Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards A review of the Kawai CA95

When you say far, do you mean that Germany is closer to you?
I think that TJ has the reason here, and his is a wise advice. The mere possibility of something going wrong with your CA95 in a 3rd floor with no elevator (in Prague!) is so scary...It's not about being pesimistic, here, but realistic.

Not really closer but the only shop that to me seems trustworthy enough has this model available only upon direct request, most likely when a full order is placed (though I don't have this confirmed yet). Moreover, thomann's 3-year warranty instead of the usual 2-year is a nice plus as well.

I agree that the hassle with transportation from/to Germany is annoying though.

(And for the record, the house I live in does have an elevator, it's just not big enough. And to make things worse, it's the 6th floor, not the 3rd. )

The "early" sounds are more of marketing than of real use. Almost any digital piano has a harpsichord sound coming with it, or? Having it packed in a sound group called "early" is not enough to make it sound good. If you switch after playing the standard SN piano sound (which is excellent) to the harpsichord sound, you also have to go in the functions menue and change the KeyOff and and Resonance settings to get it somehow right, what´s really a lot of work for just wanting to change the sound - and it still will not at all become a nicely one to play. It is actually one of the worst I met. There are then a variation of it, with an octave higher sounding harpsichord layered over the harpsichord sound, and something called "A dream-like sound that can sound like a piano or a harpsichord.", which has absolutely nothing to do with an "early" sound, but more with a $20 plastic baby toy from the supermarket. You will stay with one "fortepiano" sound, which is available in 2 more copies with differnt EQ setting. That´s it. Hmmm, I think you can see that I am really disappointment of this "early" marketing trick. I would wish that all sales agents who intent to do a fair-minded job to their customer would clarify this to their customers.
Nevertheless, although being much disappointed about any 'extras', I love my HP-505 for its excellent keybed and primary piano sound. If you just search for such basic digital piano functionality, then it is unbeatable.

The Roland HP-507 has two different harpsichords and as a key differentiator: four different fortepianos. I am not familiar with any other digital piano in this class that includes fortepianos.

I have played them in a store and find them very convincing for playing Haydn and even Schubert, for example. I very much wish that they were included on my HP-307.

I just received some interesting, and especially very reliable information on the 'early' sounds, and therefore have to admit that my above statement might not reflect the situation properly. I might have some problems with my ears or with the sound settings on my DP, because the harpsichord sound 'should be' a really good one as it is based on the ROLAND C-30 digital harpsichord sound. I will carefully check my settings in my HP-505 once more, especially for getting rid of that very annoying, loud 'iiuuuopp' sound which often appears upon releasing a key and which I so far did not find to be controllable by the way I touch the keys.