Digital Pianos anyone?

[Neil]

Good evening,

My daughter recently completed her Grade One piano exams and my mother is buying her a piano for Christmas. I should mention that my mother wants her to have something lasting that she will remember her by - this is her justification for the expense. I think it costs around £1300 in ebony but is around £1000 for the same piano in black. Ebony seems to be expensive!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BPEU2FS/r ... 4ELC5632B9

The piano is being bought from a local shop but is the same as the link.

Richard

If I was spending more than a grand, and looking for something reasonably traditional, I'd opt for a Kawai (keeping my eye on the CA15).

 

[Neil]

Good evening,

My daughter recently completed her Grade One piano exams and my mother is buying her a piano for Christmas. I should mention that my mother wants her to have something lasting that she will remember her by - this is her justification for the expense. I think it costs around £1300 in ebony but is around £1000 for the same piano in black. Ebony seems to be expensive!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BPEU2FS/r ... 4ELC5632B9

The piano is being bought from a local shop but is the same as the link.

Richard

Here's a vid showing off how well they sound, these days. A lot of videos of them often use the audio line-outs, but this one (there's a couple that Casio have done with the AP-450) where it's mic'd up - in this example, you can hear some key noise (from his fingers / fingernails at a certain point), and another video Casio has done has been to record and compare with an acoustic grand, so no post-recording diddling.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAJWe6JW5qk[/youtube]

This model in the video retails around the 800 mark, I think. Top of the range Celviano (AP-650) retail at around or just above the grand mark. Spec, action, sound and performance they are very competent.

I've nothing truly against the Yamaha models, they have been considered something of a de-facto standard for a while. But the action they use in their lower priced models (say under grand) I find underwhelming and too synthetic, and the action for the decent ones (GH) as in the YDP-162 you look to be getting is, well OK. Casio use the same action in all their Privia and Celviano range, whether entry level or top of their tree, and it's a very natural, very competent action.

My rough school of thought with digi-pianos, at the moment, with current models, being less than a grand? Casio. Above a grand, Kawai and Roland.