Hello all,

I currently have an Estonia 168 (2009) grand as well as a Roland HP-203 (2008) digital piano. I can only play the grand for maybe 2-3 hours a week since the gf is rather allergic to noise Combined with the rather heavy action of the Estonia as well as the very different feel of a real pedal compared to the DP pedal, my playing is substantially worse on my grand than on my DP.

This means that some notes during soft playing don't sound at all, my pedalling is muddy, etc...

So I'm thinking of selling my DP and purchase a silent system. The only silent system I am willing to consider has a special damper bar that doesn't change the let-off during acoustic play.

Here's the pro's and con's I came up with:

PRO:
- More confidence and skill on grand piano
- grand gets played more which is supposedly good for the action
- room gets cleaned up since I don't need the DP corner anymore

CON:
- is it really as fun and uncomplicated to play for 1-2 hours daily on a silent system as on a good DP? Or is the experience a lot less smooth? I probably plan to hook up Galaxy Vintage D and have great headphones.

- This is gonna cost me around €2k even after the profit from selling the DP.

- The MagicStar V4 which I am considering is not completely optical so the already heavy action of my Estonia will be even heavier...

Did I miss any pros and cons? Do you have any comments or opinions? I am curious what you guys would do in my position!

Thanks
Bunneh

Acoustic pianos have some advantage over digital pianos but if you add MIDI to them and cover the strings all that advantage goes away, especially if you don't really like the piano's action.

Why not sell the grand and get a nicer DP?

Hi Chris,

the acoustic sounds gorgeous and I definitely don't dislike the action. Practicing on it enables me to adapt to almost any grand or upright with very few problems and the action allows for a lot of dynamics. It's just on the heavy side!

That's why I want to practice on the grand exclusively, and that's why I want a silent system. So selling the grand would be rather counterproductive

Regards
Bunneh

Bunneh, are you not concerned that adding a generic, after-market silencing system might affect the quality of the action?

As the maxim goes "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

If an individual absolutely must have a silent piano for practise, I would recommend a factory-installed instrument such as Yamaha Silent or Kawai AnyTimeX.

Cheers,
James
x

I think you should ask this on the Piano forum.

My thoughts exactly. Those guys install that stuff and can better explain this.