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Thanks for posting this. It's always interesting to see what truly skilled and, shall I say, "renowned" artists think of the latest and greatest in the field of digital pianos. Having said that, I don't think Ms. Dinnerstein has said anything revelatory. It's sort of to be expected that N2 > CA-95 > Privia PX-350. And we all know that tastes in sound of a DP are as varied as people themselves.

The only thing worth mentioning (imo) is that she considers the N2 superior to N3.

Sorry but that is not my understanding about the CA95,
it is written "She was also unimpressed with the feel of the instrument."

for me, she seems to be not convinced about the "keyboard feeling"..
while she says good things about the "keyboard feeling" of the casio
Do I misunderstand ?

Well, it seems she likes the feel of the Casio keys (good weighting), but not so much the sound (though good for the low price).

She dislikes the Kawai CA95 sound (brittle & nasal) and she doesn't like the keyboard feel either - she doesn't specify why, though.

She doesn't like the Roland (SN) sound much - 'nice but 2-dimensional', but does not mention the (PHAIII) keyboard feel at all.

She seems to think Yamaha GH3 action is too heavy (Clavinovas), but really likes both the sound and feel of the Avante Grands - especially N2.

She has special needs and viewpoints than the broad mass of customer. She has lifelong been playing acoustic concert grands, probably even mostly with by her favoured actions, so her opinion should be regarded as very special and subjective too, despite her highest standing of pianistic eminence. She compared just to her expectation of that background and articulated her first impressions. While very valuable, it is very possible, that for the primary use of a DP and for another person just other preferences are relevant. (Lesser playing skill, older people, beginner, the very young, other genres or just the broader mass of the enthusiasts...) Comes to mind a weight lifting analogy:
No use for me to start exercising with the setting of the world champion (which I cannot lift even half an inch), I have to go with much lighter weights to get some benefits at all.

She probably didn't delved into internal technical details either. I get it with the casio action: it has all but a heavy touch, so when she found the keys weighted on the heavy site, maybe just could have felt only due the relatively (measured to the DPs, but objectively to measure) shorter keys (from the front of the keys to their pivot point, without the geometrical black key pivot shift to the back) - combined with her professional art of playing (using perhaps more the back part of the keys than a beginner).

Too bad she didn't play a Roland V-Grand Piano with alive, responsive and organic modeled piano sound next to the N2 instead of the old RG models. That would have been an interesting comparison.

Classical concert pianists, when (if) they look at digitals, have one thing in mind: as a practice instrument to get the notes fluent under their fingers, which they can use late at night without disturbing anybody: not just neighbors, but also their own family - listening to even the greatest pianist repeating a 3-measure passage ad infinitum at very slow tempo would drive even their nearest and dearest (or their most ardent fans) up the wall. Quite unlike what jazz pianists do when they practice.

I had a long chat with a well-known concert pianist a few weeks ago, during which he enthused about his AvantGrand (not to mention his six acoustic pianos, most of them old and reconditioned ). However, when I asked him what he used it for, he said that it was the one (and only) piano he could use after 10pm, and that was when he did his most productive practice, learning new pieces and getting them fluent under his fingers. And that also saved a lot of wear and tear on his concert grand, which he then used (during more social hours) to refine his interpretation. An acoustic that gets thumped hard repetitively for several hours a day requires a lot of maintenance........

When I told him I used a Roland V-Piano at home, he'd obviously never heard of it. And that's the other problem with Roland making inroads into the very conservative classical community - I know, I was one of them, until 2010 . Yamaha has widespread respect among classical musicians; to a lesser extent, Kawai also. Even die-hard acoustic classical fanatics can be persuaded to at least try out a Yamaha or Kawai digital. But Roland? (who make stage synthesizers and electronic drums for rock bands??) Roland was the last manufacturer (after Casio, and along with Nord, Kurzweil and Korg) whose digitals I looked at when shopping for my DP three years ago, and that was only because I couldn't find a Yamaha or Kawai that I could live with long-term.

Almost all my classical musician/enthusiast friends and acquaintances have played on Yamaha DPs at one time or another, and all thought that if they had to play on a digital, it had to be a Yamaha. It took a lot of persuasion to get them to at least try out my V: its looks was off-putting enough, let alone the name. But all were convinced - once they'd put it through its paces.

I think that even the V-Piano Grand, which actually looks somewhat like an acoustic, would struggle to gain acceptance among the classical fraternity when put alongside the AG, with the familiar Yamaha logo, and the 'grand piano action'. My situation is different to that of most classical pianists looking for a digital: I'm not a beginner; I don't just want a 'practice' piano - I want an acoustic replacement; I don't have regular access to an acoustic, but I want to keep learning more and more advanced pieces, which my instrument must be able to cope with and give me everything I want in terms of responsiveness - I need to be able to be able to do everything interpretatively on it: nothing worse than to spend a year learning a classical masterpiece, only to be disillusioned when you find you can't get a satisfying experience out of your piano.......

Dude's dead, we can't know what he might or might not like. It's hard for me not to see this as a passive aggressive argument from authority, like AP players need the OK to go get themselves a DP or something.


I really don't think this is all that true yet.


Yes, no tuning needed, whatever. I know it's kind of important, but I get tired of people pointing it out like the DP designers had to go out of their way to accomplish this - it's an inherent feature and goes with the digital territory.


This is the key use IMO.


Highly debatable. I'm always shocked when anyone makes this sweeping statement, particularly so experienced AP players. Most APs, in whatever condition, are much more responsive and "alive" than almost any DP. And if you want to master the AP, even a top-end DP is not a 100% substitute.


Funneling more money into marketing than product development often pays off handsomely.


State of the art sound reproduction circa 1990.


Better listeners please. It's kind of ironic that professional AP players often make quite poor DP reviewers. Sure, the skill sets overlap, but they aren't equivalent.

Well said, every single comment I can agree with.

Still, I think she was genuinely expressing her own unbiased impressions. But a Newspaper editor has many other ways to produce such not quite well founded and not very unpartial reviews: pre-selecting the reviewer herself (by knowing her views and biases in advance); or you can let make 3 reviews and selecting the most appropriate from them afterwards, etc.

This kind of presence is the most effective promotion channel, it wan't be unused. The problem is - as with ads in general - these are just for dummies (in that special topic), who are buying after such information instead of building real understanding. I am afraid, they are the majority of buyers.

I would like to see another three or four classical pianists making reviews of the same pianos. But without knowing the specs previously. And then we would have more material. I doubt kawai have a bad action. Ok, Yamaha make good digital pianos, but come on, only the AvantGrand is a heck of digital piano on that list.

I would love to be able to follow the money all the way back on these kinds of articles.

Well, it is pretty easy to imagine this one. All of the Murdoch properties are hopelessly corrupt. The WSJ is Fox News for the business community.

Arrant nonsense.

Why is it I don`t have such problems with my DP? I must be missing out on something here . . .Or the left part o` my brain`s not working right . . .or vice versa

Or both?

Sorry, that was a low blow...had to get you back for that warranty nonsense in the other thread.

April fools?

If not, it's so untrue it's nonsensical. The WSJ is one of the most respected newspapers in the world--if not the most--and has been for the entire lifetime of everyone reading this.

I was going to skip responding to this since I own an N2 and have been very adamant how much I like owning it but I love a good conspiracy theory.

So a famous classical pianist likes the AG so it must be some kind of payola scheme? Show me the proof. Maybe the Casio was her favorite before she got a hefty payout from Yamaha.

Nobody stated the WSJ is not one of the most respected newspapers. But the moral is at least for me (corroborated by this), that You should not restrict yourself to newspapers, You should go deeper for reality.

I am living in small country, and what I could read about such a distant country was to say the least very superficial. (I count myself to the politically neutral outsider).
If the rest of the geographical world or other themes are presented in such depth, the most you can gain out of the "most respected newspaper" is to learn the common sense which governs the world but to a much lesser degree the world itself...

I think we've reached the point where we have to assume we are being marketed to 24/7 via every possible means. Innocence, coincidence, and unbiased opinions are largely things of the past, particularly if money making products are even peripherally involved. The system is being gamed so hard that the foundations of trust are breaking down.

We don't even have to think in conspiracy categories to get to the same conclusion (a bias towards biased reviews). Prestiged media will always have a tendency to favor best selling market leader products. Have to. To let products of the biggest companies come second would mean turning the market (their favorite playground) upside-down.