after sub menus and as the display is made of a simple 3 digit red LED, it is sometimes hard to figure out what it's trying to tell you. Additionally, the manual is one of the worst. In many cases, it leaves out an important step, (button push or combination button push), to get you where you need to be to activate a certain function. I have managed to figure out many functions, but by no means, all. I like to use the layer function with Piano and strings. Each layer can be independently controlled for such parameters as volume, touch, etc. The problem is that in this mode, polyphony seems to be at a premium. With heavy sustain, the strings will cut out at an annoying rate. (Whichever voice is NOT set as primary gets cut, and it also cuts the notes in sequence from oldest to most recent, which, I suppose, is the best way to do it, but with today's tech, there's really no reason this should occur at all. 128 note polyphony is not hard to achieve). In single voice mode, there seems to be no problem no matter how many notes are playing or using heavy sustain.
Conclusion: For the price, this instrument blows any other digital piano I've seen, and I've seen many, right out of the water. Casio and Yamaha charge $1000.00 or more for an entry level unit. They don't really sound any better than this one does, especially with external amplification. If you want a decent instrument to learn on, or want to save space, you can't go wrong with this for the price. Despite a few operational quirks, I am very pleased.
Buy Williams Allegro 88-Key Digital Piano Now
I was looking for a weighted-key digital piano that I could do serious practice on with headphones at times of the day that I can't play our regular piano without disturbing others.
While you will probably find better digital pianos, this one is a great value for the price for beginners. But proceed with caution if you're a serious piano player Here's a rundown:
WHAT I LIKE:
**WEIGHTED KEYS: The key action feels like a real piano and I have no doubt that, the skills I acquire will transfer over to our real piano. In fact, when you hit the keys, it has subtle momentum to it. It doesn't feel like it's faked through some electro-magnetic means. I suspect that Williams has installed some kind of old school mechanism in there and probably contributes greatly to weight of this thing.
**FULL SIZE 88-KEY KEYBOARD. When you need'em they're there.
**SOUND QUALITY: It's good enough. I'll say that while it's not as accurate as some of the more expensive models, it really doesn't need to be. I can't see anyone buying this for live performances. Same can be said for even some of the Casios and Yamahas. This is a piano you use for serious practice and having fun with.
**APPEARANCE: While this is more of a practice tool, it has the look of a serious professional instrument.
**VARIETY OF PORTS: You've got jacks 1/4 inch headphone, sustain, external amp and MIDI. What does it for me is the headphone jack. Most people have a 1/8 inch jack for the headphones...no problem. Get a 1/4 adapter from Best Buy.
NOT SO GREAT:
**UNWIELDINESS: Is this that big of an issue? No. This is not designed to be portable. While many have commented that it's heavy, it's more a case where the weight combined with its shape make it a bit awkward and unwieldy to move. It's not terribly difficult lifting it, but it's more than you expect because long and there are no handles (I'm not suggesting they should add them either). Circuit boards and the casing do not account for this kind of weight. The "brains" of this should weigh no more than a laptop computer. As said earlier, I believe it's the mechanisms that give it a real piano feel that give it this kind of heft.
**VELOCITY BASED VOLUME OF INDIVIDUAL KEYS: At first I thought it was me. But as I played more and more, I noticed that the hardness or velocity with which I hit keys in the middle octaves seems inconsistent. I'll hit it with the same hardness, but get a different volume level. While it's hard to be precise about this, I am confident about my observation because I was able to go back and forth between the Williams Allegro and my acoustic piano. This is not a deal killer for beginners who want a real piano feel. But intermediate and advanced players will probably find this pretty annoying. So I'm knocking off two stars, while sticking with my original premise that this is good value for the money for beginners. But you're a serious piano player I'd advise you to go to you local Guitar Center and play it before you make your final decision.
**SUSTAIN PEDAL: Based on what others said, I ordered an M-Gear which is working fine for me. I looked that the sustain pedal that comes with it and, yes, it looks pretty flimsy.
**CONTROLS: They're not hard to figure out, but you have to play with it more than you'd expect to order to get the hang of it. I suspect that the relatively primitive controls and LED readout was a cost cutting measure. Not a big deal.
WHY I BOUGHT THIS INSTEAD OF ROLAND, CASIO, YAMAHA, KAWAI ETC.
I already have a real piano in the house. There's no sense in spending more than I have to for a digital keyboard. That being said, I looked at everything and noticed that you can either pay $400 and higher for the Casios and Yamahas of the world, or grab this one for a hundred bucks less. There's really nothing in between. Given that Williams is relatively unknown, I read all the reviews on Amazon, Musician's Friend, and Guitar Center. One fairly common criticism was that some people observed that the volume based on how hard you hit the keys varied a lot between different octaves. I called Williams and the person that took my call was very knowledgeable, courteous and professional. He stated that a few months ago, Williams was aware of the issue and issued a firmware fix. This gave me the confidence to buy and get the Williams Allegro.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: I've played this piano for several hours and I've noticed some weird inconsistencies in the volume that based on how hard you hit the keys. See what I added above under "VELOCITY BASED VOLUME OF INDIVIDUAL KEYS."
I really don't know if this issue is different from what the firmware update was supposed to have fixed. But I've knocked the rating down a couple of stars.
***UPDATE 12/3/2012
I opted to jump up to the next price tier and got a Casio CDP-120 for $399. It is a world of difference and everything that I was hoping for in a digital piano. The touch, key sensitivity, and volume levels are very close to the feel of an acoustic piano and I am easily able to transfer the skills acquire from this digital piano, but a regular acoustic piano. My kids are piano students with 3 to 5 years under the belts. For practice they some times prefer the realistic feel of this piano as opposed to our acoustic. Note that the CDP-120 is not heavily promoted in the U.S. as Casio is putting all its marketing muscle on the higher costs Privias. There are some differences between the CDP-120 and the Privia, but for most people who are dissatisfied the the Allegro, the Casio CDP-120 should be what you're looking for. Do a search on Youtube and you'll see some folks playing a wide range of pieces and get a taste for whether this will suit your needs.
Read Best Reviews of Williams Allegro 88-Key Digital Piano Here
Some people complained about things like not enough sounds or some other little things here and here, so they rated it less han 5 stars..... these people are no reviewing the product properly. For $300, your not going to get every great feature that $1,000 Digital Pianos have, so it's idiotic to say that this keyboard could be better if it had more features or fix a little insignificant problem. If you want something that this keyboard doesn't have then go buy a $1000 Piano, because at $300 you're not going to get a better Digital Piano unless you buy a used Digital Piano that was originally $1000. So I gave this Digital Piano 5 stars based off of comparison between pianos that are about $300 and not $1000. So I suggest trusting my review more than others.
I really needed this because my old keyboard was starting to break down. I would be playing it a key would just came off.... and that happened 3 times. This was a cheaper keyboard that I go for Christmas probably about 7 years ago. Not only was the keyboard breaking, but it only had like 68 keys.... or something like that, and the keys were small and were not weighted. I was starting to get more serious about playing and staring to teach myself more complex songs, so this was a problem.
So back to this Digital Piano. It's so great! It's so much like a real piano... and in some ways better. So this next part of the review will be perfect for people who are deciding beween a real piano and a digital piano.
Piano vs. Digital Piano
Pianos look nicer and usually sound a little nicer
Digital pianos are smaller and lighter so they're perfect for people who don't have a lot of room in their house (like me)
Pianos have all 3 pedals (this digital piano comes with 1 but that's all that you really need)
Digital Pianos often has multiple sounds
You can usually record on Digital Pianos
You can play midi files on Digital Pianos
You need to have a Piano Tuner come to your house and tune your piano every once in a while (so you need to spend extra money)
Some Digital Pianos may be more sturdy than some Pianos. My cousins have had a Piano for for about 5 or 6 years... They got it after I got my keyboard. They're Piano is starting to break down. The piano is out of tune and it's not a matter of it needing to be tuned, it's just in bad shape.... as said by the professional piano tuner. Also the keys are in great shape. They don't press down as they're supposed to. Some feel as if ther're sticking to others while some of the others go down really slow, so if you want the key to play more than quiet you need to press it down really hard... which is had to do with a single finger. Now my kind of cheap and not very sturdy keyboard that last about 7 years in perfect condition, has lasted longer than a piano... and my cousins literally stepped all over my keyboard all the time. Now this Digital Piano is definitely more sturdy than my old keyboard, which leads me to guess that it's more sturdy than my cousin's piano... at least.
Williams Allegro Digital Piano:
Has 1 pedal
Has headphone hook ups and other hook ups
Has weighted keys (so feels like a real piano)
It's touch sensitive (meaning if you press the keys lightly the sound will be soft but if you press them hard the sound will be loud)
Has volume adjustment
Has multiple sounds: Piano 1, Piano 2, Electrical Piano, Electrical Piano 2, Church Organ, Rock/Jazz Organ, Strings, and Upright Bass
Sounds like a real piano unlike some keyboards
You can record
You can connect midi cables
Can split the sounds so that one half of the piano is one sound and the other half is another sound.
It's really heavy. For me, that's really the only con but it's gonna be different with other good quality Digital Piano, so this factor doesn't effect the rating. This is more just a warning so you're prepared and don't under estimate the weight and then are surprise when trying to pick it up. You may want help if your not very strong.
If you have any questions, just comment. I can't promise you'll get an answer from me right away but maybe someone else will comment and help you.
Hope I Helped:)
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It's a very good sound. I hooked it up yesterday and played a bit. The feel is good. It's a solid piece of equipment. There are like 8 different sounds: Piano 1, Piano 2, Strings, Bass et cetera. It has a Midi port and for $8 or so dollars you can get a 10 foot midi-usb cable. You can interface great programs with that such as educational software. I have not done it yet but plan on doing it. The sustain pedal is fine. You do not need to buy a separate sustain pedal. You will need to buy or make your own stand.
I'm certainly not a professional, however, I do know what a piano is supposed to sound like, and I know the difference between a Harpsichord, Organ, and a Harmonica: 'nuff said.
First of all I would like to say that the Williams Digital Piano is by far the best instrument I have ever owned, next to my toy, an old Casio keyboard that I owned for quite some time, I was happy to finally sell that off in a garage sale. When I went hunting for another piano, I took my Sony headphones and headed off to various stores with digital pianos. This one by far sounded the closest to a real upright piano (Well, the Yamaha was closer, but another 1K more expensive...), and it had the features and look I was wanting.
Pros ---
1. The weighted digital piano keys mimic perfectly the hammer-action of a real piano, and the sound is equally amazing. As I said I tested it out in headphones, and even at home in total silence the headphones are clear as anything and sound perfect. The built-in speakers that are attached to the piano work equally as well. I 'tested' it note-for-note, unplugging my headphones and listening to the built-in speakers, and I can safely say that I don't hear a difference at all. No "fuzzy-sounds", no buzzing, no humming, etc. Sounds nice.
2. After listening to several Harpsichord songs, I played a few notes on the piano to compare. So far I can't tell the difference between the notes played in the song and the ones I played on the piano.
3. Same with the Organ and string setting, both sound equally realistic and about as close to an acoustic piano as I'm going to get without spending thousands of dollars.
4. I actually bought this piano online, yes, from Musicians Friend. No, I am not an employee there, nor have I ever heard of it. I did call them up to see how exactly it was going to be mailed. I mean, sure it is less than 1K for the digital piano, but I wanted to make sure it wasn't going to end up in several pieces on my doorstep. I have to say the piano box arrived in no less than perfect condition. Go with Musicians Friend if you are going to buy this!
Cons ---
1. Okay, so again I'm new at this. So, of COURSE I played the Play-Along songs while I waited for my real books to arrive. One of the irks I have is that when you use the digital piano to listen to the play-along songs, be forewarned that it is MUCH louder than when you are playing the piano normally. Also, if you are trying to play along, you have to compensate the volume by turning it down to hear the song correctly, but I also had a hard time hearing what I was playing on the piano!
2. Same thing goes with the metronome. It is MUCH louder than the 'volume' of the piano. If I had to change something, it would be how loud the Metronome sounds as compared to the piano. The volume, when recording songs and playing them back, however, is at the 'same volume' as the piano. Don't know if it is just my piano or what, but listening to the Play-Along songs and using the metronome is quite annoying.
3. I'm a computer programmer. I bought this piano because it came with a USB cable, anddd I thought I could use my computer knowledge to retrieve the songs off of the Williams Digital Piano. Not-so-much. There is no way to get the recorded songs off of the piano, the only thing the USB cable does is transmit the MIDI messages to a computer if you have the correct software installed. For me, kinda pointless.
Well, I think that about sums it up. Oh yeah, well, I don't think that this is a "Con" per-se, however: this piano comes disassembled. Which means that you have to assemble it. Fine, but the problem lies: this piano does not have instructions included to tell you how to assemble the piano. I, personally, was able to assemble is promptly. However, at first it was irksome laying out all the pieces and figuring out what goes where.
