Hi!

I wonder, which of the following manufacturers makes the best and most authentic digital piano, considering both sound and touch?

Roland
Kawai
Yamaha

/Andrée

Who makes the best car considering performance and luxury, BMW, Mercedes or Audi? What's that you say? It's a matter of personal taste? Well, it's exactly the same here.

Roland, Kawai and Yamaha all sound and feel different. None of them are *exactly* like an acoustic grand. All of them are pretty good. All of the have strong fans here. And which one is "best" is just an unanswerable question.

Play them yourself and see which one is your favorite.

Yamaha Avant Grand.

That being said, I haven't actually played on one.

However, I believe that this is the most expensive instrument currently on the market, thus one would have to assume that it's also the "best and most authentic" digital piano available.

Cheers,
James
x

Boy, that tends to change every time those vendors bring out their new models. I have a Roland RD-700. That doesn't nearly match the tone quality of 6' 3" Estonia grand I have in the next room, nor does it match the touch, but is more than good enough. I have played Yamaha's digitals and liked the sound and touch much better than Roland.

Maybe. Some people who've played both prefer the Roland V-Piano. Some may even prefer a Kawai or Roland digital grand. In short, I still insist that there is no "Best" DP any more than there is a single "best" automobile (or "best" acoustic piano, for that matter).

Andree,

The top of the line stage pianos from Kawai, Roland and Yamaha (MP8ii, RD700GX, CP300) are all good. In terms of touch they all feel different as different models and brands of acoustic pianos will feel different. But they feel real.

These pianos sound great too. Really the biggest factor here is going to be the amplification. But through a good set of headphones they all sound nice.

You just need to try them out for yourself. It is all a matter of taste for the flagship pianos. It is only when you step down to the lower tier digital pianos that compromises are made in the actions to either make the digital piano lighter or cheaper that you start to find some digitals that feel like crap and some that feel 80% real etc. But typically they use the same samples as the top of the line pianos and sound the same. When you get to the $500 or $700 level then the sound quality starts to drop. Lower polyphony, lack of sympathetic resonance, lack of half damper pedal, smaller Sample ROM etc. The only ones that buck the low end trend is Casio Privia. They are cheap but feel and sound like a 2nd tier digital from the big three just a notch below the flagships.

Daniel

Hi again!

I realise that I asked the question in a wrong way, what I actually meant is, which piano has the best reputation considering authencity of a real piano (in price range below $4000)? If we are looking into the high-end Kawais for example, the keyboard is based on a similar technique used in real pianos, with a hammer connected to the key.

/Andrée

Andree,

Authenticity involves pluses and minuses. For example, a digital that is truly authentic should not always be in tune. Not only that, it should regularly go out of tune to a different extent in different registers. So for true authenticity, it should be out of tune with itself a majority of the time. Its touch should not be perfectly consistent. Nor should its touch response be consistent since it theroetically has infinite levels of touch response. It should mimic the effect on tone production over time resulting from degradation of hammer felt. It should have damper noises and occasional squeaks and buzzes. It should require in-home service calls by tuners and technicians who do not service to an objective standard, but to a personal standard of tone and touch that the owner of the instrument may or may not share. Finally, an authentic digital should take up a lot of space, behave badly when ignored, and be a real bitch to move.

Another question that has to be dealt with is the acoustic piano that one chooses as the standard of reference. For most people, that piano would be whatever acoustic they are most familiar with, and that would most likely be an acoustic they have or have had at home. It makes a huge difference whether a Bosendorfer grand or Kawai console is the reference for authenticity, especially in tone production. The Bosendorfer grand owner seeks a passable facsimile of his acoustic playing experience. The Kawai console owner seeks an alternative, maybe even a replacement. (No slight to Kawai intended...just looking for a generic low-priced piano example)

For well-heeled acoustic piano purists, there will never be a digital that is authentic. They will cherish the idiosyncrasies of their favorite piano and welcome the chore and expense of optimal maintenance. They will keep the acoustic ideal alive into the foreseeable future supporting it with their enthusiasm and the their wallets. But the ideal will be supported by lower and lower production figures and increasingly smaller revenues in both sales, service, concert use, and revenue from recordings. There will be great concert events with fabulous acoustic artists strutting their stuff on high profile acoustic grands. Those acoustic grands will have been given a fresh concert tune and regulation touch-up that will hopefully last through the performance. The audience will be enraptured by the musicial potential of one artist seated at one massive instrument. That's all good and will always be worth the price of admission. But at performance tiers below that and in studio production, acoustic pianos will slowly disappear. In fact, this is already happening.

turandot - Well put.

To which I would add only that touch is the most important criterion, because tone can be changed by connecting a DP to a software piano which is stored on a computer.

If you had to suffer and play on a digital
which would come close to being able to tolerate
over an acoustic.. due to inconvient playing hours..

Almost all of the digital piano makes and models are authentic digital pianos.
There are only questions from time to time about the Williams.

Ok, well, I will try and answer your question...

I own a Kawai CP 205 and LOVE it. I love it so much that I am looking at buying the newest version the CP 207D.

It has the touch of a real grand piano and the warm sound of a real grand piano and looks absolutely beautiful.

I have heard and played around on both the flagship Yamaha and the flagship Roland digital grands.

The Yamaha seemed to sound a little brighter and not as warm as the Kawai.

The Roland was as nice as the Kawai, but priced WAY to high.

Just an opinion from someone who has seen and played all of them.

sound wise - yamaha, key action wise ->roland and kawai.

This is why I keep insisting that it's entirely a personal matter. *I* prefer both the sound and touch of Rolands. Yamaha is too light in touch and too bright in sound *for me*. But Yamahas are great DPs and many people prefer them across the board. So anybody who tells you that Kawai, Yamaha or Roland is absolutely, objectively the best one is talking through his hat (or back side).

Just play them and decide for yourself. There is no *right* answer. But make sure you try a Roland V-piano to see what the state of the art is.

Do not mix both good acoustic and digitals at the same time when you try them. I went to local showroom the other day and tried all their nice expensive Yamaha digitals (10-15k), then switched to acoustic Steinways and Yamahas, then back to digitals for a rude awakening. No digital will come close to a real thing any time soon, it's just too obvious when you try them side by side.

With digitals it just comes down to how easy can you get your mind fooled into enjoyment comparable to the one you would get from good acoustic grand.

so you're saying people have so screwed up ears I mean divergent...

Hey, if everybody liked the same thing, Baskin-Robbins would sell 30 fewer flavors...

This is nonsense. Both can be enjoyed for what they are.

If your personal mindset is this rigid, you should be posting on the acoustic forum.

That's interesting. So, what you're trying to say is digitals are just what they are, a digital musical instrument and not a thorough imitation of acoustic.

I've had this debate with Turandot bfore. Frankly, I think that most Digitals are simply intended to simulate an acoustic as much as possible. Unlike a Rhodes electric or Hammond organ, which have a very distinct sound from the instruments that inspired them (acoustic piano, pipe organ), a good digital is almost identical in sound to an acoustic. And most people feel the closer the better--that is, any aural evidence of digital origin is a flaw rather than an advantage.

I admit that there are some rare exceptions. The V-Piano is the most obvious example. It simulates pianos that don't actually exist (silver string, all triple strung, etc.) But even here, it's supposed to sound like an acoustic piano--albeit an acoustic that doesn't actually exist in reality.

When someone shows me a distinct "digital piano sound" and convinces me that people buy instruments in order to use it, than I'll concede that a DP is not just a simulation. Until then, the closer a DP is to acoustic, the better.

By the way, this is true for other digital simulation instruments also i.e. digital pipe organs, digital harpsichords, etc. Even Digital Hammond drawbar organs and digital Rhodes electrics.

Rolex,

You got it. That's why I started a thread asking which acoustic best mimics the performance tendencies of a digital...a thread which attracted one response and virtually zero interest .

Now, it is true that digital manufacturers market their upper-end consoles and pseudo-acoustic grands with talking points that appeal to acoustic traditionalists, and not surprisingly those models are sold exclusively by traditional piano dealers side by side with that company's acoustic lineup. (From your post I imagine this placement is where you made your comparison.) An extreme example of this would be the Avant's slavish and costly attention to mimicking an acoustic grand's 'feel'. But's that's marketing, product placement, and salesmanship.

By way of contrast, the Roland V, despite its high ticket price, has not been placed exclusively with traditional piano retailers. It's available through any sales channel you want. Its external design hardly evokes any typical visual image of an acoustic. Its internal design is all about innovation and it is in no way a slave to acoustic grand sampling.

If you get beyond the marketing and product placement issue to focus on the reality of the instruments, digitals and acoustics are completely different instruments. Each one has capabilities that the other lacks. Each one is better suited for different applications. If you ask 100 working digital keyboard musicians if they have to "fool" their minds into believing that their instruments can give them the enjoyment of an acoustic, their answers will re-direct the question away from self-delusion toward practical applications of each instrument.

Addendum,



GeoffK,

Don't flatter yourself so much with the use of "I". This is hardly a personal debate. You and I are not important. It's just part ot an ongoing discussion of reality vs. perception. It can be interesting without being polarizing.

I wasn't claiming anything special. I was simply observing that it's something that I had debated/discussed with you before. I don't think we came to an agreement that time either.

Ask yourself this question: Would you ever play with an acoustic *and* a digital on stage at the same time? You might play with an acoustic and a Rhodes or with a Rhodes and a Hammond. But the acoustic and digital are so close that playing with both seems redundant to me. How about you?

Generally, no. The choice would depend on the other instruments and whether they are amped or not.

In specific instances, yes. Example would be a jazz band concert where, in addition to full ensemble performance,
different groupings step forward on different tunes.

However, to demand both instruments and be sure that the acoustic is serviced, tuned, and good to go, you need to be a headline player or at least part of a headline act. If you're not, you're asking for trouble with the acoustic.

If someone wanted to pay me to do a solo concert (extremely unlikely), I'd want both. I'd do some stuff on each.

digital pianos are generally better then acoustics except the dynamics.

I tried a Suzuki once - it was dreadful - but it was an authentic Suzuki!!

Generally, a digital piano is an attempt to imitate an acoustic piano, so the term "authentic digital piano" would apply to most digital pianos.

For as close to an acoustic grand piano sound as I'm going to get, I don't rely on the sound of a digital piano - the best are OK, and the worst aren't nearly as good.

For sound I rely on physical modeling software. More about this in good time. No, I'm not talking about samples - very soon samples will very much be yesterday.

Glenn

I use Pianoteq myself. With the right audio setup it is more realistic than any DP I've sampled including the the 409.

whoa... maybe "well put" as someone else wrote, but may I respectfully submit that it's also a bit myopic? If we are truly seeing the end of the acoustic piano, that speaks as much to lack of good aesthetic education, laziness and cynicism as it does to anything you could fairly call "evolution" as Turandot seems to suggest is happening.

I see in this statement almost an indictment of an acoustic piano. Saying things like they are a "bitch to move" or are "always out of tune" etc speaks more to things to be annoyed at rather than the things that truly give us pleasure. The evolution that has occured for the past 400 years appears to be glibly thrown out in the name of convenience and being easy to move!

I am currently in the market for a digital piano and as an owner of an Estonia 190 (which I purchased last year) and a former owner of a Baldwin Concert Vertical, I am having my problems listening and accepting to what's on the market (at the level that I can afford). As I said privately to someone in this forum, the dyamics of any moderately decent acoustic piano just cannot be programmed, at least now. And it is akin to the struggles of those engineers trying to create artificial intelligence. How do you recreate something natural and serendipitous using diodes, metal and wire? There's hubris in them there halls.

Sure there are conveniences that aren't to be dismissed, but to so glibly dismiss acoustic pianos as being in some way a domain only of purists is a cheap shot. I don't necessarily welcome the "chore and expense of optimal maintenance". The hell I went through last year with the break in of this piano is something I don't wish to go through again. But just the same I have a technician who is nothing short of a magician in the work he is able to do on this piano. Is his work and abilities any less to be valued than a software engineer at Yamaha? I don't think so.

We can as a society of music lovers can quietly accept the infringement of digital pianos on the concert stage. Or we can speak out.

I just did my part.

toyboy:

A real acoustic grand will be the standard against which all others (real and imitations) will be judged for many years to come.

And yes, perhaps the digital piano has "infringed" on the acoustic, but there may be good reasons (I have three good reasons of my own).

Finally, may I suggest that you take time to explore more possibilities (other than samples and a standard DP which uses samples), and you may find something to satisfy your quest for dynamics in a software solution. I can assure that a wait of a few weeks or so will be well worth it.

Glenn

i was just speaking to the apparent lowering of standards that Turnadot seemed to be suggesting or alluding to. i've yet to see DP's in the classical/concert world, but maybe it's a matter of time. who knows.

wait of a "few weeks"? ha, i've been at this search for over a year now.

not sure what you mean by "software solution" though. you mean those keyboards for which you can purchase different "pianos"? if so, that sounded too cumbersome to deal with... i.e. keyboard, speakers, computer.... to have to lug around.