Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards New Kawai CA97: first impression and some problems

That's good to hear.

May I ask you to clarify which bug (or bugs?) you were referring to specifically?

Kind regards,
James
x

Of course. When I pressed C0-C1, damping and releasing OR maintaining pressed, I got a non fading sound. Until releasing (damper or keys) it sounded for ever with a very unnatural quality. I think it only happened with Shigeru SK. With EX, for example, there was no problem.

Okay, thank you for the clarification.

Kind regards,
James
x

Thanks for your honest impressions! Where in your room is the piano set up? Is the back against a wall? Facing open air? The muddy/soft sound is a worry of mine (as I am also attempting to buy a CA97... but nobody has them available still). The sound samples on Kawai's website make the main pianos sound very... dull. My main hope was that they sounded more lively and bright when coming through the speaker system (and after working with the virtual technician).

Should my piano dealer ever actually get their CA97 in stock, I have a feeling I'll have to spend a lot of time with it before purchasing.

It's very disappointing that Kawai are still releasing instruments with firmware bugs in them, especially ones so obvious that users (like OP) can find them within a day or two of first playing the instrument.

Many people haven't a clue what a firmware update is, and there will many instruments that will keep the bugs from now until they're scrapped in 20 or 30 years' time. The software should be tested MUCH more thoroughly, with the intention that there will never be any firmware updates.

I know that Kawai's testing is rubbish, because the CA95/65 firmware still has a menu option "Load User Memory" that simply does not work. Making sure all the menu options work is basic, basic stuff.

It is sited against a wall, with a separation of 7" more or less.



VT allows you very bright sounding piano, nothing like web demos (perhaps Kawai should care of product presentation and include demos recorded from live sessions with real quality pianists, like an acoustic piano).

Real problem (my "bombastic" qualifier) is that with new configuration (hard and soft) CA97 has a dim reverberant sound that annoys me. I have being playing with equalizer, and lowering some frequencies it sounds a lot better. Shigeru SK seems overprocessed before and after equalizing, but you can hear more detail. What I'd like is that sound was not so annoying by default. It is an strange behaviour. If you play C0-C1 ff, piano cabin resonates with awful vibration. Once adjusted equalizer, sound produced doesn't crisp ears. For a first impression, it seems a bad one. If I can fix it, then I breath again with a smile

One curious fact that I tested in shop was that CS7 sounds louder and very acoustic like compared to CAXX. I'd like to test new generation of CS based on CA97. It seems that cabin size and building is a very important sound factor, more than normally commented.

re Software Quality, (OT)
it is most of the times a matter of how much budget a company is willing to spend on a reliable and stable software development team including separate testers. If that is broken or outsourced once, it cost even more to get back to acceptable standards.

Hmm thats very interesting. Do you feel the piano suffers from the lack of distinction between notes that a lot of other DPs have?

By this I mean if you play a piece that has two or more distinct melodies going on, do the notes get muddied together, or do the individual tones ring clearly and distinctly? On an acoustic piano, I can play a piece and hear each individual note through a passage, but playing on a DP like the Yamaha CP4 stage, it feels like they're all getting smashed together.

I don't think so... except with low frequencies on Shigeru SK. But I have seen that, after updating firmware, I have still some problems (bugs) with that piano. EX works fine in all tested cases, but Shigeru SK, when you press some combinations of keys and damper, goes on and on without end with a very annoying sound. The worst case is when you press C#0-C#1. Then you can hear a noisy mix of frequencies that goes for ever until you release damper pedal

So I don't know if mudy sound will dissapear when bugs are fixed. I hope so.

I have discovered another fact that has donfuse me for a long time until now: touch in Shigeru SK seems to be more hard that is, for example, in EX. That explains my perception of "dim" sound when playing. If I adjust touch in VT to light, or even light+ I get something like EX sound. This has changed clearly from CA95.

I have a new CA67 at home and can confirm that some notes on SK EX last unnaturally long with damper.
Plus I have found 2 other issues when using headphones (default settings, firmware 1.0.5):
1. Both SK EX and SK-5: Lowest dynamic level samples (pp) have more noise than p. It gives you quite disturbing irregular hiss when playing silent passages. It can be heard especially on notes C3, G3, C4 (small octave) and some other around. Old Kawai EX is fine.
2. SK-5 sampling of notes G2 and H2 (B2) (great octave) has been done with one of 2 strings obviously muted (or with hammer not striking both strings). Poor job. :-(

Thank you for your feedback.

One important change in functionality compared to the CA95/CA65 is that Virtual Technician settings can be set independently for each sound. This allows you to set a 'Light' touch curve for the SK-EX sound while keeping the EX on 'Normal.

Kind regards,
James
x

Actually the change is cosmetic. In CA95 you can save touch for each sound too, but you do it from general "save options". With CA97 you can save only what is configured for one sound, without changes that you have made to other instruments.

Thank you for caring

Hello Brometeo,



I'm not sure I follow you.

On the CA95/CA65 I believe the Virtual Technician settings are applied globally, so setting the Touch to 'Light' will affect Concert Grand, Concert Grand 2, Studio Grand, Studio Grand 2, etc. uniformally.

On the CA97/CA67 the Virtual Technician settings are applied to each sound individually, allowing you to set the Touch to 'Light' for SK ConcertGrand, Normal for EX ConcertGrand, and Heavy for SK-5 GrandPiano, etc. This is one of the main improvements to the Virtual Technician on the CA97/CA67 instruments.

Kind regards,
James
x

VT options in CA95 are applied for each instrument differently, but you save all changes together. What is global is saving action, not VT adjustment. In CA97 you can make changes to many instruments in one session and only save for one of them. That is the difference. And a great one. But it is possible having a different configuration of touch for each piano in CA95.

Brometeo, unfortunately I no longer have access to a CA95/CA65 at this office in which to double-check this point (I would need to visit another facility 1 hour away...), however I am 90% certain that the the CA95/CA65's VT settings are applied globally.

May I ask if you still have access to your CA95 to check?

Kind regards,
James
x

It is not needed. I sold my Kawai CA95 one month ago with VT params changed for differnt pianos. It was for me normal practice

Hi DominikM,

Does that mean that you are stuck with the poor sounds? I am on the verge of buying either a CA97 or CLP-585, but it is a gift for my wife and I have no idea about such things, but I am fairly certain that my wife would notice it. I am certainly not keen on spending $3000 on an instrument that is intended to make sound only to have it do that poorly.

Cheers,
Dean

Dean,
before ordering unseen for your wife, you could probably take her out to a good piano store for a listening test? IMHO that would be as nice a present and more on the secure side.
HTH

For sure, that would normally be the thing to do, but we live in South Korea and only the CA97 is available as a demo and there is only one of those in the whole country. Either way I would still prefer for it to be a surprise if possible.

I am confident that the CLP-585 would be okay because I have been able to listen to the CLP-575. However, the CA97 is about a thousand cheaper, but if that is at the cost of good quality samples then not really worth it. I guess I was just hoping someone here might know if sounds can be updated or if these pianos are stuck with the sounds they ship with. I already asked the Kawai representative in Korea about the problems mentioned in this thread, but not surprisingly they said they hadn't heard of any issues.

The core sound sampling, ie: 88 Key Samples, cannot be changed unless the main board us changed. Things like VT, can be changed thru a Firmware Update.