REVIEW - Samick SG110, SG310, & SG450 Digital Grand Pianos - Surprisingly Good for the Lower Prices & Very Attractive!

Samick pro acoustic grand

The Samick Piano Company is a very well known & respected South Korean piano & musical instrument manufacturer which has been making acoustic grand and upright pianos for over 50 years. Their line of acoustic piano products include the Samick brand as well as Kohler & Campbell, Seiler, Pramberger, Knabe, and others. Samick is also one of the largest guitar building companies in the world and has made thousands of guitars for famous companies including Fender, Gibson, Yamaha, and others and also builds the Greg Bennett and Silvertone line of acoustic & electric guitars. I have personally played on and owned Samick acoustic pianos in the past as well as currently owning a couple of Greg Bennett acoustic guitars, so I am very familiar with their instruments.

The Samick company has also built many digital pianos over the years, however these instruments were just average or below average (I have played many of them over the years) and not at all competitive with top companies like Yamaha, Kawai, Roland, or Casio. So it comes as a big surprise to me that the Samick company has recently come out with some very attractive,well built, and very nice playing polished ebony (and polished white) small digital baby grand pianos for 2012 in a lower price range under $4000. I recently had an opportunity to play these new Samick digital Baby Grands and was very impressed by what I felt and heard. I was impressed by their realistic hammer weighted key action which moved and responded to velocity and dynamics much better than all the other digital baby grands I have played under $4000. In fact, the ability to express yourself in an acoustic way was quite surprising to me considering my disappointing experiences with other small inexpensive digital baby grands from Suzuki, Williams, and others. Beyond that, the piano tone was surprisingly good and resonate, although it wasn't quite to the level of a Roland, Yamaha, or Kawai digital baby grand, but those brands are quite pricey in comparison (sometimes thousands more) for similar features and cabinet design. So for the money, the new Samick digital grand pianos are more than sufficient in producing a very satisfying piano playing experience for most people.

Two main reasons for these pianos being so good is because Samick (no offence intended) is not producing the piano actions or sound sampling themselves. That's not to say Samick could not produce it themselves these days if they really wanted to, but they chose to give those tasks to two very famous Italian piano companies (Fatar & Orla) who are well known for creating and building high quality piano key actions and designing piano sampled sounds for other famous piano companies over the years. Samick entered into a partnership with those companies on these new models by using their new graduated hammer style piano key actions and stereo digital piano sounds and had them built into these new models. The resulting outcome has been that for the first time ever, I believe Samick now has the best digital pianos they have ever offered, and these instruments are at reasonable and affordable prices for many people looking for a beautiful and well built furniture piece along with a very satisfying piano performance, sound, and digital features.

The lowest priced and smallest of these three pianos is called the SG110 (left pic) which is discount priced at $3495. This very attractive polished ebony SG110 measures about 3 feet in depth from front to back so it can fit in many small spaces. The built-in stereo speaker system has 4 speakers going through 60 watts of audio power. This piano feels and sounds great for its size and really looks good. The legs sit directly on the ground and have no casters and the inside of the piano is all black.

The next model is called the SG310 (left pic) and is discount priced at $3995. It also comes in an attractive polished ebony cabinet with upgraded hardware & appointments including a 2-piece hinged lid (like a real acoustic grand), tapered legs, and measures 4'1" in depth, so it's a bit larger which is great for a slightly bigger space. The built-in stereo speaker system has 6 speakers going through 120 watts of audio power. This model is my favorite because of it's size, its looks, and its fuller and more resonate sound, so as far as I'm concerned, it is easily worth the difference in price. The key cover and legs have extra hardware on them and the music rack shape has a slightly different design than the SG110.

Both models have a very realistic graded piano weighted hammer action, 64 notes of polyphony which is fine for the price (128 notes would have been better), 385 very nice sounds (WOW), 20 panel memories for saving your favorite setups, a 16-track general MIDI multi-track player/recorder using a USB flash drive to save and load songs which is very cool, and it plays educational General MIDI files too. Each of the 16 instrument tracks, including the melody line, can be individually muted (switched off) so that you can isolate certain parts for better understanding of how that part plays and sounds, which is great for learning. That is a very useful feature not found in many digital pianos. Go here for more info on how General MIDI lesson & song accompaniments can help you play better and have more fun: General MIDI songs & lessons

SG310 full size pic

Both pianos also have 3 standard piano pedals, keytouch sensitivity control to change the touch response, headphone jacks for private practice, a user friendly backlit LCD display screen, dedicated front control panel buttons, and stereo audio outputs and computer connections. There are also a number of other features on these two models (including an optional drum machine pattern player with all kinds of cool rhythms) that in my opinion, make these new Samick pianos worth owning. With good looks including sliding key covers, the ability to have the piano lid open up with your choice of two levels of height (full or 1/2 open), a matching bench, and very nice sound and graduated hammer piano key action with some cool digital features, I believe these new small digital baby grand pianos will be hard to beat for the money. Samick's US headquarters is in the Greater Nashville, TN area so they are local and offer a 3 yr parts & 1 year labor warranty good anywhere in the US. Based on everything I have seen and heard from these new pianos, I would recommend them.

SG450

Also, Samick makes a third model digital baby grand which has been out for about 6 months now called a SG450 (left pic) which is the identical piano to the SG310 in most every way (incl size, speaker & audio system, etc) with the exception that it has a bigger user LCD display screen for even more instrument sounds (some of which are specialized dynamic sounds) as well as having a built-in Rhythm Orchestra with 520 automatic left hand chord accompaniment styles and right hand harmony notes when played one-finger style. You name the type of music style and the SG450 seems to be able to do it incl Jazz, Latin, Rock, Country, Big band, Swing, Broadway, Ragtime, New Age, Christmas, Disney, and everything in-between. This kind of system is great for people who just want to have fun and not go through traditional piano lessons or they just want to explore new ways of playing music (which I personally enjoy). The store discount selling price for this piano is usually about $4500. Both the SG310 & SG450 also come in a very attractive polished white finish too.

And one more thing, considering how heavy a regular small acoustic baby grand weighs, which is approx 600-700lbs, the lighter weight of these small digital baby grands makes them much easier to move and assemble. The SG110 3' deep baby grand weighs in at 165lbs and the 4'1" deep SG310 & SG450 weigh in at 260lbs each. Not bad considering their size. But whichever Samick digital baby grand piano you might choose, I believe you'll have a great time playing it and be especially pleased with how they look.

If you want more piano info and LOWER PRICES than internet discounts or sale prices, please email me at tim@azpianowholesale.com or call direct at 602-571-1864.

* Also, below is a short video demo of the SG450 (in white) done by the US Samick headquarters main product director. Although this is a very basic demo, it'll give you a good idea as to some of the things the SG450 can do. The stereo acoustic piano sound and advanced graduated hammer key action however, is the same sound and key action found in the SG310 & SG110 (which is a good thing).