I'm in London, UK, where I spend half the year living in a walk-up fourth floor apartment with no piano. I spend the other half of my time in a venue in Scotland where I have access to a 2004 Steinway B, a Yahama U3, a Roland HP800 keyboard with built-in speakers and a Roland RS100 keyboard with Peavey KB/A60 amplifier.

I intend to buy a new piano to use in London but it will have to be a digital instrument as the stairs here are so tricky. I'm impressed with the Roland F110 and the Roland DP990 but wonder if it's worth paying the extra cash for the second one. I play jazz standards and my partner plays Schumann. I like using the "electric" voice on the Roland HP800 but don't care for either of the "electric" voices on the RS100.

Is the basic piano sound on the F110 the same as the DP990 or is it superior? Is the "electric" voice adjustable so as to sound like a Fendor Rhodes or a Wurlitzer? Has anyone had a go at comparing these options?

Any advice would be welcome,
William

I haven't really tryed either one in person, but as far as I understand, you can controll some aspects of the sound, like brilliance and hall, and those two also have a 3-band EQ.

As far as the difference between those two, specwise, the DP 990 is not really worth it IMO, but in reality, it might outperform the F110 by a lot...
As said, I haven't tryed them in person yet.

BTW, how are the keys on those two models? Are the DP990 keys any heavier than thoso of the F110?

DP990. Better touch. Its worth it!

Is the touch really that much better, to justfiy the 700€ price difference?

Hi Vid in Slovenia and Stephen in St. Louis,
Thanks for the feedback about Roland digital pianos. Since submitting this post, I've done some research and feel it's got to be the Roland DP990 for me. I found another relevant post which gives lots of information about the "escapement" featue which is built into the DP990 but not into the F110. Here's a link to the long thread with lots of opinion:
http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthrea...ite_id/1#import
I found this most useful and when I went back to the piano showroom today with my partner we made comparisons and came to the conclusion that the DP990 keyboard with escapement really does feel better.

So here's my conclusion:
1. The DP990 keyboard has a much better feel
2. The sound quality is better, I think the speakers are either larger or mounted differently. I believe that although both models have speakers which are 12" according to the specs, the DP990 may have circular ones whereas the F110 may have oval ones. You can see the F110 ones from underneath - the DP990 ones are invisible and seem to be internally mounted.
3. It would appear that both pianos have the same number of internal voices so if the keyboard touch didn't matter to you and you intended to use external systems to relay the sound, then it might be worth buying the F110.
4. When closed the DP990 presents a totally flat top surface safe to place things on - looks just like a console table whereas the F110 top surface slopes slightly.

The salesman made two claims about which I would welcome corroboration from others reading this thread:
He claimed that the DP990 has a higher quality of sampling than the F110 which partly explains the price difference - more megabites of information built into its brain.

He also claimed that as Yamaha, Kawai and some other companies also make acustic pianos, the sampling they use in their digital pianos is derived from their acustic instruments. Roland do not make acustic pianos so they use samples from Steinway which is why he thinks so highly of them.

I would love to hear from anyone if this is true.
Cheers,
William

Congrats on the DP990. You will not regret it. As far as Yamaha and Kawai sampling their own pianos, that is true, to the best of my knowledge. Roland samples a Steinway. Does it make it better than those other brands? No. They are all fine pianos. Enjoy your DP990