Hello everyone! I have been into this forum for barely a week and enjoyed a lot all the extremely competent comments and collaborative, friendly attitudes.
I am very curious about the actions, and would like to hear as much as possible about a comparison.
What do you find more functional as a replica, useful and realistic when playing, between the Roland PHA III (HP307, V-Piano, LX10f) and the Kawai RM3 Grand with Let-off (Only the CA93 so far...).
Specifically, if I understood correctly, the "Escapement" function of the Roland actually gives a lighter sensation when reaching the end of the stroke, whereas the "Let-off" give a heavier sensation in the same instance.
It seems to me as two functions, claimed to be directly competing with each other, yet delivering a completely opposite feedback.
Can you please help me understand better?
Thanks!
S

I think you have been misinformed. The Roland escapement mimics (what Roland calls) the "click feel" towards the bottom of the key travel of a grand piano. The resistance momentarily increases as the key falls towards the keybed and then reduces again to simulate the escapement of a real grand.

I have not tried a Kawai with RM3 action so cannot comment on their action. The Roland has a very agile, percussive and responsive feel in my opinion.

Steve

Thanks Steve. Regarding these features then, would you say that they are an important part of the action or perhaps, you would have rated the Roland feel just as good even if it didn't have any escapement?
S

Good question. If you are after the closest simulation of an acoustic grand piano action then the escapement, graded weighting, synthetic ivory etc are desirable.

To answer your specific question I personally don't think an escapement makes an action better (or worse), it merely makes it more grand piano like.

I favour an action that allows me to express things with it...I'm not too interested in how that is achieved. I do like the Roland PHAII action and PHAIII actions. But I like a few others too and wouldn't personally get hung up on how closely it resembles a real piano. But there are others who strongly feel a DP action should get as close as possible to an acoustic action.

The better actions used by the top makers are all good in my opinion.

Steve