The last Friday I went to a local store to buy a new DP. At first, I was interested in buying the Kawai CN-23, due to I preferred a more compact size. But that model was not at the store. The salesman encouraged me to try out the CN-33 and I loved it. The vendor offered me a good price, so I decided to buy this model.

Previously I had tried out the ROLAND HP-302, at other local store. I liked this piano as well, but I liked the CN-33 much more. I’m a beginner, so I cannot explain why I prefer one model over other. I suppose that I like more the sound and touch of CN-33. I also prefer the look of Kawai over Roland.

I asked for the mahogany finish, and I have to wait some days to receive the piano. I hope to be lucky with this piano!

I wish you most good luck Recaredo, after the issues you had with your old one you deserve it.

Thanks Rossy!

Recardo congratulations on your new piano. I just players Cn33 last week and I liked it too. I think you will be very happy! It is a very nice piano.

Congrats Recardo. I've had mine for 18 months and am still very happy with it. Post a picture please when you get it.

Pics pls.

Thanks for your comments, guys. I'll post some photos when the piano arrives.

Cheers!

Marcs - congrats on your purchase! I love the look of the white ones! I would buy one but you can not buy white ones in Australia. So instead I just admire the pictures I see on here

The piano has arrived this evening. It looks pretty nice.

Now I only have to learn to play it!

Nice. You'll enjoy learning to play it. I do.

Recaredo:

That looks beautiful - which wood finish is that?

Hi Jrcallan, the finish is mahogany.

Spanishbuddha, I'm glad you are also enjoying this DP!

Recaredo, good choice!

Mahogany is my favourite of the the Kawai DP finishes (behind ebony polish).

Cheers,
James
x

Thanks James!

That's actually a very nice finish indeed (and that's coming from someone who believes all pianos should be black)

Thanks nikky for the congrats on my "kawaiian" purchase ;-) Nice to hear that you adore this finish as well. I still love this piano too much!

Congrats on your purchase recaredo. The mahagony finish loots pretty good and matches your room entirely! I wish you all the pleasure one can have with your new Kawai! :-)

All the best
Marcs

Thanks for your comments, Dr Popper and Marcs.


Your CN-33 also looks pretty nice, Marcs!

Hi,

I'm a new proud owner of a Kawai CN33. I'm loving the piano. The sound is great and so is the touch and the build quality is also very good. Here a couple of pictures:





Meanwhile, can anyone send me a picture of the back of your CN33 so I can see how you fixed the pedal cord? Looking at the assembly instructions I couldn't quite understand how you should fix the pedal cord with the cord clamps.

Best regards.

Congrats PianoPeter. Enjoy.

Not sure I understand about the pedal cord. On mine it runs up the left side at the back, and the slack in the cord is just retained by the cord clamp, so that it doesn't sag down under its own weight. You can't see it from the back of the piano because of the back partition.

Congratulations PianoPeter, your CN33 looks terrific - great photographs too!

The CN series owner's manuals are based on an older format, with the assembly instructions for the CN33/CN43 in particular a little difficult to follow. As spanishbuddha notes, the pedal cable should extend from underneath the pedal board, behind the instrument's back board, then through the aperture, into the pedal connector. To improve the appearance, any slack in the cable can be reduced using the clips/clamps.

Here is a similar explanation from the CA63 owner's manual. While the assembly process for this model is a little different, many of the principles from step 4 should still apply.



I hope this helps.

Kind regards,
James
x

Thanks Kawai James. That helped a lot!

Best regards.

Oh that's interesting. Mine, assembled by the shop does not look like that. Both the power and pedal cords do not run 'behind the instruments back board' so are not visible from behind. In my case my CN33 is not located against a wall but in the middle (sort of) of a room so in fact it's tidier not to be able to see the cables there. You can't see them from the front either unless you poke your head under the keyboard. I guess they would be more evident though with a white model! It obviously doesn't matter - just saying.

Can someone share their piano settings with me? What touch sensitivity do you use? I played this at the Piano Company in Maryland and the keys felt a little too easy to push down. The guy told me that you could change the touch and showed me how but it felt more or less the same.

What touch and sound settings do you guys use? What is the best volume to keep the piano at?

I think the keys on the CN33 are quite light (physically) compared to the PHAIII actions on the latest Roland's. I prefer to describe the touch as responsive though I have my CN33 set to Heavy1. You need to experiment playing legato ppp thru fff though to find your own preference.

I also have the volume set to 3/4 when using inbuilt speakers and about 1/2 when using headphones.

Touch setting is not physical touch, this is how the sound engine responses to your strike (what volume gain and velocity layer maps this velocity). I use the default setting.

Concerning volume speaker [1/3 .. 3/5], depending if I can disturb someone or not, concerning headhones, depends on your model, my new ones [1/3 .. 1/2] my old one needs to be pushed more...

My settings are these ones:

Touch: Light 1 (My fingers are not very strong)

Volume using inbuilt speakers: 40%

Volume using headphones: 25%

Ah, and my favourite sound is “Studio Grand 1”

Regards

I totally agree with zack! This can also be read in the user's manual on the related page.
I like to play the second grand piano sound from the first button and put some effect "hall 2" to it - just great!

Till now, I have never used a volumer louder than 50% of the whole volume pitch length. Sometimes, 1/4 is even enough. Of course, this depends on many points.

I do not want to make advertisement or stuff, but recently I recorded a track using my audio interface (no further editing with the software). Since I decided on my purchase due to all the comments in this forum, I would like to include this video in this thread for all those who might be silent not-registered readers. This may faciliate their choice in some way maybe. If this should be against the forum's policies, please let me know and I will remove the video link.

Kawai CN-33 - Yann Tiersen

PianoPeter73, congrats on your purchase!! Your Kawai just looks breath-taking!

All the best

Nice playing Marcs. I will have to try that piano sound.

I mostly use the first one from the second piano button. But change every now and then over the months.

How did you record the sound?

thanks spanishbuddah!
Sorry, I didn't have the possibility to log in here any earlier.
To be honest, I have not yet checked the second sound by playing something complete. Only hit three scores using that sound and went further in the categories. I will check later today what it sounds like for classical, blues/jazz or modern piano pieces.

I use a Behringer Audio Interface I purchased from Thomann in Germany. It is not that expensive but has some noise when you record your tracks via line out. It is a good low budget interface for home purposes, but that's all about it.

What I don't understand is that if I record my playings via lineout, the volume switch of the piano should be out of interest and one could slide it to the right or left and nothing would happen....actually... For my piano, however, this standard rule does not apply. If I record a song and slide the volume switch, it will be recorded louder or opposite on my PC (Audacity). Anyone with the same "problem"?

Everytime my teacher hands me out some new music scores for further practicing, I use the transpose function after a while of practice so that it sounds a bit "different". This is cool when you are about to "hate" this song for playing it over and over again.

After researching different models and reading through this thread, I have to say that the CN33 is #1 on my wishlist. Everyone's photos look so elegant, and it sounds like there are many happy owners of this model. I hope the dealer in my town carries one so I can try it out this weekend!