Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Deciding between CA67 (maybe CA97) and HP605

I think the Kawais offer the best of both worlds, i.e. beautiful sampled piano tones, plus modelling for the resonance etc. I wouldn't say they're any less playable than the modelled competition either, and they certainly have that 'connected' feel.

What JoBert said :-)

I tried a selection of Yamahas, Rolands and Kawais. As soon as I played the CA67, I was "Wow, this is the one for me...". Then I went and played the 97, and absolutely decided it was worth the extra. I don't often treat myself, so this was the one time I thought "Buy the best you can reasonably afford".

I can't see myself replacing it for a long time.

Unless the CS11 comes out of course :-)

What do you mean by this, may I ask?

My (subjective) observations/opinions about the discussed actions: PHA4 (in HP 50{4,6,8}) is quieter than PHA-50 (=newest), but a little more bouncy (pushes your fingers upward after pressing a key to the bottom). PHA-50 is a little bit noisier but otherwise very nice to play and "easiest" I tried so far. (probably my most favorite action, except for being slightly noisy). Haven't played GF2 but GF(1) is the quietest of all, very nice overall with a "serious" feeling (as opposed to playing a toy piano) but a requires more effort to play (compared with eg PHA-50) - a bit heavier and maybe even deeper? (could't measure) What I like about GF(1) is spacing between black keys - widest I tried so far, probably.

Sound (subjective): between 'old' Roland and 'new' (aka 'modeled') Roland, I like the old one better. The modeled is admittedly playable and full of resonances but the piano feels distant, behind some fog sound/noise (resonances?). But I believe I could get used to it (not sure I could really love it), just that it wasn;t love at first (or second) sight. Just as a reference - Pianoteq (in my ears) beats them all.

One final note - if you you are going to rely on the internal sounds (as opposed to VSTs and such), make sure you like the sound as it is and don't believe you can "later change it to your liking using Piano Designer / Virtual Technician / whatnot" - I (personally, subjectively - you name it) don't believe this is possible. You can make it slightly better or a lot worse but once there is some characteristic that you don't like, it's going to be there no matter what.

Good last paragraph. I found the sound equalised or whattever they call it on FP50 to be worse than uselezs. Decent tone controls would be so mu h better.

In any case, the kdys on mine (Ivofy feel G I think) are def the quietest! At the momemt. . .

+1000 to this!!!

I was going to write exactly the same in the LX thread. Same with Pianoteq and V-Piano. There are people who always try to convince you you can customize the sound to exactly your taste but that has never been the case if you don't like the stock sound regardless of how (purportedly) customizable the engine is.

Certainly the underlying character of the sound of a piano - Roland SN, Kawai, Yamaha CF, Pianoteq and the sampled VSTs - is always going to be there, however much you tweak and fiddle with it. Buy a piano you like the sound of as well as one you like the feel of, unless you are sure you'll be using VSTs and you are happy with the say they sound and perform.

Despite having various VST pianos, the best SuperNatual Roland sounds are the ones I use for a serious sounding piano. Though it should be said I do not have Vintage D, Ivory American D or CFX - the picture would probably change if I had one of those or equivalent.

It was the comments and youtube videos regarding the noisy action of some of the Rolands?
http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2230627/PHA4_vs_PHA3_keyboard_noise_-_.html

So I just came back from Denmark Street and we tried out the CA67 (again), the CA97 and the HP605.

The guy in the shop also kindly demoed both as well. Firstly the Kawai action definitely won hands down as so many have said, we didn't mind the Roland action but all agreed it just didn't have that fullness that the Kawai had. We turned both pianos up and in terms of speakers there wasn't much difference, though I felt the CA67 had more resonance than the Roland. The sounds on the Roland are definitely crisper, brighter but the Kawai sound had so much body, just felt a bit more epic to me, if that's the right word. And I was able to brighten it a bit with a few other settings - the pop piano setting for instance certainly gives it a bit of a crisper note if that's something we ever desire for some reason.

I can see now why the sound is so subjective though, but the fullness and resonance of the CA67, for me, beat the brightness and crispness of the HP605.

We also tried the CA97, I turned it up and could feel a slight overall improvement in the resonance of the sound, but at normal volume it was a bit harder to distinguish really, to the point that I could no way justify the extra £600 (phew!). Particularly as this will sit in my living room, in what isn't a huge house, and during the week will be almost exclusively played with headphones on.

So the CA67 it is, need to do some quick research on good headphones now

After about 1 month of reading and absorbing information, I'm pretty excited to get this

Piano ordered, arriving tomorrow.

Congratulations!

My CA-97 is ordered and will arrive on Thursday...what a nice thing to happen on Christmas Eve

Hi mcoll, i agree... maybe i prefer Roland sound by a little margin over kawai, but kawai wooden keys are in other league over Roland actions, but PHA50 is a great one, PHA4 is maybe more comparable to RHII key action...

Congratulations from me too. I think you made a good decision. With mainly headphones usage, I would have chosen the CA67 too.

My own CA97 arrived today (unexpectedly - I was hoping for tomorrow and fearing it would be after Christmas). Have had a big smile plastered on my face since this afternoon...

Hi, ai agree with you, PHA-4 is a bit silent that PHA-50, but PHA-4 is bouncy and spongy while PHA50 is more fluid or faster and organic feel and firm and very responsive too... Really a very good action evolution. Cheers...!

JoBert, Miguel7, DanDanDan, thank you for sharing your opinions and recent shopping experiences - congratulations on your new pianos.

Merry Christmas!

James
x

Miguel - I assume you are talking about Rose Morris. If so, they were throwing in some Audio Technicas (The ATH-M50s I think) for a while, so I got those and a stool thrown in with my CA97. I'm sure the margins are less on the 67, so not sure if you could swing the same deal. At the very least they may give you the headphones for half price or something.

They clearly aren't top of the range given their price, but I find them fantastic quality for practising.

It was Rose Morris - I inquired but there was no mention of that plus delivery would have been in mid-January sometime. I ordered it online yesterday at 3pm and got it this morning at 9am! I'm at work now so I'll be putting it together when I get back

I especially wanted it before Christmas once I'd made up my mind as the time off is a perfect time to hit the ground running and get stuck in the instrument and build a foundation to continue it in shorter bursts once I'm back working in January.

Additionally I got a free adjustable piano stool worth around £80 with my purchase. Funnily enough I bought the ATH-M50x from Amazon yesterday after some research for top quality headphones under £100 - many reviews pointed me towards these.



Many thanks James, and thank you to you and everyone else on here for the input not only on this thread but throughout the forum. It's been great reading and invaluable information.

Congrats on the decision and wow on the speed on delivery! Being able to to use the holiday times to give it full attention is just great.

Now that you have a DP, you may want to look at the teaching software that is out there: if you have an iPad, look at Piano Maestro by JoyTunes, if you have iPad or Android, look at Yousician. Both have free levels/trainings for testing it.

Congratulations! I reckon you guys are looking at years of high quality playing pleasure. Happy Christmas and new year too...

Congrats all for your Christmas purchases!

Sorry Miguel, didn't spot there was a "Page 2" so I replied to an old post. That info want much use after you'd already ordered :-)
You wont regret the M50s. Just try not to get up and walk away from the piano forgetting you're wearing them, which I have done before. With the SHS setting on the piano set to "Forward", it's easily done if you're a bit tired :-)

Congratulations! A great piano!



Thanks for the tips, I was just researching this now. No idea where to begin. Definitely would like lessons at some point but would like to try and get as much out of self teaching as possible before naturally stalling.



Good to hear, they did seem universally rated, I don't think I've ever seen an Amazon rating like it!
Thanks for the advice, that sounds like something I would do over and over again

Oh, I'd actually recommend to start with a teacher as soon as you can. The apps are for the time when the teacher is not present :-)

Apps can not tell you how to sit correctly, how to hold your hands correctly and a number of other things. But they definitely help me.