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I did have a fine upright piano once. It belonged to my wife's grand mother, whom we lived with for a time. Back then I was not so aware of the details of pianos, so I cannot give you much information on it, but it was a German manufacturer - not one of the very famous ones like Bechstein or Bluthner. But it was wonderful - rich sonorous and inspiring. And sufficiently in tune to play with pleasure! I asked the old lady when it had last been tuned and she seemed surprised to hear that such a procedure was necessary. So it probably hadn't been tuned in 20 years or more.

When she died at about 95, all the furniture was distributed among her family. I was not able to be present but had asked if at all possible, that I should be interested in buying the piano.

It transpired later that the piano had been unwanted by any of those present, and eventually, it had been taken by an uncle for €250.

I was horrified when I learned of this, and we offered him double the amount for it. But he wouldn't budge on the matter. So it sits, unused, apparently in their front room.

It was a miraculous instrument which I miss to this day.

One o the best pianos I played was this ole thing at the pub venue. No front to put music, no back or lid to put your drink and ashtray. A truly naked piano! It didn't look good. However. . .

Noticeably superior to anything I'd played previously, it was a pleasure. Others thought the same. I don't know what it was, but memories linger on. . .

I guess I have to sheepishly raise my hand as a clear outlier here. When I was a kid my family had a basic upright and later a pretty nice baby grand. But now, I have zero interest in owning a real piano. I'm not entirely sure why, but part of it is simply that the technology aspect is very interesting to me. I just really like having and playing a digital/stage piano in the house. While I definitely want more verisimilitude and look forward to seeing how the "next generation" of DPs get closer to APs in the next few years, I'm never actually wishing I was sitting at an AP when I play.

I feel pretty much the same apart from that v word which I don't understand. . .Mind, since playing my latest, I enjoy acoustics more. Could be tempted by a silent acoustic, but might be better to resist that. Could be an expensive mistake!

The V word. I think it means 'being like the real thing'.

I'm sure there are many people who might prefer a synth over a grand piano. But usually people look for the best substitute for a mechanical piano for various reasons: budget, space, weight, practice time constraints etc.

The upright piano became the most built and bought piano not because it's better than a grand, but because it was the best substitute for one. Therefore it quickly replaced inferior substitutes like square pianos. Nowadays the upright silent piano (which combines acoustic and digital) is the most popular kind of piano on the market.

Nowadays the upright silent piano (which combines acoustic and digital) is the most popular kind of piano on the market.

This comes as a surprise. I'd have bet on digital pianos in first place followed by acoustc uprights.

+1, I had no idea. Talk about a way to have the "most authentic action" with all the benefits of digital. With the participants of this forum being so action-focused, I wonder why these silent/hybrid pianos don't get more airtime here?

Yes. As far as I can gather it seems that:

1. Silent pianos have historically been poor at both digital and acoustic functions, especially in light of their cost. (That may have been improved now, though)

2. Though piano action is of prime importance for many here, there is quite a contentious argument about how good upright actions are compared to grand. Imo, upright actions fall a long way short of even good DP actions, let alone a good grand piano action. So a DP may be better than a silent in terms of action....or not depending on point of view.

I'm not talking about now. Yes, presently it is true, but it might not be in the future. Answer me that, why would you want acoustic if you would have perfectly modelled and projected sound(and nice looking cabinet if you are into that)?

Published statistics for North America state that the digital piano is imported in volumes several times higher than any acoustic models; upright or grand. While the acoustic piano continues to seemingly stagnate, the digital piano increases both in terms of volume or units, and average price point. Lots of low end digital pianos are still being sold. But increasingly, customers are seeking a quality instrument to last longer than just a couple of years.

This is not stated to diminish the importance of acoustic instruments to the world of piano. Rather, to illustrate that, for many reasons, the digital piano is likely the most popular piano instrument being sold nowadays.

Jay

This was very badly worded by me. I was looking at piano history, where the new upright quickly outsold the grand/square and was simply excluding pure digital pianos from that perspective.

So to clarify: In my region silent/digital/hybrid upright pianos have become the most popular "real" (acoustic) pianos. Last thing I heard from my local dealers was that more than half of all new (acoustic) pianos sold have the silent/digital/hybrid option pre-installed and that share is further increasing over the years.

Of course electronic synths of all kinds including pure digital pianos sell by volumes unheard of in acoustic piano industry. Never doubted that. With the resources we have, we can simply make way more of those.

I have a feeling it's not supply-side constraint either. You can get a "digital piano" for $200 or less (quality of product notwithstanding). That's literally an order of magnitude less than a new AP. I'd be surprised if the market segment for digitals isn't an order of magnitude greater for that reason (price) alone.

From my point of view, I've bought digital because it turned out nowadays technology really went ahead in sound department(Kawai, Roland, Yamaha) and action is also decent sooo why would I buy acoustic if digital sounds better than most acoustics uprigts. Sure I could buy grand piano but that's like many, many times more expensive and still it would not be that much better to justify that price. And of course there is silent practice thing... I'm not saying acoustics are worse than digitals, no, not in all elements, but even with current technology digital pianos far exceeded my expectations and it will only get better in few years to come so proper question is: why would you buy acoustic piano if digital will give you the same or raher better experience? Anyway I don't treat digitals as cheaper substitute anymore, I did, 10 years ago or so, but times and technology change pretty fast.

Once you start using proper pedaling, a digital behaves nothing like an acoustic. Neither sound-wise nor touch-wise.


While digitals progressed pretty well in the last decade future progress isn't guaranteed at all. You have to look and see.

Digitals are still far away from becoming a proper replacement even for an upright piano, so nobody seriously talks about digitals outperforming their acoustic counterparts. They completely replaced clavichords and other inferior keyboard practice instruments though.

What does 'proper' mean. Because, like it or not, DPs are already a replacement for upright acoustic pianos.



Well I do. At a certain point in terms of cost, acoustics certainly do outperform digitals. But you have to pay many thousands of dollars/euros for that to be the case......or be lucky and inherit a piano.

Most people simply don't have the money or living conditions to get an acoustic piano of that quality.

Concerning these costs make sure you calculate the costs for your entire period of use (in a realistic fashion, including repairs, amplification etc. where applicable, and replacements of instruments) and not just initial cost. Most often one only looks at the latter.

Yes, this consideration would weaken my argument but I don't think it would invalidate it. If a good digital piano can reasonably be expected to last 20 years without significant maintenance costs, and an acoustic piano of good quality to have a life of, say one hundred years, then we have a 1:5 ratio. But you would need to factor regular tuning costs in with acoustic pianos.

But, yes, if you are considering a piano for life, then acoustic is better, or something like Yamaha AG, which already costs as much or more than a good acoustic upright.

A second hand acoustic may be the best deal of all, I suppose, if you buy well from a fair dealer. But this is only true if you take all the inherent advantages of the digital out of the equation. Though the acoustic also has inherent advantages such as the fact that you must develop a real pianissimo technique on an acoustic. On an electronic instrument, you can cheat!

Properly reproducing all interactions with player and environment under all circumstances. A substantial part of piano technique still can't be practiced on a digital.

For example pedal-damper-key-string interaction is still a joke on most digitals.

Cost is an entirely different topic. Pianists would immediately go for really superior instruments which removes the need for maintenance and tuning. These could even be more expensive than the conventional acoustic piano.

In my opinion Yamaha AG is inferior to any acoustic piano, especially to those at the same price.