I’m thinking about buying a dedicated digital piano. I went to Sam Ash to A/B the new Casio vs. the Yamaha. I was anxious to finally hear the new Casio Privia.

Yamaha replaced the 155 with the 255 $1,299) and it sounds darn good. The touch is almost like a real piano, sounds 99% like a piano from 20 feet away, nice looking design, internal speakers. But too heavy to be called a true portable!

Then I played the new Casio Privia PX5-s ($999). What a difference! It felt like a toy under my hands, sounds were thin (compared to the Yamaha), no internal speakers as in the Yamaha, the whole keyboard reminded me of the old Magnus organ from 30 or so years ago which was a “wonder“ at the time. The only plus was that “weight.” I could probably “bench press” a dozen of them stacked together!

In all fairness, I didn’t have time to EQ the Casio or set it up under ideal conditions, so I’m sure it could sound a lot better. But, I don’t think even then it’s going to be able to hold a candle to the Yamaha.

I was talking to another customer in the store who didn’t like the Casio. He said something I never gave much thought to. That all those who are raving about the Casio are mostly synthesizer players who are used to electronic sounds and are not true pianists (.....or.....they‘re using them as controllers). So to them, a Casio would sound good. To an acoustic pianist it falls far short of coming anywhere near a real piano.

I play both electronic keyboards and acoustic piano. I love the synthetic sounds (trumpets, brass, string orchestras, drums, etc) that you play on the synthesizer. But since I started playing serious piano, my ears have a hard time tolerating and accepting the “hollowness” of electronic sounds (compared to an acoustic piano).

Yet, everyone seems to be raving about the Casio! Are my missing something here?

Well, everyone hears things differently. Yamaha I think makes one of the best digital pianos. Have you looked at the DGX 650? Not a bad keyboard for the money. It weighs in at around 47 lbs. Keep in mind if it has internal speakers, the better it sounds, the heavier it will be do to the quality of the speakers. The dgx 650 sells for around 799.00... Hear is a link you can listen to.

http://www.kraftmusic.com/digital-pianos-and-keyboards/digital-pianos/yamaha/dgx650/

On the high end of the spectrum is the Nord 88 key digital piano for around 4000.00. To me this is the best sounding piano out there. No on board speakers. If you can find one is the CP300 or 250. They are a bit older but sound beautiful... Heavy tho at around 70 lbs.

The Kraft music website has good videos for most of all what they sell and you can take a listen. I currently use a Yamaha MOXF 8. It is not a dedicated piano but has some great pianos in it. Only weighs about 25 lbs but no sspeakers.
Whatever you decide... It is not an easy choice... Good Luck....Ron

The best digital pianos are actually VSTs, Ivory, Pianoteq, NI allicia keys and some others come to mind... They are a few hundred dollars each...

The best piano keyboard available is currently Kawaii VPC 1 which is about €1200, it comes withouth sounds, but with 3 dedicated pedals.

Best thing, its flat, and you can put anything on top of that for home use... For example an audia 4, a laptop with touchscreen and NI machine...

Sadly it has no aftertouch or pitchbend controllers, but for simply playing piano, thats unnecessary... Because with just a little laptop and ome of those VSTs running on it you have the best digital piano action and sound for less then €2000



Just watch this video if you want to know why, its by pianoman chuck

http://youtu.be/fEVbwCtnygY

As said everything is subjective but I have a Privia 350 and love it. Played thru a good sound system, I hate onboard speakers. I didn't really give too much attention to the Yamahas because weight was a big factor for me. The lower end Yamahas were toys in my opinion and for the money the Casio won out.
The PX5S is more for use as a controller keyboard with four programmable zones and lots of other programming options. The 350 has speakers, some simple backing styles and is a good all around home or gig keyboard.
Buy what sounds and feels good to you, you've got to play it.
BTW when I was learning piano tuning an old pro told me that in NYC Steinway has a floor dedicated to their TOTL concert grands. Artists coming to the city to preform can go their and play as many as they like till they find one they like. Now thats really personel taste to the max.

Probably best bang/quality is Yamaha slabs - about $1000 is top notch usually.

BTW - G.Piano Stack 1 is the PA3X bomb piano (stereo speakers)

As i said in my earlier post I think the Nord is one of the best.. Watch the video by Pianoman Chuck and he points out some of the differences..Kronos vs Nord

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdxLpWZmKjg

Ron

KURZWEIL



Love the Roland RD 800 also...

Comparisons

http://purgatorycreek.com/documents/25.html

I have been looking at digital pianos and controllers for a while now. I love my Korg pa900 for the job I do, and the light weight, but I do prefer 76/88 keys at least at home. Currently I have the latest M-Audio Keystation 88 on the lower level used as a midi controller. It's supposed to be a synth action but it feels like a fairly strong spring rather than a synth action, so I've been looking for a better alternative.

Having read such good things about the Casio Privia PX 350, I was excited to try that, thinking that I would be able to play the piano, even if the Pa900 was still in its bag or in my vehicle. And indeed I did like the simulated ivory keys and the weighted piano action, but the piano sound out of the on-board speakers sounded too bell-like, and distorted at times (to my ears).

I would have liked to have tried the Yamaha P255 but I read that the strings suffer the same problem as the Tyros strings, and fail to sustain even when the sustain pedal is held down, fading off like the piano does. I never liked that feature on my Tyros.

So, recently, I have been looking at the Kurzweil SPS4-8 that has many of the PC3 voices, but wish me luck trying to find one locally to test!

I'm interested to hear others experiences too.

The kawaii keybeds have by far the most accurate grand piano feeling...

fatar keybeds, which are for example used by Nord and Kurzweil, are a bit lighter and next to being good at playing piano, they are also suited for organ style playing with glissandos and such...

Korg, Yamaha, Casio and Roland also produce their own keybeds with various results.

When playing serious piano, the keybed feeling is just as important as the sample and effects quallity in a sample based piano sound..