Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards If Kawai CA97 is here, is an equivalent CS (CS11?) arriving soon?

Bad example, "free" software updates is actually what Apple does, unlike other smartphone vendors. Of course, it's not really free, you simply pay upfront for this when you buy the device.

Many acoustic pianos offer the option to upgrade the silent system independently by a qualified piano technician. For a digital in a upright-style cabinet a manufacturer could also offer to upgrade the sound generator, if you are fine with the action, the speakers and your sound board.

So instead of putting an entire CS10 into the oven and replacing it with a CS11, a technician could come in, just replace the digital electronics. This includes billing the upgrade, it won't be free of course. The new $1000 graphics card for your PC isn't free either.

To make such a thing possible, a digital piano has to be prepared at the factory to be upgradeable and that would increase cost though.

But saving the hassle of replacing an entire cabinet may draw in people, who currently stick with cheaper slab-type digital pianos and people upgrading their digitals more often would also open a nice stream of additional revenue to the manufacturer.

gnuboi, I can see the attraction of 'upgradeable' sounds, however I don't believe this is technically possible - for one, the CS11 has much more memory than the CS10 in order to accommodate the new Shigeru Kawai SK-EX and SK-5 samples, among others.



Maybe you can negotiate a favourable part-exchange deal with your dealer to trade in he CS10 for a CS11, when it arrives?

Kind regards,
James
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Yes I can understand that... I was oversimplifying things. But I think folks agree that obsolescence fears could be abated if parts of the software could be updated (not for free, of course), and you could sell pianos quicker instead of having buyers waiting around (and not buying).

I don't really feel the need to trade-in, though. The CS10 itself is great for what we use it for: playing around with different sounds, volume control, line-in, and most importantly... recording. Yes I could tell my kid to use my handheld recorder but the built-in recording is just easier to use.

Plus, I don't expect the CS11 to cost the same