$333,000 for a Pentium III?

In a startling triumph of technology over common sense, Yamaha has built an electronic piano costing a third of a million dollars – for that kind of money you can buy three new Steinway concert grands with more than enough money left over to build a music room on your house to put them in and pay for some piano lessons on top. The new Pentium III-based Yamaha Disklavier Pro 2000 does offer one thing that a lovingly-crafted Steinway can't – the ability to play DVDs of piano works whilst displaying the performance on a screen. That's a phenomenal saving of around $100 on the cost of buying a DVD player to hook up to your TV, making the $333,000 price tag look quite a bargain. A Yamaha spokesman commented: "Each Disklavier Pro 2000 is hand-built at a plant in Hamamatsu, Japan. It takes seven months to build. We've only made three so far." And Florida piano shop owner Chuck Hale, who plans to stock the modestly-priced instruments, displayed a refreshing degree of honesty when he added: "We're in an upscale market where we have people who will buy anything." ®