Disklavier

Good evening, everyone.

Regarding Mel's recent inquiry and John's response:

<<We have a MarkIIXB Pro disklavier. Is it upgradeable to MarkIII?>>

The answer--at least at this moment--is no, and Yamaha has not indicated that 
this situation will change.

Although it maybe technically true, as John said, that you can plug in a Mark 
III control unit, you will not hear any audio when you play a CD.

If you compare the backs of the Mark IIXG and the Mark III control units, you 
will note that the Mark IIXG has audio outputs that you can plug into 
speakers. The Mark III does not. Instead, the Mark III has what appears to be 
a serial-style port called CD Control. I believe that it carries an audio 
signal to a sound card somewhere. Another difference is the little headphone 
unit that is positioned under the left side of the keyboard. On the Mark IIXG 
vintage Pro, it has an audio out port on the back. I don't think that this 
audio out port is present in this location on the Mark III.

In other words, the audio systems are designed in a way that does not make 
the swapping of the control units a practical possibility.

<< Thanks for the detailed feedback. Any idea of what the street price 
without 
installation is for the DKC55RCD?>>

I don't think that these parts are normally available for sale.

<<Another option which I was considering is the QRS unit which allows playing 
other piano/vocal/instrumental CD's from Baldwin and others (Except for the 
Yamaha custom format). The advanatge is that a standard CD player with a 
carousel can be used. The disadvantage is the increased clutter of more 
electronic equipment around the piano. >>

If you get a DCD1 instead, you will find that--like the Mark III control 
unit--it has audio inputs in the back. This means that you can connect the 
audio output of a CD changer to the audio input of the DCD1 and play your 
PianoSoft Plus Audio CDs from the CD changer.

Regards,
PianoBench