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I sent a PM, but I'm not sure if this forum implementation notifies you when you have one.

Now that the P155 has been announced, I'm thinking I should wait until they are available to test before getting serious about upgrading from my Casio PX310. It's still doing the job, except it isn't very expressive. Sometimes it seems like the keys only have about 3 or four possible volume levels, which makes learning dynamics a bit difficult.

I think the MP5 came out in mid 2007 and the MP8II not long after. What is the typical design cycle for KAWAI? It is likely there might be upgrades for these boards after 2 years?

Hello everyone, this is my first ever post in this forum.

I have recently joined the hunt for a decent digital piano to learn on and have been researching on the net for a couple of weeks as well as trying out a few models in local music shops.

I have managed to find what appears to be a gem of a source, a guy that repairs/refurbishes KAWAI pianos. I am hopefully going along tomorrow to meet him and to look at both a KAWAI ES-4 and a new ES-6 with a view to possibly buying one. They are both ex-demo units that have only been used at one show and are in perfect working order.

I can have the ES-4 for £525 (this apparently has two pin-sized scratches on the top) or the ES-6 for £660 (in mint condition). Any purchase would come with a 30 day money back guarantee and 1 years on site warranty.

These seem to be extremely good deals to me! The ES-4, although not so readily available (probably due to being discontinued now) still retails for around the £900 mark at places that still have stock, and the new ES-6, also not so readily available (probably due to being so new?) retails for over the £1,000 mark.

So I am going to have a play with the two models and will report back with my opinions/outcome (although I must admit that have little to no experience with pianos, I will do my best).

At this point, although the ES-6 will cost me more than I wanted to spend on my first digital piano, I'm kind of thinking that it would be a wiser investment in the long run as the ES-4 is already a couple of years old. Does anyone here have any opinions regarding anything I've said? Prices etc?

Phill

I got the ES-6 :-) I much preferred the key action - lower keys were heavier that the ES-4 and the higher keys were lighter than the ES-4's. Much more range of weight between low and high. Now it's play time! :-D

I went to the one KAWAI dealer I could find and tried an ES4. They had an ES6 but it wasn't unpacked yet. The action seemed ok but a bit light compared to an acoustic and very light compared to my Casio PX310. I couldn't really form an opinion of the sound because I only heard it on the speakers and they all sound like toys to me on the built in speakers.

I asked about the MP5 and MP8II and was told that I would probably not find anyone who had them in stock. Special order only, but supposedly the MP5 had the same action and sound engine as the ES4, so it's just a different case and features. I'd have to confirm that since I never assume sales reps know what they are talking about. He said KAWAI doesn't use samples either, so I was pretty much discounting anything else.

I'll have to go back in a while and try the ES6. Maybe I'll bring my reference headphones so I can do a real sound comparison. I need to do the same for some Yamaha and Roland boards too.

OlTinEar, the sales rep is partly correct - the ES4 and MP5 utilise the same AHA IV-E keyboard action and both use Harmonic Imaging to generate the piano sound. However, I would suggest that the MP5 is a rather more versatile instrument, given the additional sounds and features (192 note polyphony, real-time control knobs, zone faders etc.).

The ES6 utilises the newer AHA IV-F keyboard action, with weight adjustments made to the playing zones. It also features an improved Harmonic Imaging sound technology, with 88-key piano sampling.

I hope this information is useful to you.

Kind regards,
James (big Sly Stone fan)
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It also features an improved Harmonic Imaging sound technology, with 88-key piano sampling.

Which is why I found it confusing when he said harmonic imaging is not sampling.

The feature set on the MP5 is definitely more suited to me than the ES6, but now I am more likely to wait until the MP5 is updated with the newer sound engine. I don't know if that is going to be this year, next year or the year after.

If there is any way to make suggestions that they might actually listen to, I would like to suggest they put balanced outputs on it. Whether they are XLR or TRS I don't really care. That's sort of a pet peave of mine. Roland, Yamaha and KAWAI all put balanced outputs only on their top of the line $2k+ pro boards (RD-700GX, CP-300, MP8II) and only unbalanced outputs on their $1k+ pro boards (RD-300GX, CP-33 and MP5). These are supposedly professional level boards and have no speakers, so the line outputs are how you get the sound out. I realize they want feature differentiation to get people to buy the top of the line, but balanced outputs are not a high end feature like wooden key action. You can find them on <$100 mixers/converters/etc. and they are a common sense way of keeping ground noise etc. from messing up your sound. IMHO any 'pro' level board should have them. Mini headphone jacks mounted in plastic on the front of the board where a 1/4" to mini plug adapter is a disaster waiting to happen is another problem, but it seems KAWAI got that one right.

Yes, I am inclined to agree.

While I have never used the XLRs on an MP8/MP8II, I know that they are greatly appreciated by band and live stage technicians - both professional and amateur alike.

Cheers,
James
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Hello KAWAI James,
I have a question about sampled piano on the ES-6. I understand each key has been sampled just like on Roland FP-7.
My question is how many levels have been sampled for each key? It seems like this information is nowhere to be found for ES-6 nor any other KAWAI pianos.
I'd like to test ES-6 and see if I like it better then FP-7 before I decide on a purchase.
Thanks...

charlesg,

KAWAI utilises its own Harmonic Imaging technology to reproduce piano sounds. We believe that this process achieves a smoother transition from pianissimo to fortissimo than the 1 layer, 3 layer, 5 layer approach adopted by other manufacturers.

Kind regards,
James
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Thanks KAWAI James,
Well, the piano utilizing Harmonic Imaging Technology sounds really good. I was at a local store today and they had ES-4, near by there were Kawai EX, RX-5, RX-6 and RX-7. So I jumped around back and forth between RX-5 and ES-4. I was impressed.
In any case no local stores have ES-6 which now I really want to try. I'm in Southern California, a bit south of Los Angeles but ES-6 is hard to find, everyone carries Roland FP-7. I think Kawai should have their higher end models distributed by Guitar Center and Sam Ash... otherwise everyone ends up with FP-7.

Since your last post on your kawai ES6, have you changed your opinion much?
I'm also a Queenslander and am considering an ES6, If you were not to get the kawai what was your second choice?
Thankyou.