I don't have the full details yet, but this is what I've come across so far.
The E3 is aimed more at people who may play the piano a little bit, but for whom the playback (or 'Home Entertainment') aspect of the piano is very important and who don't want to get into the complexities of some of the facilities available on the Mark IV. The inteface is simplified even when compared to the Mark III, using a simple remote control similar to the type you'd have for your DVD recorder.
It has 128Mb of Flash memory, a CD drive and USB. The display is an 'organic' LCD. It has record functions, but I'm not certain that it allows 16 track recording. There is no hammer sensor, but playback is more accurate and can handle lower volume levels than the Mark III because it uses a feedback (servo) system, similar to the Mark IV. AFAIK, it will be available on upright and grand pianos.
athomik
On Jan 19 2009, Kevin Goroway wrote:
>Maybe they've removed the hand-held remote? I can't imagine that that is a *large* percentage of the cost...
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>________________________________
>From: Tom Wheeler
>To: disklavier@yahoogroups.com
>Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2009 12:32:56 PM
>Subject: Re: [disklavier] New Diskalvier E3?
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>Kevin,
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>I found the following video demo at NAMM which may be of interest to you: http://www.yamaha. com/namm/. Unfortunately the E3 is not compared in any way to the Mark IV so it is impossible to tell what features have been omitted form the E3 to make it "more affordable".
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>Tom
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>Does anyone have any more information on the new model Diskalvier (the E3) which was introduced at NAMM?
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>http://www.yamaha. com/namm/ w2009/showcase. html?CTID= 5042926
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>I'm mostly curious as to what they removed to make it "affordable" . It seems to still have record capability which would have been my first guess...
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>It also seems like it will be available on upright models, differentiating it from the MarkIV. That may indicate that the "guts" (the big linux computer) have been shrunk down substantially. ..
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>-Kevin
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