[PLEASE NOTE, this guide is in an early stage of development. I haven’t finished my reviews of all the pianos yet and the beginning is still a work in progress and may add some information to the informational section… I will be filling in the rest of the reviews and fleshing out the ones already put into the system over the next few weeks. Please bear with me and feel free to add comments/feedback]
ABOUT THIS GUIDE/OBJECTIVES I wrote this guide based on my personal experience shopping for a console-type, home digital piano. There are many fragments of information out there on the web, but most are not completely objective as they come from digital piano manufacturers or sellers. I have played on and off since age 7. I would classify myself as an intermediate (albeit rusty) player: I play for enjoyment, but I am certainly not classically trained or any kind of professional. This guide is really for the layperson looking for a home digital piano. It is not meant for the professional musician or the budding concert pianist. Given my own needs, I have concentrated on the home digital piano market and did not look at more portable keyboards.
WHY A DIGITAL PIANO At the end of this guide, I will run down some of the digital pianos that I tried and give my thoughts about them. Realize that the selection was based on what was available to be seen in this area and consisted of a selection of Casio, Roland, Kawai, and Yamaha digital pianos. I wanted to try the Kurzweil line of digital pianos, but none were available in my area. The bulk of this guide, however, is not a review of the instruments. It is really a rundown of what digital pianos are about and what to look for.
Just to make things clear, I want to state at the outset that I have a definite bias towards acoustic pianos. In my heart of hearts I would have opted for an acoustic instrument first but looked for a digital given space constraints, financial constraints, and the need to play a piano quietly, after my children have gone to bed.
When I finally hit the pavement and saw what was available out there I was astounded. The digital pianos of today are no longer clunky, quasi instruments. Even relatively inexpensive pianos have good sound quality and a playability that just didn’t exist in this price range previously.
Advantages of a digital piano: The digital piano of today isn’t the one that you may have tried out even 5 years ago. Advances in hardware and software have brought us digital pianos that come incredibly close to the acoustic piano experience at a fraction of the cost. A digital piano has a smaller footprint and more portable than its acoustic counterpart. Digitals give you the options of many sounds and features beyond that of an acoustic and can be connected to a computer for recording and arranging. They can be played silently, if you attach headphones.
Digitals don’t require extensive upkeep. You don’t have to tune a digital piano twice per year ($75 to $150 dollars a pop, depending on what needs to be done). Digitals don’t have to be regulated, a process whereby the pianos action is adjusted, hammers are aligned, and felts are replaced etc. (about $700, depending on what needs to be done.) Regulation is recommended in the first 6 months to two years than every 3 years or so thereafter.
Disadvantages of a digital piano: As with anything high tech, your digital piano is old technology the moment it arrives at your door. There are constant advances on a year-by-year basis, so today’s technology is tomorrow’s trash. A fine acoustic piano, with good upkeep, will last many, many years. It’s something you can pass down to your children.
Although the digital experience now comes very close to that of an acoustic piano it is not a perfect simulation. Still, the digital experience is truly amazing these days. After demoing the ones I could find in my area I was surprised at just how good they really were. For somewhere between $990 and $2000 dollars, you can get an instrument that can be used as a starter instrument or something that a casual player might enjoy using. If you push the budget between $3000 to $5000 dollars you can get an instrument that really approaches the acoustic experience. The price of a digital is about the same as an entry level acoustic and in my experience some of these digital pianos play at least as well and can sound at least as a much higher priced acoustic.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR Buying a piano always involves a number compromises between all the features you want and your budget. That being said, it is important to realize that the most important factor in a digital piano is how it performs for YOU. That means that you actually have to pound the pavement and demo the pianos for yourself. You can read a lot about the pianos and listen to demos, but there is no substitute for a hands-on session with a digital piano. No matter where you end up buying the piano (on line or in a brick-and-mortar store) you need to try before you buy.
DIGITAL PIANO SOUND The sound of a digital piano is not a simple thing and relies on a number of related factors.
I am concentrating on the grand piano sound of the digital pianos in question, but the information here is generally true for all sounds available on a digital piano.
The Source: Before you even consider how the sampling was done, you must always consider the source.
If you don’t like the sound of Kawai’s flagship EX concert grand, chances are you will not like the sound of the Kawai digital pianos that rely on this piano as the source of their sound. The same is true of Yamaha’s digital pianos, with source sounds from Yamaha grands. Casio, Roland, and others ostensibly sample from a Steinway D concert grand. So if you don’t like the source, it will be no surprise that the sampled piano sound isn’t any better.
The Sampling: I am no expert concerning sound sampling, but generally the quality of the sample depends on a number of factors. Recording quality is important. More meticulous samples record each of the pianos 88 keys separately whereas less meticulous sampling samples fewer keys, electronically varying the pitch for tones in between.
The acoustic piano sound varies in color. Samples must be recorded at varying degrees of attack on the keys to get the different sound colors. Acoustic piano aficionados often say that acoustic pianos have an ‘infinite’ amount of colors depending on how they are played. This is true, to an extent, but it is also likely that the human ear can only differentiate so many sound colors. There may be no need to sample beyond a certain point, if you just can’t hear the difference.
Samples are often recorded for a limited duration. The longer a note is sustained on a piano, the longer the decay. Given time, money, memory etc. samples are often recorded for an intermediate duration. When a note is sustained for a longer period of time than recorded, the remaining decay is often simulated by looping the sound at ever softer intervals. When this is done correctly, it sounds more like an acoustic piano. When looping is done poorly, the ear can really hear the repeated sound segments and the decay sounds terribly artificial.
Each digital piano manufacturer touts the realism of its sampling. Some stick to basic recorded sounds and looping. Others, such as Roland, use the original samples as a basis for their sound but then use computers to extrapolate from the natural sound. Roland claims that their SuperNATURAL piano sound engine models the sounds from the original sample with ‘stepless variation’ between gentle and forceful tones. They also model decay of the sound rather than loop the sounds. Whether this approach is superior to taking multiple samples and looping is in the ear of the beholder.
The battle of the samples rages on. There are many software piano emulators on the market that take different approaches. Synthology, Galaxy, and Acoustic SampleS are companies who provide sampled piano tones . Pianoteq, another company, uses completely mathematically modeled piano sounds. All—including the totally emulated Pianoteq—have devistatingly realistic piano sounds. When you hear a recording, you’d be hard pressed to tell whether you were listening to an actual acoustic recording or a simulation.
More advanced samples have additional features: harmonic resonance that emulates the passive resonance of strings that occurs. Some even emulate pedal noises. Some pianos come with options to vary the tone simulating different string types or number and different hammer hardnesses. More advanced pianos will allow you to tweak the sound for different conditions: piano open/closed, reverberation, touch sensitivities, different microphone positions, key-on and key-off samples etc.
More advanced digital pianos actually offer ‘virtual technician’ features, where you can tweak the sound of to your liking. In the best cases, this can allow you to change the sound while keeping the sound natural. When done poorly, manipulating the sound in such a way can make it sound too processed or computer generated.
All these kinds of variations may sound confusing, but technological differences aside the real test is whether a given digital piano sounds right to YOU.
Clearly, the sampling process can get very involved. For example, the Acoustic SampleS Kawai EX Pro sample is 17.39 gb in size. There are no digital piano makers out there that are devoting 17.39 gb to a single sound. That being said nearly all the mid-range to high-range digital pianos that I demoed had good to great sound. Moreover, no matter what the software can do, you need hardware—a keyboard and sound system—that can live up to the accuracy of the sampling.
Polyphony Polyphony refers to the number of notes that a digital piano can play at one time. If you are playing a solo acoustic piano and pressed down all 88 keys at once, you would reach the limit of the instrument at 88 note polyphony. Remember, however, if a digital piano uses stereo sound samples (as the best ones seem to do), that this effectively cuts the polyphony in half, so that 128 note polyphony with stereo sampling equals 64 notes mono polyphony. Realistically, 64 note polyphony (or 128 note in stereo) is more than enough for 99.99% of all solo piano music played.
So why do digital pianos advertise higher levels of polyphony? Because they also come with sounds that can be layered on top of one another (e.g. piano + strings). Some pianos are able to record and play back tracks, and most pianos come with a variety of accompaniment patterns. All those extra sounds add up. Once you reach the threshold level of polyphony, the piano will start to drop notes using some kind of algorithm and the music will have a sound that is less full than intended.
If you are only interested in playing solo piano (or other instruments) and you don’t want or intend to use the other bells and whistles, you don’t need high levels of polyphony. That being said, even the bottom-of-the line pianos now sport 64 note polyphony. Generally, more is better. But for the bulk of amateur players, the adequate level of polyphony is 64 for mono-samples and 128 for stereo samples— the rest is marketing hype.
Sound Production: Finally, there is the element of sound production. Digital pianos are equipped with speakers that produce the final sound. The size(s) and quality of the speakers is of utmost importance when buying a digital. There are plenty of reports that some digital pianos sound much better with a good pair of headphones plugged in than they do when using their native speakers.
For me, I wanted a system that I could play expressively with or without headphones. The easiest parameter to measure is the power of the speakers. This is usually expressed in Watts. Unless you like quiet, want to add your own speakers, or just want to use your headphones, you probably want a system with a combined speaker power of at least 30 Watts. That’s a bare minimum. For most listeners and most rooms, you will want a combined power of 40 to 50 Watts. If, however, you are using the piano for performances in a large room and you don’t want to hook up external speakers, you may need more power.
Most digital pianos have at least two speakers for stereo sound (right and left), but the total number is only limited by the designer. The best sounding digitals that I tried had four or more speakers. My guess is that (as with everything else) the sheer number of speakers and the quality thereof goes up with the price. Just as with polyphony, companies will lead you to believe that more is better. I wouldn’t worry as much about the number speakers as I would the quality of the sound that you are hearing.
Which leads us to sound quality. The quality of the sound is harder to assess and is really quite subjective. Once again, you really have listen in person and figure out what you want. There are now high-end digital piano ‘hybrids’ that are equipped with wooden sound boards like their acoustic counterparts, but the jury is out as to how much of a difference this really makes. Some digitals deliberately position some of the speakers towards the keyboard. The idea here being that you will feel more vibration in the keys when you play the digital piano and that this vibratory feedback is more like an acoustic piano.
The tiny, slim, console versions of digital pianos are often equipped with tiny speakers. They may be suitable for people with limited space or those who put a premium on portability, but small, inexpensive speakers have low power and often have suboptimal sound. Note, however, that if you hooked the same piano up to a larger set of speakers or listened via headphones, it might produce much better sound.
Once again, your ear is the ultimate decision maker. There are a wide variety of digitals out there at a wide variety of prices. You have to decide which will work best for you.
TOUCH Practically every manufacturer of digital pianos claims to have ‘authentic touch’ that feels ‘just like a grand piano.’ The digital pianos of today have sophisticated actions that have the ability to effectively simulate the feel of an acoustic instrument. Hammer actions are usually ‘graded’ so that bass notes are heavier and harder to press than the higher notes, making for a more authentic feel. Some pianos even have wooden keys.
Sadly, there is really no such thing as ‘authentic touch.’ There are any number of acoustic pianos out there: grands, uprights, consoles, spinets etc., and numerous piano manufacturers. No two acoustic pianos have exactly the same feel to them. So the real key here is not the mechanism of how a given digital piano action works, but how it feels TO YOU when you play it.
Well, the answer is fairly straightforward. The acoustic piano is still the ‘gold standard.’ Most of us learned how to play on an acoustic piano and want a digital to feel the same. And if you learn how to play on a digital, most students want to transition easily to an acoustic.
For me, the touch on the models with wooden key just felt more piano-like to me. That being said, I’m sure that others might prefer a different brand. As to the key tops, the lower end models seem to have more shiny, plasticky kinds of key tops that were slippery and just didn’t feel right. The better models had more piano-like keys with a duller sheen and some kind of synthetic ivory substitute that played better and seemed more natural. Some more advanced models further polish the illusion of playing an acoustic piano by adding a ‘let off’ or ‘escapement’ feature that mimics the subtle ‘give’ or ‘notch’ sensation that you feel when you depress the keys fully while playing softly on a grand piano.
The overall touch, of course, is not the total picture. You have to make sure that when you play the piano the touch translates into expressivity. This kind of assessment is no different if you are buying an acoustic piano. A piano may have a great tone, but if the action doesn’t live up to the tone you may not be able to play expressively.
STYLE This may not be the most important issue, but it is an issue. A piano is a musical instrument but is also a piece of furniture. Granted, there isn’t a digital out there that can compete with a Steinway grand when it comes to haute décor or status symbols. But I don’t have enough room or cash on hand for the Steinway. Still, I wanted something that would blend in with my living room and not look like a complete eyesore.
Interestingly, digital pianos that come in high-end cabinets often have fewer features than their digital keyboard counterparts. But if you want to put the piano in your living room, you’ll want something that looks nice.
LONGEVITY I do have concerns regarding the longevity of the latest digital pianos. What I can say is that the higher end pianos from the more established companies (e.g. Yamaha and Kawai) had a more solid feel to them. The more working parts, complex features, and things like wood keys, the greater there is a chance of malfunction. There are many tuners and reconditioners out there for acoustic pianos, and not nearly as many that take care of digital pianos. Make sure you have a good warranty.
EXTRA, EXTRA Many higher end digitals sport a myriad of buttons and screens and more closely resemble the space shuttle than they do a piano. Some pianos sport digital touch screens and loads of built in sounds, a myriad of accompaniment patterns and rhythms, piano exercises, piano lessons, music, song creators, multitrack song recorders,‘magic’ melody, recording options, a variety of digital outputs and inputs, CD players, ‘digital radio’ features, player piano features with moving keys etc. The highest tier of digital pianos actually sport scaled down, full wooden (not veneered) piano cabinets with full wooden sound boards. The highest end Yamaha sports a combined speaker power of 120 Watts—enough volume to fill a concert hall with sound.
DEMOING THE PIANOS
Hands On: When demoing a digital piano remember that hands on demos are really the best. This is the best way to gauge the touch, feel, and responsivity of the instrument. If you are not proficient at playing, you might want to take along someone who is. For most of us, a side-by-side comparison is a pie-in-the-sky idea. If you are able to do this, this is a great approach. But for most of us, you will not be able to find different digital pianos of different types in a single showroom.
If you are really interested in an acoustic piano feel, make sure you remember what that is like. If the same place sells acoustic pianos, find one that you are fond of and play it for a while. Then sit down to the digital and get comfortable.
When it comes to the sound try to listen carefully to different durations of notes, from the shortest of staccatos to the longest of sustains. Listen to the sustain with the sustanuto pedal up and the sustanuto pedal down. You should try this from the very lowest of notes to mid-range to the very highest of notes to get a sense of balance. For the staccato notes, listen for the sharpness of the attack. For the long sustained notes listen for the naturalness of the decay and listen carefully for looping. Play very loud and booming notes and chords and also play very softly. The bass should resound and the high notes should ring out pleasantly. The digital piano’s action needs to feel well balanced and natural beneath your fingers and when you play you need to make sure that the digital piano faithfully transforms your expressivity. Play a single note in rapid succession to test the speed limit of the action. If you are interested in advanced features, make sure that they work as advertised. Assess the user interface of the piano and make sure it makes sense to you.
Online demos: Online demos (on YouTube or company websites) are often helpful in showing you what a digital piano is capable of. Realize, however, that most of these are produced by the companies who make or sell these pianos and are really sales videos. You can get an idea of the capabilities of the piano, but they are usually showcased in their best light.
MP3 and Other Sound Samples: As to assessing sound via videos or sound samples, these can be misleading. Midi files run through a sound engines are idealized versions of what a given digital piano is truly capable of. As described above, the design of the sound software is only one component of the digital piano sound.
That is doubly true of recorded sound samples. Were they recorded directly through the digital output of the piano or with a microphone? What was the quality of the audio system used to record the sound? Were the sounds manipulated in post production? If the recording is tweaked enough, a crummy acoustic can sound pretty good. If the recording is botched, even a great sounding acoustic will sound bad. This is true when recording digital pianos as well.
Reading Reviews: You can read reviews about pianos. These are helpful to some degree, but are also biased by the various preferences of the authors. More than anything else, I found these reviews most helpful when it came to zeroing in on problems that occurred with some models.
When you start paring down the list of the pianos that you are interested in you can usually obtain the digital piano’s user manual. Most of these are downloadable from the internet and are a trove of information. With these in hand (or online) you can more easily compare features of the pianos that you are interested in.
SIZE and Look Finally, you have to figure out your space requirements and whether the digital will fit (as a piece of furniture) in whatever room in the house you want to keep it in. You will definitely choose a different piano if you want it to fit in a small dorm room than you would if you wanted it in a former living room.
THE DIFFERENT PIANOS I demoed these in different stores (no store had all the models together or even the entire line of models from a single company under one roof). Comparisons are based on my memory of the products. I did not use earphones. Rather , I relied on the built in sound systems for the various digital pianos. It may well be that some low-line digitals have the potential to put out much better sound but are hobbled by low-grade speaker systems.
BE AWARE that I am reviewing these from my own idiosyncratic point of view. I was mostly looking for an acoustic replacement, not a studio or portable stage performance model. I was less interested in bells and whistles and was much more concerned about authentic grand piano sound. As I stated before, the ears, hands, and eyes viewing these pianos were mine. There are plenty of people who will disagree with my assessments—that’s okay. Once again, before YOU purchase, I would strongly recommend that you assess the instruments on your own.
CASIO The Casios may not be the ideal digital pianos, but they really have a niche as the most playable console, digital pianos within their price range. Compared to the other brands, the piano (and other sounds) may not be as polished and they keyboard not quite as refined. Still, Casio blows away the competition within the low price range. The instruments are more than acceptable for the beginning or intermediate player who is on a budget. Think, not perfect, but eminently playable and enjoyable.
Celviano AP-220: Strictly entry level with plasticky keys that didn’t feel quite right. The 16 total Watt amplifiers just didn’t pack much of a punch. The piano sounded tinny and plincky like a music box up high and the bass sounded muffled with little umph below. Even if budget is a consideration, I’d try to scrap together a little savings and at opt for the AP-420 or AP-620. Still, at this price range, there’s nothing out there that I saw that could touch the AP-220.
Celviano AP-420 (Casio AP420 Celviano Digital Piano with Bench): The piano keys had an ivory-like feel to them and the touch (although purportedly the mechanism is the same as the AP-220) felt far more realistic. The action was a little light but extremely playable. The bass was more defined and could pack a little punch and the high notes sounded much better. The feel of the instrument and the solidness of the cabinet were gobs better than the AP-220. This one is eminently playable and has a nice sound, but the sound is not as refined or piano-like to my ear as the Rolands, Kawais, and Yamahas. (If you listen carefully, you might detect a little looping with a long sustain.) Still, Casio probably provides a piano with the most bang for the buck. Assuming that the AP-620 has a better sound system and far more features: I’d opt for the upgrade if you can spare the extra change.
Celviano AP-620 (Casio AP620 Celviano Digital Piano with Bench): I couldn’t find a model to demo, but the speakers are supposed to be 30 Watts apiece (60 Watts total). I imagine that the sound is potentially louder and more refined than the AP-420. From what I have read, the AP-620 plays the same as the AP-420. The extra sounds and features (like a 16 track recorder) make the upgrade reasonable.
KAWAI In my opinion, the higher level Kawai pianos rule the roost when it comes to that ‘authentic’ acoustic feel. These pianos felt more like playing an acoustic piano for me than anything else out there. As to the sound, it varies throughout the models. To my ear, their sampling is on par with Yamaha. Like Yamaha, however, Kawai’s emphasize what to my ear sounds like an overly bright, powerful piano sound. This should be no surprise, as Kawai uses their flagship EX grand as the source for the sampling. If you like bright, power-grand classical pianos, the sound is right for you. For me, it’s a little edgy and out there, but is still a much better sound
CL-25: Kawai’s budget digital. It only has a single pedal and few advanced features. The keyboard is on par with the Casios, but this puppy retails just above $1000 bucks. For the same money, you could buy yourself an AP-420 with more features, more pedals, more samples, better speakers and (in the end) a more refined sound. This is a classical example of sampling not mattering too much if you put it through underpowered, tinny speakers. Any subtlety is lost here and quite frankly the AP-420 sounds a heck of a lot better than this Kawai.
CE-200 (Kawai CE200 Digital Piano): This is a CL-25 with a better case, better speakers, and the cheapest digital piano to feature wooden keys. The touch on this thing is authentic, but the keys seemed a little sluggish and not all that amenable to quick repetition. Fit and finish are more like the CL-25 and are not even close to the rest of the Kawai line. Given that it’s priced in the mid-$1000, you will likely get a better value (and many more features) from a Casio Celviano. But if you ‘must have’ wooden keys and you don’t have any more money to spend, it may be the way to go. The speakers here put out a combined power of 40 Watts, but I really wasn’t impressed with the sound. The piano sound never resonated or became transcendent. And who cares about power if the sound isn’t all that great. Either Kawai used a lower level of sampling on the CE-200 or cheaped out on the speakers.
CS-3: This is a relatively new model that concentrates a little more on style than it does on substance. The cabinet has a gorgeous, polished ebony veneer. The keys are nicely surfaced in faux ivory. This model also has 40 W of combined power in its speakers, but it has a much more polished sound than the CE-200. Of course, the keys are thoroughly plastic and it has Kawai’s ‘Responsive Hammer Action’ which approximates an acoustic feel, but doesn’t approach the realism of the higher line Kawai models. In isolation, you might think that ‘this is it!’ but if you test it next to a real acoustic or a better Kawai, you can really tell the difference. Interestingly, this piano has the ‘let off’ or ‘escapement’ feature. The CE-200’s keyboard was a little more sluggish, but the heft of the wooden keys felt better beneath my fingers. That being said, the CS-3’s keyboard still blows away most of the competition, including the entire Yamaha Arius line, the Casios, and was on par with anything I tested from Roland.
