Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Finally, my Kawai CN34 have arrived (with pictures)

Pianoworld'ers,

I've enjoyed these "reviews" when I've read them in the past so I thought that I would post my own, although there will be nothing new under the sun here.

I've never played the piano but for some reason decided to give it a try. Shortly after New Year's I started my research to decide on a DP to buy. I'm currently on parental leave (a long one) which left me with way too much time for the research project. I've watched Sean O'Shea play the Kawai's on YouTube more than a couple of times by now (he does look more worked out now than a few years ago, in the videos ) and have spent a lot of time reading these forums (thanks all for all the good stuff!)

The decision was to go for a Kawai CN34. It was bought "blind" since I didn't have any Kawai dealers nearby (out of the alternatives, I didn't like the Roland's with Ivory-G feel, PHAIII had a reputation of being noisy, and a bit expensive in the 505, and for some reason Yamaha never stuck with me although I liked the GH/GH3 action).

First impressions
It's a great piano! I hesitated for a long time whether I should go for the CA65 or this one. CA13 was another option. I opted for the cheaper alternative hoping it would give me a lot of bang for the buck. I must say that the way it feels right now this will be more than enough for a long time! The action is heavy in a good sense, but feels distinct and fast. It sounds excellent. A lot of bells ans whistles that are fun (guess I will find out how much I will be using after the first week, but still fun). It looks great! I do prefer the look of the CA65 panel at the left hand side, there are a little bit to much going on on the CN34 for my taste, but no biggie.

Overall I have a great first impression, now I just need to learn how to play this thing!

This is how it looks in my home:

Preparation
All lies in the preparation, right? A white piano in front of a white wall would not stand out would it, so let's make the wall red instead!



Attempt one
Wall painted. Piano bought. A couple of adult piano books already waiting. Expectations are high. Waiting for the delivery. And... doh! The first piano that arrived from Thomann was unfortunately broken.



Attempt two
Thanks to the very good customer service at Thomann, the piano was shipped back and replaced. And here is the result:





If you ask me it fits rather nice!

And thanks to an old bluetooth device that I had laying around at home I also got a neat way of getting music from my Android tablet or phone to play on the piano. Not sure if it will be used, but it works and it's fun




Again - thank you all for the content you contribute to this forum, it helped me a lot with my purchase!

Best regards,
Fredrik

Looks really nice. Congratulations. I also would have liked a ca65 style panel but you can't get everything for the price :-) You can pull out the cover a little bit to cover the panel.
Then it looks a bit more piano like.

I just have one question. As a father of a baby boy i have to ask, how can you have free time
on your parental leave? I barely find the time to practise on my CN34. I envy you ;-)

Hi Fredrik,

Your CN34 looks great. Hope you have fun playing it. After step 1 (painting the wall) and step 2 (getting a piano with all the parts intact), step 3 involves lots of practice learning how to play it. (Plus a little fun finding out all the things it can do.)

I’m still enjoying my CN34 (See http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2037203/1.html ) and getting in about an hour of practicing per day.

Fredrik, congratulations on your new piano!

Is that a set of AKG headphones I see?

@Dave Horne, probably yes. Thomann lets you buy pianos in so-called "creative sets" that include (apart from the piano of course) a bench, headphones and music book and you get a discount off the price of these extras. The AKG's are often on offer in these sets.

@FredrikJ, congratulations on your new piano. I hope it will serve you well in the coming years. Now if you don't mind my asking, where do you live again? I have been thinking about buying my piano at thomann but I'm from the Czech Rep. and would very much like to avoid the situation you had to face when you received a damaged piece and had to ship it back to Germany. (Guess I will have to see what thomann's return conditions are when this happens.)

Ooh, nice story, nice piano, nice result. Congrats.

A white piano!! I've never seen one in a better setting! And the piano bench is great!

Enjoy both fatherhood and playing the piano!

@All: Thanks!

@MagicK: My daughter is 9 months now so she still sleeps quite a lot. The trick is to try to do as many of the chores around the home as possible while she is awake so you can do other things when she sleeps

@Dave and Clayman: Yeap. K271 MK II. Althought it's not a part of a "Creative package" from Thomann. The discount on those seem to work a bit weird. If I combined the piano with the bench I got a 40 EUR discount. If I combined the piano with a pair of headphones (expensive ones, approx 3x the price of the bench) I got a 40 EUR discount. But combining the piano with both the bench and the headphones still only yielded a 40 EUR discount. I was able to get a better deal on the headphones elsewhere.

@Clayman: I live in Sweden. As I said the customer service (they have a Swedish "department" actually) was very good and helpful. I also think they were in contact with DHL who shipped the piano. Where it was damaged I don't know, all I can say is that you should be very careful checking the package once you receive it.

I found that the activity receiving top priority when my children were that age sleeping was ... SLEEPING ! But, to each his own. LOL ...

Congratulations Fredrik!

What a lovely piano you got and what a lovely wall color you picked to match it. It looks fabulous!

FredrikJ, congratulations on becoming a father.
Oh, and nice piano too.

Seriously though, the CN34 looks terrific, and the freshly painted red wall offsets it nice.

James
x

@FredrikJ,

Wow... your red wall now perfectly matches the bench!

Very nice job, and, enjoy the new CN34.