Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards in the market for digital piano need some suggestions

I have a beautiful baby grand piano at home but I am away at school and would like to be able to play still, however i don't have room for a baby grand.

So now I am in the market for a digital piano, and I have no idea where to start. I want weighted keys but I don't know about my options as far as different weight. I want a piano that feels real but doesn't take up much space.

Should i order it online? Should i go to a retailer and talk to a specialist, what are some things I should ask the sales person about?

If anyone could help me out a little with where to start, I'd appreciate it! My birthday is coming up and my mom and boyfriend are going to go halves on the piano so price needs to be reasonable. I don't even know what the range of digital pianos prices is...help!

Be safe ya'll-
-aHoTcHiCk2o9

Well I'm no expert, but I've been searching for a good digital piano for a while now. It really just comes down to what you need and what your preferences are. You can get weighted midi controllers (you'll need a computer to produce the sounds, its basically just a weighted keybed) for about $300ish (dont quote me on that).

The cheapest new 88 weighted key piano that actually makes sound would be the casio PX-130 (or 120... about the same price generally but the 130 is better). I never tried it, but I gave the 330 a shot (which has the exact same piano sound, but more features and connectivity, as well as costing $700). I liked the feel and functionality but felt like the piano sound was very "harsh", when compared to the other pianos I was testing, so I didn't get it.

I also looked at the P85 and P-155 (there weren't any other brands in my price range besides casio and yamaha, unfortunately) but I'm not going to bash or acclaim instruments because when it comes down to it, the decision is yours. You really need to go down to a local instrument / digital piano store and play around with them. Bring your best pair of headphones to test them out and just go to town.

it basically comes down to
~300: midi controller
~500: new weighted digital piano
~1000: very respectable digital piano

Don't forget to consider used. Just make sure to play around on it before buying...

Things to consider:
What you intend to do with the keyboard
how the keys feel
how much polyphony it has (how many notes it can sound at a time... 64 is plenty if youre just doing piano)
how it sounds
how connectable it is (headphones, line out, midi out, usb out, pedals etc)

good luck!

The technology to emulate an acoustic
piano has been around since at least
the 1970's, and by the 1980's there
were already digital pianos that
played like an acoustic piano.
So today digital piano technology
is widespread and well-established,
and you would have a really hard time
buying a bad weighted-key digital
piano. There are thousands available,
and they are all okay, so you
can literally take your pick.
I see no problem with ordering
sight-unseen online as long as
you buy from an established online
dealer like amazon.com or zzounds.com,
for example, because such
dealers would stock only good
quality dp's, and even inexpensive
ones you buy from them will be okay.

You can spend as much as $37,000
on a dp, and the high-end consoles
are in the ~$4000-$6000 price
range, but you don't need to
spend anywhere near that amount
to get a good dp. You can get
many good dp's for less than $1000.
Two that come to mind are the Casio
PX 800 and the M-Audio DCP 200,
both $900. You couldn't go wrong
with either. My Williams digital
cost $600, and I use it to play
the most difficult classical
repertoire, like concertos.

However, if you're going to be
in college, in, say, the typical
two-person dorm room, then
even a digital piano might not
be practical. The dimensions
of all 88-key keyboards are
the same, and so when you set
up any digital piano, it's going
to occupy about the same amount
of floor space as an acoustic
upright piano, ~2' x 5'. That
will take up too much space in
a dorm room. You could take
a dp apart and store it under
the bed, but that's going to
become inconvenient after
a while.

What I would suggest is to simply
do without a piano for the
few years you're in college.
You'll be too busy anyway to
do much practicing. And there
are often pianos in the dorms,
and practice rooms in the music
school. So there's no real need
to have a piano in your room
in college. Even the lightest
dp is bulky, almost 5' long,
and is going to be a chore to
pack and move.

As mentioned the PX 130 just came out. I think it weighs even less than the PX 320 which is 25 lbs. I tried it at Guitar Center and it's a big improvement on the previous Casio Privias.

I got 20% off the PX 330 I just bought, check out the PX 130/330/etc... topic in this forum.

I think you could get the PX 130 without the stand for about $420. Call the different online dealers, Music 123 has a 20% off sale and you could get free shipping.

No tax for online purchases unless they are located in your state.

Nikalette is right! you can push the price down to $420 that way!

btw, keep in mind, I wasn't actively bashing the px130/330, just saying that it wasn't the sound that appeals to *my* ears. Keep in mind, buying a digital piano is alot like buying a mattress or a car, in that you just need to try it out yourself.

I didn't much care for the 120, but I think the 130 is a big improvement. I'll have it here side by side with the YPG 635 which is also a lower cost model, so it'll be fun to do a longer comparison.

I'm saving up for my "other piano" which will be a Roland V, one day.

naw no need for the V-piano, hold off on that. As someone was saying on another thread, the V-piano is a first generation technology. Wait till there are competitors and the technology will be much cheaper and better.

Yes, but I become infatuated with the V every time I set foot in GC. I just have to stay out of that back room.

Thank munkeegutz I didn't even think about some of the things you mentioned such as polyphony, and connection capabilities. I am defiantly looking for a nicer digital piano, one that i can play with headphones as well as out loud, and have it sound like a real piano. Thats really the most important thing to me is having the piano sound and feel as real as possible. I appreciate your advice and good luck on your piano search

There are several things you need to think about:

1. Do I want a console model or a portable model with a stand? Portables are cheaper and easier to move, but less convenient to play on.

2. What is my budget? How much am I willing to pay for added realism and better sound/action? As some people have noted you can buy a very basic model for $500 or so. But a no-compromises console model like a Roland HP-207 or Yamaha CLP-340 might cost $2500-3500. What you get for the money is much better action and sound.

Once you decide these two basics, we can make more speciic recommendations.

Finally, Gyro and some other people will tell you that all digital pianos are alike and that spending more than the bare minimum is a waste of money. They're wrong.

'simply do without a piano for the few years you're in college' -Are you nuts?

The two most obvious choices, and just my opinion, are the casio px130 and the yamaha P155. Like a couple people have mentioned you should be able to get the casio for about $425 from music 123 and the Yamaha possibly for about $960. (It's actually $1199 but if you go to music123 type in YAMAHAOFF in the promotion box it should take $200 off that and then musicians friend should match that plus give you the extra $40.) ---If you have the chance of course go to a Guitar center and try both; one thing to consider is the sound of course but also the fact that you may well be playing it through headphones for privacy and that's a good thing because you'll probably get a possibly much better sound through headphones than with the onboard speakers; most likely more true of the cheaper casio....so maybe bring your own headphones to the music stre. You might then want to order online to save a bit of money.

I think it's safe to say that Gyro has a minority opinion about the relative merits of different digital pianos! I would never buy a model I hadn't had the chance to play. You really need to go along to a dealer (or several) and try several pianos to get a feel for which ones you get along with. Personally, I think a portable model makes a lot of sense for typical college accommodation, and I happen to prefer the touch of the Yamaha models to their main competition, so I'd probably look at the new P155 first. But other people have equally strong preferences for (e.g.) Roland or Kawai, or don't like the portable 'stage piano' design at all. In any case, if you're used to a grand piano, you'll probably want to choose a model with technology that tries to emulate the feel of a piano keyboard as closely as possible (e.g. Yamaha's 'graded hammer effect' or 'graded hammer action', or Roland's 'progressive hammer action').

Once you've narrowed your choice down to a few models, you'll be able to get good feedback here from current owners about any issues that might not be obvious from trying them out in a store. One tip is to take along a good pair of headphones to the dealer(s), which will help with comparing the sound between different models. Note that in the US, portable pianos are much more readily available over the internet (where competition encourages keener pricing) than the 'console' models, which tend to be sold (officially at least) only via showroom dealers.

Btw, about Guitar Center, Musician's Friend, Music 123, etc. they're technically under one company. (Check the SKU#s) When I walked into my local GC, they were pretty good about matching the price from those websites even in their retail stores (Talk to a manager). I still bought my PX-130 from Sweetwater, but that's just my preference of dealer because of their support.

Hope you find something you like! If you don't have good headphones, you can usually ask the Pro Audio department to lend you some to test their pianos.