Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Yamaha P-140 vs Roland FP4/7 vs Kawai EP3

Of the four DPs, I can't seem to decide on which to get. I'm hoping someone could make a bold and convincing case for one of them. I tried the P140 and FP7 last weekend and I like the feel and sound of the P140. Also, the P140 has a very attractive price (probably could get one for $800). However, I have heard rave reviews about the FP4/7 on this forum and others but from testing it out I don't understand what all the hype is. Maybe I didn't tweak the sound settings correctly or something. The other DP on my list is the Kawai EP3 which I haven't heard much about on this forum or anywhere else except their website. And I can't seem to find a store around my area to test it out. I would appreciate any experiences/opinions you may have about any of the 4 DPs. Btw, the most important factor for me is the (piano) sound and a distance second would be the action/feel.

I had a P140 for a year or so. The speakers are solidly mediocre, so the sound you get isn't very good unless you run it through some other speaker system. I ran mine through my stereo, then it sounded pretty good. You might find that buying a software piano program more directly addresses your desire for a good sound rather than trying to find a DP with a good sound. As far as feel, I find the difference in touch between acoustic brands and models to be much greater than the variation between DPs. We have a large guitar center and a Sam Ash near my house, I've gone in there and played all the DPs and find the differences noticeable but not great.

MarkL, can you say why you no longer have th P-140? Do you prefer the P-90? Could you provide a little more information about the merits or otherwise of the P-140?

Thanks!

Thanks for the info MarkL. So, are you suggesting to go with a cheap DP and purchasing a piano software? Which piano software would you recommend to hook up to the DP?

I only sold it because I have a P-90 that I play at work and the P-140 at home. It was driving me nuts with all the controls in different places so I sold the P-140 and bought another used P-90. Buying another P-140 would have cost quite a bit more and didn't really offer any benefit for me. The P-140 has speakers, the P-90 doesn't. So for some people that's an advantage but I ran it through my stereo using a software piano anyway, so it didn't matte. The P-140 has only one extremely annoying feature: when you use the record feature, it takes about 5-10 seconds before you can play it back. It behaves like it's writing it from one kind of memory to another. That may sound picky, but when I'm trying to quickly improve a short section by listening to it over and over played slightly different ways, it's very annoying. The P-90 is older technology but plays back immediately. Other than that I'd say the two models are very equivalent.

I wouldn't necessarily encourage you to buy a cheap DP, I'd encourage you to not invest in a DP that has a poor sound system if your primary criteria is to have good sound. I'd either get a DP with no sound system, or one that has a really good sound system. All DPs produce the same MIDI, and that's what you need for a software piano. You can also run any piano through your home stereo as a first step and get better sound than the P-140 would deliver with it's little speakers. Then you can step up to a software piano when you have the money.

You should probably search the forum for opinions on software pianos, it's almost a religion. I have True Pianos and am very happy with it for the price. It does not have large storage requirements because it uses a modeling technique instead of sampling, and runs on a modest sized machine as long as it has a good sound card with low latency. People will bend your ear all day explaining the pros and cons of the various products. They range in price from very little to really lots. I can't compare them, I've only used the one I own.

Thanks for all the valuable information, Mark.