Thanks to comprehensive redesign, these world-standard instruments are better than ever, with numerous advances in materials and construction. Refined scale designs and components improve tonal performance, while other modifications enhance strength and durability. Extra-wide music desks provide plenty of room for sheet music. And the top-of-the-line sets extraordinary standards of elegance and excellence, incorporating concepts adapted from Yamaha grand pianos.
A perennial favorite among discerning pianists, the Yamaha U1 offers outstanding musical performance, setting the standards by which many other upright pianos are measured.
- Advanced Scale Design
- Soundboard and Frame
- Redesigned Hammers
- Soft-Close Fallboard
Main Features
Cut thread tuning pins, made in-house at Yamaha
Pinblock made in-house at Yamaha
Solid spruce soundboard and ribs
Solid copper wound bass strings
Hard maple bridges
Aluminium alloy action rails
Spruce keys with hardwood buttons
Mute pedal
Yamaha designed hammers with underfelt
Polyester finish
Vacuum Shield Mould Process (V-Pro) plate
Single caster
Seasoned for destination
Spruce Soundboard
At the Yamaha lumber mill and wood processing facility, the finest spruce is quarter sawn; and less than 10% of the total is selected and reserved for Yamaha piano soundboards. Solid spruce, rather than laminated spruce or poplar, is the choice in all fine pianos for the best amplification of sound, best tone and sustain.
Seasoned for Destination
Yamaha specifically seasons this piano for the Australian market using a proprietary technology. The tuning stability, finish and overall musical integrity are enhanced over the long life expected of a fine piano.
Tuning Pins
Made in-house at Yamaha, Yamaha tuning pins are made to exacting specifications to ensure stability and durability.
Pinblock
Yamaha pinblocks are made in-house to ensure that correct materials and procedures are used. This is vital for long term tuning stability.
Spruce Keys
Yamaha uses Spruce for the keys on all models of pianos. Spruce is very light and possesses a very high ratio of strength to weight. It is ideal for key construction, even though its cost is greater than either sugar pine or bass wood. Yamaha keyboards respond quickly providing fast repetition for the most intricate piece of music. Yamaha keyboards withstand heavy use over years of fortissimo passages.
V-Pro Plate
Yamaha uses V-Pro (Vacuum Shield Mold Process) in casting the iron frame (plate). V-Pro plates are stronger and visually more appealing. Critical dimensions are produced more accurately than before.
Metal Action Rails
Yamaha engineering developed a unique Extruded Aluminum Alloy Action Rail (bearing a Yamaha patent) that is one of the best innovations for improving a piano action in the last 100 years. The usual fluctuations in wood rails that effect touch, caused by periodic weather changes, are eliminated allowing stable, long-lasting action regulation.
Balanced Action
Each key of a Yamaha piano is individually tested and measured for the corrections needed to obtain uniform “down weight” pressure. Yamaha actions play correctly and uniformly. This balancing helps ensure a lifetime of superior touch and control across the keyboard.
Uniform Key Travel
Yamaha designs all grand and vertical pianos to have the same key travel. Regardless of size, type or model of Yamaha piano, the keyboards will always feel the same.
Finishes
Polished Ebony, Satin Ebony, Polished American Walnut, Satin American Walnut, Polished Mahogany, Polished White.
What is SILENT Piano™?
When the SILENT Piano™ function is activated, the hammers will no longer hit the strings and instead, a highly sophisticated sensor-technology captures all movements of the keys and sends them to the digital tone module. Play a real acoustic piano with headphones at any time, day or night without being disturbed or disturbing others. The Yamaha Silencing System is unsurpassed, allowing 24hr practice as well as possessing many other features including a range of pre-installed sounds, being able to record your own performances or connecting mobile devices to use the latest Apps.
Two World-Renowned Piano Sounds
You can play SILENT Piano™ SH2 type with the voices of CFX, Yamaha’s finest concert grand piano, and Bösendorfer’s legendary Imperial. All 88 keys are sampled individually. As Yamaha’s flagship grand piano, the majestic CFX boasts a wide palette of tonal colors, from sparkling high notes to powerful bass tones. The legendary Bösendorfer, meanwhile, is renowned for its sonorous and rich Viennese sound.
A broad sonic palette
SILENT Piano™ SH2 type offers 20 pre-installed sounds such as electric pianos, harpsichord, organs, strings, choir, and synth pad, allowing you to select the ideal voice to match your preferred musical genre.
Rich resonance and subtle accurate reproduction
CFX Binaural Sampling
Yamaha’s advanced binaural sampling technology uses samples from the CFX, Yamaha’s acclaimed concert grand piano, recorded with specialized microphones that capture locational information and other nuances discerned by the human ear. The resulting sound is so natural, so enveloping, that you’ll soon forget you’re even wearing headphones at all.
VRM physical modeling—the distinctive reverberation generated by the entire body of a concert grand piano
In a grand piano, sound resonates throughout the body of the instrument, producing a rich reverberation that envelops the listener in sound. This phenomena is reproduced perfectly through enhanced Virtual Resonance Modeling (VRM). The original VRM calculates the various states of the strings for each of the 88 notes on the keyboard, from one instant to the next, and timing and depth of damper pedals pressed. The enhanced VRM now also calculates aliquot resonance in the upper octaves, and the full resonance of the soundboard, rim, and frame. This technology allows for vivid, bright, richly-varied expression that reflects the limitless number of factors inherent in piano performance.
Stereophonic Optimizer (Piano Voices other than CFX Grand)
Stereophonic Optimizer is an effect which reproduces the natural sound distance, like with the sound of Binaural Sampling, even though you are listening to it on headphones. When one of the Piano Voices other than CFX Grand is selected, the Stereophonic Optimizer is enabled.
Smooth Release-From staccato to legato, superbly expressive sound that responds to the player’s touch
Featuring Yamaha’s Smooth Release technology, SILENT Piano™ SH2 type offers the crisp tone heard when playing staccato as well as the lingering sound produced by releasing the keys more. This provides finely-nuanced response to the pianist’s playing.
Key-Off samples
The moment a pianist’s fingers are lifted from the keys of a grand piano, subtle changes occur in the instrument’s tone as the damper is lowered onto the strings to mute its sound. Key-Off samples features actual recordings of these changes, offering a faithful reproduction of the most subtle changes in the piano’s sound, allowing for a more realistic performance.
Unique Yamaha technology retains the all-important touch of the piano
Key sensors
Under each of the 88 keys is a Yamaha-unique continuous-detection grey-scale shutter key sensor. These sensors detect the movement of the keys continually, allowing natural musical expression even when the piano is in SILENT Piano™ function. Since they do not come into contact with the keys, these sensors do not affect the feel of the keyboard in any way.
Hammer sensors
Grand piano with SILENT Piano™ SH2 type are fitted with hammer sensors that allow even slow keystrokes or rapid trills. To ensure that they do not affect the feel of the keyboard in any way, Yamaha uses non-contact sensors.
Quick escape system
Grand piano with SILENT Piano™ SH2 type features a quick escape system that allows the sound muting mechanism to be fitted to a grand piano without sacrificing any of the playability or musical expression demanded of such instruments in an acoustic performance. This system allows optimal separation to be obtained between the hammers and strings by adjusting the distance between the hammers and strings, ensuring that the feel of the keyboard stays in the best possible condition whether playing acoustically or with the sound muted.
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