Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Who are we fooling - digitals are junk at this juncture

AP: $3000
CP1:$3000

10 years later:
AP : tuning @ every 8 month for $120, cost 1.8K, can sell for 2K
CP1: no tuning cost, can sell for $300

Adjusted residual value:
AP: $300 (+/- $1000)
CP1:$300 (+/- $300)

The AP is still the same AP, with a bit of wear and tear.
The CP1 is still the same CP1, with a bit of marks and dents.

Monetary value of 10 years of investment: worthless
Enjoyment value of 10 years of music : priceless

Classic !!! LOL

He might be a troll or somewhere a village might be missing a idiot.

But at least it's more entertaining then "Does a PX-150 have a plastic pedal"

Yeah but then it gets easier to use a DP or VST then to mic up your grand, then you become lazy. People think I'm a DP apologist but forget I've got two real acoustic grand pianos at home. Given a choice ...you would like to always prefer the real thing but practicality's often mean the opposite is true.

The Studio grand is better then that ... it's the nicest piano ever in a DP and better then most VST pianos.

After lurking on these DP threads for the last 3 years, and spending God knows how much on DPs, i finally pulled the trigger on an acoustic piano. I can say with all honesty, I feel your pain. I owned one of the highest end DPs ($8,000!!) in my AvantGrand N1, and after 18 months, I decided it was just not satisfying. Every time I stepped behind even a decent grand, heck even a baby grand, I felt right at home. It sounds stupid, but acoustic pianos, with all the natural resonance and warmth pull music out of me. Digitals never really did. The closest thing is probably that new Fazioli sample in my Nord Piano 2. There's a certain magic with acoustic pianos which is why the DP manufacturers spend millions trying to duplicate the experience. There's more to the acoustic piano than modeled sounds, unlooped samples, supernatural decay, graded action, ivory feel keys, triple pedals, and polished cabinets with high end speakers.

With that said, the better DPs have their purpose and will only get closer and closer to the acoustic experience.

I'll match your house and raise you another two ....

The fact is ... in a mix nobody (even a concert pianist) would know and 95+% of people wouldn't know in a solo.

I'm actually working for Porsche Cars North America now, and I can tell you, the better grand pianos, especially Steinways, Steingraebers, Bosendorfers, Faziolis, etc cost more than many of our cars. That's ridiculous. They're farther out of reach than freakin Porsches! Now, I'd gladly pay over $100,000 for a high end grand piano vs a car because I have my priorities straight.

Those grands might be more expensive but I need even more money to buy a house to put a used six foot Baldwin in. Grands don't work in apartments. For that matter neither do uprights. So, what is a pianist to do?

I think your love for music and piano trumps the OP's impressions of the lowly DP's out in the real world.

I'd love to read the forums that Bach, Chopin and Beethoven subscribed to and read their heated debates about how crappy the pianos were in those centuries.

Here's the state-of-the-art keyboard of the era: http://youtu.be/gcyPrOVYRVk

Crappy or expressive? Or crappy and expressive (note the vibrato)?

Today's $2K DPs ... is there a point in history where APs were worse than what we have today for DPs?

I'm driving an older, paid-off Toyota for a reason, Zac!

I wouldn't get too worked up, guys. The OP is the same guy who wants these to be available in North America and Europe, so he can't be THAT anti-digital:



https://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2021919/Let%27s%20get%20together%20and%20demand%20.html#Post2021919

I guess I'll chime in while I'm here. It was mentioned before, but the sheer utility value of the digital piano is worth its weight in gold. Sometimes the goal is to make live piano music accessible to listeners. It's not always for the player. Modern music and musical theatre would not be where it is today without DP's and synths. Sometimes (not always) it seems like these rants are the product of "ah, I'll just blame the instrument!"

"Today's $2K DPs ... is there a point in history where APs were worse than what we have today for DPs?"

That is nonsense and you know it. "Bridge over Troubled Water" awaits you and any other, my friend. If you and your piano are up to it . . .

I told you digital pianos suck...

I find this argument from the OP bizarre, frankly, this is the same person who claims to believe that an organ makes a passable representation of an instrument, but a digital piano doesn't, as somebody else has said, seems to be just trying to stir it up.

www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2021919/Let's%20get%20together%20and%20demand%20.html#Post2021919

So he's going to buy one of those and piano?



And how are you doing any different?

You are also attacking a messanger because you don't like the message, the fact is, we often become the person we despise or ridicule!




Why?
You deny that the fact that a large majority of people who, I imagine, know what a piano sounds like have no bearing whatsoever on the facts. OK, you can deny it but the truth is still out there but you don't buy junk, it's only everybody else?

You seemed to ignore the rest of my post where significant global educational organisations see fit to use them, I notice.

Are they all the equal of MTV?

What I am saying is that a digital piano is most certainly not "junk", and yes, that is proven by the number of sales. If they were junk everybody would avoid them.

Doubtless there are those who will think that this proves the OP claim that anybody playing a digital piano will never be good enough to really test it?
And doubtless, those defending his view agree with him?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u1PkF9anJI


I would love somebody to tell me why it doesn't sound like a piano and is a load of, "junk".

Really, indefensible, vacuous and wildy inaccurate comment. How can anybody defend such a remark?

Could it possibly be that some acoustic dinosours need to update their (psychological) model?

Of course, I agree with the post that said nobody is claiming digitals are better than a well maintained, and extremly expensive, acoustic grand.

But "junk" they ain't, pure and simple.

Well said, that is one of the most important missions of marketing.

I don't really think marketing plays a big role in people's feelings about acoustic pianos. Acoustics are a known quantity, and haven't changed substantially in a hundred years. The reason digital piano manufacturers use highly persuasive marketing is because they are trying to get closer to replicating the experience of a real piano. So every new advancement toward that end tends to be presented as a glorious advancement. The fact that DPs are still quite a way off the experience of an acoustic is immaterial to them. They are pushing the things that do get them closer to their goal, rather than mentioning the limitations that keep them away from their goal. Anybody who's played a nice acoustic knows what they are about. DPs are playing catch-up, hence the marketing hyperbole.

yes, I deny fact that masses opinions count.
People are being fooled all the time and the bigger the group the easier is to accomplish this.

BTW, calling digital pianos "junk" by OP was most likely figure of speech to make his point. Don't take it literally. I have two of those expensive "junk" keyboards at my "junkyard" studio and I enjoy them from time to time. The point is even the cheapest acoustic beats any digital piano sounds and feel wise.
I prefer even slightly out of tune acoustic then top of the line digital piano, but there is a time and place for both of course.

All true and false. One personal argument: in my childhood I had a Förster baby grand in parents house to play on, and while it was a highly appreciated instrument in the vicinity, I have got tenosynovitis from practising on it - a lifelong condition. Without the aid of some soft and very consistent digital keyboard I doubt I cold have restart with 50 ys. again. (My vintage acoustic has a very light action, a special thing too.)

Hype or not - digital is a bless for me.

Many digital SW pianos are ahead of DPs, by a large margin sound wise some even of high-end cabinet instruments. There is no technological reason that this gap will not be filled within 1-2 Ys. with as leap. (We see already DPs with 1 GB builtIn samples; NUMA Concert) Modelling is just a newborn technology. Keyboards are mechanical constructs and can be reused even refined in digital. All prereqisites are already there for a steep improvement.

The whole debates are de-ja-vue, all resembling to the debates about DP ( = Digital Photography) for a decade or so. I don't want to spend much idle time with these questions (unless they are contributing to improvements). The result is today nobody is buying a digital camera anymore (just a camera - which is digital.)

Just wait for a decade or so. I am not willing to waste my precious time by fighting or defending myths - futile.