I recently sold my old HP1300e as I was to get my grandmother's acoustic since she recently passed. The family squabbled over it, and I bailed out of that ordeal pronto.
I hung out at guitar center and tried to fall in love with one of the models. The Yamaha CP33 was on my shortlist, as was the Kurzweill SP2x since I used to own a K2500 rack and liked the Kurzweil piano sounds since I could tweak them.
But, I really wanted a full digital console (I was actually pretty happy with my 16 polyphony 12 year old Roland). I had tried the PX-800 a few months ago and it was ok, but didn't knock my socks off. I wished it had a bigger amp and saved my settings or at least required fewer button pushes.
So, I took another chance and went for the Casio AP-500 (Even though there are only two videos of it in use on the entire internet), pretty much top of their line. It has a 60 watt amp and requires fewer button pushes. Pretty nice cabinet if you can stand the color. It was supposedly a 'B-stock item', but this was factory packed and I don't believe had ever been out of the box and was a shade over $1,000 US from American musical.
As with the PX-800, the keyboard action is firm. After playing a while its almost like 'working' the keys. They don't just fall down, you have to push them down, no cheating. I like this. Firmer than my girlfriend's baby grand. Keep in mind this could be just my novice impression since my HP1300e wasn't fully weighted and I was pretty used to that light keyboard action.
I have similar thoughts about the sound. My middle C range and above notes don't sustain as long as my HP1300e did, probably because the AP-500 more truly immitates an acoustic instead of electronic instrument, and I was just used to my electronic version being incorrect. The lower range note sustain's seems very much like a Yamaha grand to me, pure clean string strike without muddiness and excellent hang time
. Brighter than a Baldwin 6' grand.
The sound is pleasant and very appealing, and the speakers and amp are excellent. There's definitely a hammer strike in the mix in the upper octaves which, to me, sounds very authentic. The brightness setting has a big effect on the sound and you can really open it up or soften it to preference. I always played the PX-800 at full volume, and I'm only a little over 1/2 volumne on the AP-500.
There are 3 main grand piano sounds, with number 2 and 3 each being a little brighter. I pretty much stay on number one because it sounds good. Three standard electric piano sounds which I swear are substantially better than the electric piano sounds of the PX-800 (though it seems unlikely they would be different). Go figure. I really like the 3rd electric, it sounds just like Phil Collin's song, "One more night". The 60's wurly sound is very playable, too.
Most of the sound tweaking is limited to standard fare like Reverb, Brilliance, Chorus, but there are different reverb types like Hall.
The settings don't seem to save to memory after a power cycle, but its easier to change them on the AP-500 than the PX-800 because there are dedicated buttons for reverb, chorus, and brillance. I'm ok with this and hated the way the PX-800 was set up.
The 128 Polyphony is way up from my roland that only had 16
In brief testing of it, I find it can sustain a lot more notes than I can crank out in trying to make them drop off.
Overall, after two days of playing with it and getting over the initial glee of getting a new piano, I'm still happy with it. I think its quite an upgrade of the PX-800 and for the $200 price difference its a no-brainer, and many hundreds less than a Yamaha YDP-223. Improved speakers and amp, full (metal) pedal system, full console-like cabinet, and a very pleasant grand piano sound and action. Throw in a couple of decent electric sounds and reduced button pushes and I think I have a keeper. It does take a little while to self-test when you power it up, but then again it is a computer (but doesn't sound like one)