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Recently I bought a Kawai CS9, a beauty digital piano. My wife and kids like it very much. However we are not impressed by the quality of Kawai. The piano was delivered by a local dealer on Saturday. At Monday night we noticed that there was strange noise from some 15 keys (piano was powered off). It sounded like the keys touched something inside, for example, a cable. Those key felt also differently. I e-mailed this problem to the dealer. On the next day, we found that the cover of the piano is not completely polished. There was a very narrow black and non-reflective bar on the cover across the entire length of the piano. If I clean it with wet cloth, the cloth turned black. I e-mailed this problem to the dealer too. The dealer is very customer friendly and cooperative. They contacted Kawai Germany.

After two weeks, two Kawai engineer came to my house to fix the piano. They found that the painting problem could be fixed by polishing it with some sort of chemical stuff. They took all the wooden boards above the keyboard apart. By doing that the keyboard problem was immediately gone. After some experiment they found that the keyboard problem was caused by the wooden bar above the keyboard. It was mounted a bit too close to the keyboard. Therefore it gave the keyboard too much pressure. The solution was to raise the bar a bit as well as the board above it. Finally the two problems were solved. But, when the engineers tried to put everything back, they could not find one of the screws. We searched everywhere but just could not find it. Very sadly, they didn't have backup parts with them. At the end they had to remove/borrow a screw from a "not important" place and put it on an important place.

Now the piano is working as it should be. We are happy with it. However, that missing screw has not yet shown up. Maybe as the engineers said “maybe that screw was missing out of factory".

This is my first experience with the quality and service of Kawai. Is this business as usual for Kawai? No sorry, no apology, you have a problem, we come fix it. That is!

If you plan to buy a Kawai digital piano, double check everything, better make a X-ray photo so that you can check the screws too.

Sorry , what was the problem again ?

(there was something wrong with the product and it was fixed at your place- they took their time to get it done properly it seems - apart from the singe screw that was lost. It's always a disappointment if somethings is wrong with a new purchase, but if the problem gets solved in a reasonable time frame and at no cost and no effort of your own, other than having to stay at home - then what else is wrong ?)

Indeed. A problem (or two) fixed by a helpful dealer. I know it must have been frustrating for a little while but I can't really see too much to complain about here.

@JFP
No problem at all! Nothing is wrong! Everything is perfect!It was my fault. If I didn't buy this piano then they didn't have to spend their valuable time to visit me and fix their product. I should not look at the single missing screw. There are still many many screws that are not missing. If the product was perfect how could I get the chance en experience this wonderful service?

Maybe I should quantify my experience so that you won't get it wrong again.

Feature: 5 of 5
Build quality: 3 of 5
Service: 4 of 5

"A problem or two, fixed by a helpful dealer." Is that what you consider acceptable in a new digital piano? I don't.

The Japanese practically invented quality. So for me, acceptable would be zero problems.

It seems, though, that Kawai has lost the recipe. This board is rife with posts describing their quality problems.

Why is service only 4?

Build quality 3 out of 5 is 60% on another scale. Possible missing screw and an unfinished panel. Maybe a different subjective value?

I am just curious as to what portion of the service you were disappointed (4 of 5) with.

CompuCat, thank you for your post. I'm glad to hear that the Kawai engineers were able to resolve the issue with your CS9.

Perhaps you would like to post a picture of this beautiful instrument in your home?

May I wish yourself and your family many years of enjoyment playing the new piano.

Kind regards,
James
x

+1!!!!!

K.

I'm with you CompuCat.

You should expect zero defects when you buy a new product, any product. But it much more aggravating when the product is relatively expense, as this one is. This product had multiple manufacturing defects that reveal errors in assembly, finishing, and final inspection. A serious failure of manufacturing quality control.

The fact that Kawai had to send technicians to your home to correct the problems was an inconvenience to you. (I would have asked for a replacement product to be sent instead.) If the technicians weren't sure if the missing screw was originally missing from the factory, or if they had misplaced it during the repair (it could be sitting somewhere potentially damaging inside the piano now) that's a problem with their competence to do the repair work. It is unclear from your description whether the repair to the keyboard was a makeshift solution or simply repositioning something to its proper design location that was done incorrectly at the factory. If it was a makeshift solution that would be totally unacceptable to me.

Hopefully, everything has now been corrected to the original design and factory manufacturing standards, aside from the remaining missing screw. Hopefully they will send you a replacement screw and you can replace it yourself without another inconveniencing visit from the technicians. But I think you are owed a letter of apology from the company and an offer of a warranty extension or some other non-monetary compensation for their poor performance and your inconvenience.

Was the dull panel restored to a good polish? Does it match the polish of the rest of the piano? That is the part I would be concerned about. The rest is just life. Nothing's ever perfect.

Deleted

Hi ,

it's not that there's nothing to complain when you buy a new product and something is wrong, but in real live this happens all the time, with all kind of products and brands. No matter how expensive. If you've never had a flaw in any new product you bought, price yourself very lucky !! Then the next step is, how the problem is solved. In my view and from your description , it seems that they took care of your complaints and fixed it. Only they lost one screw along the way. I don't think any other brand would have done anything else. You could have opted for a recplacement unit if you would have really pushed it, but is that really worth all the trouble when the problem can be fixed in place without having to disassemble and repackage the unit and assemble a new one ?

Oh ...and some of us here always have the opinion that every bit of dust or slightest unevenness is totally (!) unacceptable (repeats in every thread). I don't think that's a fair and realistic world view, but hey... everybody has a right to his/her own opinion...cheers, J

Edit: don't get me wrong, I would be disappointed very much as well in the beginning when my new product arrived with several problems. But if its fixed and put behind, then it's time to forget it and enjoy the instrument. Otherwise it'll just keep on spoiling the fun...

Deleted

I sometimes think that even with the best intentions , brands can hardly control everything that happens on the (outsourced) factory floors in our mass-production society. Parts are often coming from so many different suppliers and even putting the product together happens often in different factories, or in a factory we're a zillion other - mostly unrelated - products are also produced. Ideally a product would be designed, produced and checked in place at the companies headquarter by their own personnel. Unfortunately in 2012 that's a utopian view.

Considering the range of products with flaws I have received over the last few years ranging from kitchen equipment , car parts, TV's, speakers, synths, audio-interfaces, computers, hard drives, SSD's , memory modules, DP's, push bikes, etc I am now always anticipating that I have to exchange products , or get them fix - even before they arrive ! So many brands and products have failed, that I think it's part of the industry right now and the most important part is how the problems are solved in the end and how quickly. And that includes many expensive A-brands too - price is no longer a certainty for ultimate perfection. Sorry that I have to shatter that dream. Blaming Kawai, or Korg in particular makes no sense in my view. In our modern world you never know what you get for sure with any brand in consumer products , unless it's designed, made and checked by some skilled insiders in a small company or institution.

Should we expect better quality (control) from the manufacturers: yes please. Is that realistic in our complicated world: I think not. So a forum is a valuable way to find out production flaws quickly by comparing experiences and search together (consumers + manufacturers) for a fix. Just proclaiming everything that pops up as totally unacceptable will (IMHO) not change a lot for the better. It only gives bad vibes...

I think your expectations are low.

"... brands can hardly control everything that happens on the (outsourced) factory floors ..."
Doesn't matter. Outsourcers can do the same job as insourcers. And they will, if there is demand.

"Blaming Kawai, or Korg in particular makes no sense in my view."
It makes perfect sense. When I buy from a maker, that maker is responsible, not anyone else.

I don't see or know the outsourced/subcontracted companies. I'm only doing business with the one maker. He alone is responsible for getting things right.

I won't lower my expectations.

+1

K.

Then brace yourself for many disappointments that will follow , hardly any major product release for the last few years has been without flaws that were detected afterwards or simply overlooked. I think the most you can do in that respect is never buy a product that has just been introduced, but always wait for later production runs (with revisions) or buy something that has been on the market for a while, is a bit outdated, but has proved itself . In the end the manufacturer is responsible , but playing the blame game is going to change exactly nothing about this situation, cause its part of the fast moving globalized world we're living in with fast moving product cycles, outsourced production lines , complicated supply lines, calculating managers (!) , long logistic trajectories and the list goes on.

I would like it to be different, but after encountering so many problems in products from so many different brands and in so many different categories, I think expecting everything to be always working 100% out of the box every time is no so self-evident as it was perhaps 10 or 20 years ago. As long as the wrongs are put right in the end and in a reasonable timeframe - and that is we're the difference in brand quality also comes to the surface.

James, thank you! We are really enjoying this piano. I will post a photo later. Your posts helped a lot in making this choice.

Unfortunately, this is true. So long as those engaged in the physical aspects of production are geographically, economically and socially divorced from those who purchase and use the products, this will be the norm. How can one expect the almost-slave-labor-condition workers in the giant Chinese factories to care about the products they will probably never be able to afford? In one sense it's remarkable that there are not more problems and failures.


To me, this is the byproduct of inadequate computer software development, resulting in early-adopter consumers becoming unwitting beta-testers. This mentality has carried over into other product areas more recently, with manufacturers rushing out products before all the bugs have been ironed out, simply because consumers will now accept this as the new norm.


Yes, the manufacturer is responsible, but in a wider sense we all bear responsibility for this state of affairs. We have all become rather greedy. The producer is greedy for extra profit, the shareholders are greedy for dividends, the end-user is greedy for expecting to pay very little for the most amazing devices. I know I've become used to a luxury of consumption that I could never have dreamed of years ago as globalization has decimated the relative price of "durable" goods.