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Are you defending the intolerant? I'm not saying you are but I don't really understand the points being made - they just read like glib cliches.....

What kind of intolerance should we tolerate? Race intolerance? Religious intolerance?

I am surprised to read because I thought life was full of surprises.

If I wanted to troll or provoke a 'healthy' and 'lively' discussion I'd argue that an acoustic piano is an dated and outmoded instrument that is rather impractical to use. It's heavy, very expensive, requires continual and expensive maintenance, is very susceptible to humidity and temperature, doesn't lend itself for integration into a modern band context (jazz, blues, rock or otherwise) because it cannot easily be amplified and connected to a PA or speakers and that it is generally a high maintenance instrument .

I'd also argue that an instrument that can cost upwards of $200,000 but is easily replacable by an electronic 'emulation' can't be that great to begin with .

While this would be trolling and could be considered immature and out of line it does raise a few interesting points though. It's easy to argue that the copy will never even begin to approach the original if I compare a Ford Model T to a Ferrari 458 or in case of this thread a Casio PX 850 to a Steinway Acoustic Grand.

It also neglects that - while being expertly crafted and having a certain pedigree - even those 'superinstruments' are by no means the embodiments of perfection. (I can hear the word 'sacrilege' being shouted at me right now).

So I'd first like to ask what purpose the instrument should serve, what music you'd like to play and what facilities you have - monetary or otherwise - to support it.

A Bösendorfer Acoustic Grand Piano is seven foot long, weighs nearly half a ton and costs as much as a whole house (or said Ferrari 458). For a quarter of a million dollars I pretty much expect the best of the best yet even though Marc Bellamy (the keyboarder of Muse) might own one he'll never use it on stage. Heck even Elton John doesn't really play a Steinway Grand on tour even though he has one on stage. That's because after tinkering with a real acoustic for two decades he and his engineer decided that it was generally to much hassle to capture the sound on stage and feed it to the mixer. He uses the piano because he wants a Steinway action but it usually triggers external equipment to generate the sound.

To truly judge the merit of an instrument a real musician usually considers all the factors because we here in the real world accept that each instruments has constraints and was designed for a particular purpose and/or type of music.

Even if I had the means to do so I'd probably still never buy a Concert Grand of any brand because I'd have to pretty much design the whole house around this particular instrument and yet it still wouldn't sound as great as it does in a concert hall. That's because it isn't designed so that the player can maximize his or her enjoyment of the music he or she plays, it's designed to be heard by every member of the audience in a giant concert hall. So I'd probably go for one of the smaller ones (Studio or similar) which is smaller and therefore has a different sound (not just less loud).

If your band is still at the stage where each member has to carry and set up his own equipment you'll probably won't use an acoustic piano because you'd have to load, unload and carry it yourself to each venue, you'd have to invest hours at each venue to capture the sound right and to get a good mix and to maximize the sound you'd pretty much have to tune the instrument each evening. (That's why EJ had his own personal piano tuner on tour with him)

Then there's the whole topic of 'actions': People always talk like there is just one god given piano action that is perfect for every player and due to it's divinity is pretty much perfect.

My personal favourite is the fact that digital piano manufacturers have added a 'graded action' to their devices because it's considered to be more like the real thing while the designers of acoustic actions specifically try to prevent keys with different heft because it is seen as a flaw. Still you can get anything from ultra heavy to ultra light, from graded to non graded, from truly bad to excellent.

Even the best piano will have a very bad action after it has been subjected to the 'torture' of being used as a teaching instrument at a conservatory or music school for a few years and the topic of what acoustic is best is as controversially debated as political affiliations are.

So in essence claiming that a DP is always worse than a Concert Grand is ridiculous. For one because it is an apples to onions comparison, both instruments serve different purposes, secondly because when you compare a Rolls Royce to a Volkswagen Golf and your main attribute for comparison is 'luxuriousness' then the Golf will obviously lose. If you are in the market for a 'practical' car though then it would also be a pointless comparison.

More importantly though: A combination of for example a Kawai VPC 1 and Ivory II will - for the price of $1500 + the cost of a PC - easily best nearly all entry level upright or grand pianos (starting at $6000 for a very cheap upright or probably closer to $12,000 for a cheap grand) both in feel of the action and probably sound (yes, you heard me right). An entry level acoustic isn't simply better by virtue of it being acoustic or costing more. The number of parts, the manual labor and the small number of instruments sold pretty much mean that even the piano-equivalent of an epiphone guitar will set you back a few grand. Just look at the acoustic instruments that are usually recommended over here an upright usually goes for $8,000 - not for a great one just for one that is decent enought to actually warrant buying it.

So if you want to buy a good acoustic grand then go ahead and do it you don't need to justify your decision by nitpicking and listing all the flaws of a digital, it's a frivolous purchase so simply own the decision. You should consider however that there is a reason why a huge chunk of contemporary music from all genres doesn't use a piano and that this changed in recent decades because keyboards and digital pianos became more common and it was suddenly that much more practical to actually play one.

The piano currently goes through a sort of renaissance. A lot of current stars and up and comers write songs for the piano, performers of classical music are getting more popular and there is s surge of people that want to learn the piano because they have heard great songs by people like Adele. That's all because it has never been easier and more affordable to own a piano and because digitals are 'good' enough so thatz you don't necessarily need a real acoustic.

I consider that to be A Good Thing (TM).

I know it's been two years, but this was such a great post I wanted to bookmark it for posterity.

Meh, I thought it was rubbish, personally. A lot of huff and puff about perfectly obvious compromises stage performers make when they play in bands. People who own acoustic pianos know why they have them and why they prefer them. This guy can't allow them that without his ever so gentle disdain about them "owning" their choices. I've got a DP and an AP. I know exactly why I have each of them.