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Hello to All,

I am seriously considering to get a Kawai CN33 this week. Visited the piano store twice last week and played about 1-1.5 hours. The keyboard is awesome, key-off is realistic and the feedback of the keys are soooo realistic, to ma ke it short: this stuff has blown my mind, I'm in love with this piano.

My positive immediate impressions:
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THe Kawai CN33 is an excellent piece of instrument, greatest keyboard feel ever (tried V-Piano and it's on-par with it for me, although it's different but neither are worse nor better I think. I also tried CA63, it is also excellent, but was a bit "bouncy" I would say, matter of taste again.)

Build quality is great without compromises, finish also is outstanding. Pedals are also rock solid. (unlike Casio PX-800) Keys are stable, ivory rulez. String resonance is realistic, very realistic! Damper resonance simulation is also fine, honestly I was expecting a more articulated effect (even if set to level 10), but yesterday I have tried the Yamaha CLP 340 (afair) with the blue "damper reso on/off) button and to be frank, when I turned on the damper reso effect on the Yamaha it was so artificial and so overemphasized that I think Kawai is more conservative in this respect.

Touch again is class leading! Escapement rulez, ivory is sooo cool! The keyboard is so responsive and so sensitive I was able to get pppp and ffff out easily and the instrument responded to each note like a charm, followed my instructions so nicely like no other I have tried before. (Casio AP200, PX330, PX800, Yamaha YDP 141-161, CLP320, 340, Roland 300GX, HP201) Rolands were too light for me, liked the Yamahas despite being slightly on the heavy side, Casio was ruled out quickly as the keys were loose, pedals were loose also (PX800).

Kawai CN33 is an exceptional instrument (not only because of it's price, but overall) Only some minor questions/observations so far to the audience here:
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- the piano tone (concert grand 1/2) is a bit metallic, not a burner issue though, and it depends on the actual headphone of course (Sennheiser HD497).
Note: it was perfect via onboard speakers.
Interesting: When compared to CA63, the latter was better (perfect) with no metallic timbre component at all (all on default / reverb off etc, dapmer reso/string reso at their defaults: 5;5)
Is it just me? What do you think?

- String resonance - resonated notes get dropped after a while. (StrReso: keys held, no pedalling) if you press a chord silently like ex. C+E+G and then hit CEG again +1 octave above, it has a very very realistic resonance effect! But if I play another CEG +2 (broken up eg. note by note), those _resonated notes get dropped_ one by one as you play C+2 then E+2 and finally G+2! (CA63 is OK in this respect, no such flaw over there) Why are those beautifully resonated notes get dropped? Is there a separated poliphony limit for resonated notes?

- You cannot press a key at velocity=0; It gives a vel=1 sound either way which is not the way an acoustic piano works. (not a showstopper issue anyway)

Should I contact Kawai regarding the StrReso note-dropping issue and silent note flaw (vel=1) issue? (Note: the latter is reported by the DPBSD project before as well)

Cheers

/z

Interesting that you prefer the CN33 keyboard over the CA63... Maybe this is due to a lighter action. I don't regard the CA63 keyboard as bouncy, in fact it's the least bouncy DP keyboard I've tried so far.

Regarding string resonance dropping notes: That was also an issue on CA63 some time ago, it was fixed with a new firmware release. Maybe the CN33 still has this bug in the current firmware version. On the other side, CA63 has 192 notes polyphony while CN33 only has 96.

Maybe it helps to get to the store a third time during this week and play extensively with all available keyboards (not only CA63 and CN33, but also Roland HP models and Yamaha again), and then decide if your current decision is then still valid. This is because sometimes your taste changes from time to time depending on your current physical and psychological condition...

All the best with your decision!

Hello Mucci

>Interesting that you prefer the CN33 keyboard over the CA63...

Well, I prefer the CA63 but my wife would kill me in a blink of an eye if I would go with the higher end model.

Cheers

Ooops... Okay, I see!

Update: I have contacted Kawai EU with the string reso note drop issue. (germany)

Fingers crossed...!

Some of the piano voices on the CN33 do have a metallic sound. For certain music I actually like that. There is a quite good mellow piano sound that you can use alone or overlay with the other more metallic piano sounds and adjust the overall tone accordingly. I use two overlaid pianos as my default all the time, either 3-2 or 2-1. It all depends on what you like and what you're playing.

I don't notice the string resonance problem you describe with pedal If you're an advanced player and this is an issue for you then spend nearly double the money on a CA63 It would be nice if Kawai fixed this but somehow at this price level I suspect they won't.

Hi Spanishbuddha,

The issue happens with no pedalling, just holding a chord and forcing the strings of the chord to resonate by pressing the cord +1 octave above and +2 octave again.

As for the fix: I hope Kawai indeed will fix this issue, not because of the price range but because of the credit of the manufacturer. (I may become a customer for CA63 someday, or a director of a music school... who might want to purchase a dozen DPs in one shot, see..., who knows)

Kawaii customer service has responded already and they are going to double check the issue reported.

So far so good!

cheers

Sounds good, please keep us updated.

Cheers,
James
x

Hello All

Another question for You guys: How do you rate what do you think about the Damper Resonance effect of the CN33?

(Don't get me wrong, I'm not a geek (despite my job) but my playing style includes popular hit-covers and such which are not necessarily technically challenging but include simple sustained chors (left hand) and a cover for the singer played by the right. These are the sections where a nicely resonating soundboard really shines, and I'm glad that the CN33 has DR effect I just found it a bit conservative. (Reminds me to a bit-of a tweaked and smart echo, rather than some sort of resonance simulation, but I still prefer the more conservative approach of Kawai in this case.

As I mentioned earlier in my initial post, the damper reso on the Yamaha CLP340 was way exaggerated and artificial (with a significant amount of looping and panning(!). I turned it off after several minutes of playing, it was more disturbing than beneficial for me).

So what do you think (personal preference, your opinion?) about the CN33 Damper Reso output? Reprased: how does it compare to other brands in general?

Any samples/mp3 maybe to have a look at?

Just curious.

Great forum anyway!

Kind regards!

/z

I can only talk from CA63, but CN33 most probably will be similar: I personally think that damper pedal effect is much more important than string resonance effect, although the string resonance effect adds some subtle effects to special playing styles. Both are very well implemented in CA63, but the damper effect is much more audible.

How does it compare to other brands: I don't like the effects on the current Yamaha CLP line, Roland is a different thing, they have very nice effects (due to their impressive SN sound), also very long decays which are more like the decay of a real piano. On the other side I don't like the somewhat processed sound of the Roland, especially you need to be cautious with the amount of e.g. damper resonance effect, otherwise it will sound awful to my ears.

For the record:

String resonance and Damper resonance explained and demonstrated on a real piano(+ on another brand called GeneralMusic)

http://www.generalmusic.us/Media/DRAKEmodelingtechnologyexplainedVHS.wmv

Anyone posting a Damper Reso example (similar to the one in the video) on CN33 would be highly appreciated.

Cheers

/z

I had the same problem, but then I said it is for our
children, not just for me!!!

It works everytime!

Hello Timmy l.

Well, sounds like a plan! Would you kindly give my wife a call?

Yeah, that also worked for me... Our 9 year old needed a very good keyboard action for learning purposes, so...

Anyone could help me out with a Damper Resonance CN33 mp3 sample (hitting a single note and a chord for example with and w/o DReso?) please...?

This argument does makes sense, but I can already hear my wife replying that the children also need food (besides the music), so I guess I will only get the green light for a CN33 (or a CN23) anyway.

But I have stopped worrying; the CN33 is great, too.

Csillag

Yeah, CN33 is a bargain compared to features and keyboard quality!

Hello everyone!

Has anyone tried here the CN 42?
I am searching a new DP to buy and I am deciding between CN42 and CN33.
I don't know which one is better.The CN33 is newer but has worse polyphony and speakers.
I don't want the CA63 because it's so expensive here.
Thank you very much for advice and excuse my English.

This might be slightly off the original topic, but I think the CN33 has a newer and better keyboard. However the CN42 has a load more features than the CN33 hence its higher price. Do you need, or will you use all those additional voices and options? Have you played either instrument?

Hello Petr

Not sure about the CN42, but
- as for the polyphony race: CN33 has 96 notes of polyphony which is (considering you have only 88 keys) supposed to be more than enough even when layering sounds and pedalling.

Example: when I took the CN33 to a test-drive have explicitely tested the polyphony limits on the CN33: grand piano 1 + pedal down + striking the lowest note + and then pressing all the other keys on the piano with my palm, sometimes with my forearm. I hit several octaves back and forth + and a bunch of quints multiple times.

Result: I was unable to get the lowest note being "stolen" by the CN33 sound engine.

I wonder if 96 notes polyphony for a 88 keyboard could ever be a bottleneck. Not for me tough

As for speakers: I found the CN33 perfect. Even the slightly metallic piano tones (via Sennheiser HD497 headphones) of the CN33 (except studio and mellow ones) were on par with my expectations, with the "metallic" factor back to normal.

So I think neither of these factors are real showstoppers.

Cheers!