REVIEW – Omega LX802 & LX505 Digital Pianos

UPDATED Piano Review – May 19, 2014

Omega Baby Grand polished ebony

• 7″ color touch screen – This touch screen is big, responds to a light finger touch for easy navigation (just like the much more expensive Kawai CP & Roland RM pianos) is beautiful to look at, and displays useful and easy to understand user info. However, the touch screen can sometimes be a bit unresponsive depending on how you press it.
• 128-note polyphony – This is a good amount of piano tone memory as compared to other pianos in its price range and equals that of many of the Yamaha & Roland digital pianos. Larger amounts of polyphony memory is generally helpful for better piano reproduction as well as proper playback & recording of multi-track songs which demand more note memory, such as higher quality General MIDI song files.

LX505 polished ebony

• A smooth playing Fatar graded hammer key action from Italy – This is not the typical lower quality Chinese key actions that I have had problems with before, but Fatar is a well known and Italian company that produces a variety of key actions with some being better than others. The key action on this model is good but it is also a bit noisy when the keys are going up & down.

• Lighted Key Panel follow along teaching system – Up until now, only Yamaha Clavinova CVP digital pianos have had this popular feature and it can be very useful for both children and adults. The built-in panel lights wait for you and show you what notes to play as the music is playing from the internal songs or which be inserted into the piano by using a USB flashdrive. You follow along at your own speed and the lights lead you to the next note using a 2-step teaching process. It’s actually fun to use.

Display screen

It has a 7-track recording & 16 track playback system for General MIDI songs. This is especially useful for music education and accompaniment songs while learning to play and 7 tracks is more than many of the other pianos out there with only 2-6 tracks.

• 128 instrumental sounds for a full compliment of sounds for playing all popular forms of music. The piano sound is pretty good and the instrument sounds are OK with some being better than others.
• 400 fingered & one fingered chord accompaniment styles of music (with drum patterns) for fun play for both kids & adults. Actually this is the least favorite part of the piano for me. The interactive accompaniments are really very basic and not at all like some of the name brand models. I have played all of the accompaniments on these two pianos and many of them sound very toy-like…not musical and this is likely due to those sounds being designed and/or made in China as opposed to Italy, Japan, or US.

• Twin piano for 4-hand duet play (this splits the piano keyboard into two identical 44-note keyboards for duet play.
• 5 levels of adjustable key touch sensitivity
• Sound Layer and split keyboard functions
• 8 reverb & 8 chorus types of effects
• USB output to computer for access to music programs and music educational technology as well as a microphone input to sing through the piano (incl mic volume control)
• 3 built-in piano style foot pedals
• 80 watt/4 speaker built-in audio system
• Beautiful premium polished ebony cabinets (a satin brown mahogany cabinet is available in the LX505 model) with traditional grand piano “slow close” acoustic grand piano style key cover (big upgrade over most digital pianos)

In others words, these pianos are packed with a lot of technology, with the sound and feel being overall nice, and the cabinets are especially attractive in their high polished ebony furniture cabinets as well as the optional satin brown mahogany finish in the LX505 (left pic with lid closed). In fact, the height of the Omega LX505 upright style piano is 38″ tall not counting the height of the music rack which is another 8″ tall (total 46″ tall with music rack up). This height is even taller than Yamaha or Kawai digital pianos which then gives the Omega LX505 an even more impressive acoustic piano look. Also, the cabinet of the LX505 is unusual for a vertical digital piano as it is an “all-in-one” acoustic piano cabinet and does not come apart like a traditional digital piano where the stand separates from the piano top. However, this weight and size does make the pianos somewhat heavy as opposed to some of the other brands and models. The down side of that is you would not be able to move or transport it as easily as you would another digital piano because of it’s extra weight and size, but if that is not an issue, then you’ll appreciate that difference in this attractive piano.

LX505 satin brown

As the old saying goes “you don’t get something for nothing,” but if you want nice digital piano in a lower price range than the other more well known brands, then I would recommend you consider either the Omega baby grand LX802 or upright style digital piano LX505. Their attractive acoustic piano style cabinets will look good in your home and the music that comes out of them will likely bring piano playing joy to your life and/or the lives of your family. Please email me direct for factory availability and discount price info on these Omega pianos.

*Samick 4′ Digital Grand
One more brand to consider when it comes to lower priced, but attractive furniture style cabinets that play & sound great would be the Samick brand. I have done a detailed review on the Samick digital grand pianos and would encourage you to read it over while doing your research. In fact there are some aspects of this piano I like better than the Omega brand (including key action and sounds) and the Samick company is a very well known acoustic piano manufacturer with various popular brands as well as as building high quality acoustic & electric guitars. Their digital baby grand pianos also look great and have some pretty impressive technology and amazing sounds. Go to the following link for more info: Samick Digital Grand Pianos.