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"Long live wooden pianos, with their temperature and humidity frailty - clearly WORTH the hassles for their (ever decreasing) difference in sound. (to some)"

Have to agree when you can buy a decent sounding playable one for less than £300 in a salesroom complete with Vintage Stool . .

Are you sure about that?
I would be interested to read more about the different implementations - it would be rather complicated (not to mention expensive) to maintain spare parts for different types of the same action.

James
x

This is true.But don't forget the used market. A decent Yamaha U-series or Kawai K-series upright (new: $10,000 to $12,000 list) can last 30 or 40 years. If you buy one that's ten years old you'll get decades of use for perhaps $3000 or $4000. And it will beat the pants off of any digital at any price.

I cannot say much about your Roland, but I bought my V- Piano because of neighbours, which means that I play it exclusively with headphones. I have no problems transferring new classical pieces that I learnt from scratch on it to performing them on acoustic grands, for audiences. That is not something I could say about some small uprights - including the Yamaha that I learnt on as a child.

Of course, I would have preferred to have a good acoustic grand as my home piano instead, but the V is a lot more than a stopgap for me: it has enabled me to learn and polish pieces to performance level - it has a responsiveness to touch and articulation that far transcends sampled DPs', and doesn't have the limits to dynamics and tone that the latter have. And its action is good enough that transitioning to acoustic grands is no problem.

Incidentally, I am a serious classical pianist......

I have to admit. Listened to an online retailer who had a used full size Steinway upright (52 inch). The thing sounded obscenely good.

Agree with the no new info.

I also have to admit. I haven't played an Avantgrand or a V-piano. I'm very happy with my VPC.

Please see the next paragraph where I was talking about the used market and its issues.

Yes you can save a lot of money when you buy used but it can be - excuse my french - a crapshoot. Many pianos have not been maintained well by their previous owners, some have been utterly neglected even, music schools tend to use the used market to 'dump' old instruments which usually have been treated even worse or are simply 'worn out' from years of practice.

Chances are you end up with a prestigious instrument that was expensive and well made when it was new 20 years ago but is now even worse than an entry level piano because of years of abuse and neglect.

You either end up spending more to repair and restore your purchase or you have access to an expert that can help you judge the quality of a used purchase.

It's great when you have a company like Thomann that offer 'refurbished' used instruments with store warranty otherwise you'd have to be an expert to judge the quality of your purchase.

I don't think it's a crap shoot. Just skip over pianos in poor condition. Any piano that's been abused or neglected is off the list.

Instead, seek out one in good condition. And then have it inspected by a local PTG tech. Choose one that needs little or no repair work. There are plenty of pianos like that, at or below $4000.

Roland itself gives different names PHAIII, PHAIII Ivory Feel, PHAIII Ivory feel S, Ivory feel S (still PHAIII according to the piano seller I talked to). I haven't played all the possible implementations but some of them and not all side by side, but talking to other people they have confirmed my impression. RD700 fells a bit firmer than either fp-7f / fp-80 (each with slightly different PHAIII) and V-piano slightly firmer than RD700. However with V-piano it's difficult to compare as it's a completely different instrument and it can be just an illusion... However, the same impression is confirmed by the piano dealers I have talked to...
Maybe Jay from Roland can tell us which PHAIII are really the same and which are not interchangable...

Very lively discussion guys - good points.

There are some conveniences you lose by not having the digital, such as quiet practicing and always in tune. And I like I said, it depends how far you want to develop your playing in terms of nuance and detail that a digital cannot match an acoustic in.

I'll make a point with my musical development, though. I feel that the Yamaha Grand's poor sound stumps my musical growth even if the action is good. The opposite for the digital - made to sound like a grand, but it's not natural and the action is not real.

The upright, at least this Steinway one - has a good balance of both tone and touch that makes me develop faster musically. If I had a nice larger grand, I'm sure the trend would be even better.

A special note about the cheaper uprights - yes, it is very difficult finding a good one for under or around $5k. I searched high and low, and many of the Steinway 1098's that I played were not maintained too properly and sounded not so great. I found a very clean, well maintained one that feels great and has a very good tone. They are out there, but you have to play a couple before finding that nice one.

I think you are completely wrong. Yes, Roland uses different nomenclature "ivory feel', ivory feel s" etc but that all relates to key surface, NOT the actual hammer mechanics. I am absolutely sure that PHA-III actions, regardless of their exact name are identical in terms of the pure mechanics. Any perceived differences are due to the actions being mounted in different structures and/or due to differences in sound engine response to key pressure. I say this as a previous owner of V-Piano, RD-700GX, FP7F and HP-307.

I also believe that purely in terms of mechanics PHA-II is the same. But PHA-III allows recognition of much faster repetition due to the different sensor arrangement.

All the Roland actions are nimble and responsive. Slightly lighter than average and slightly noisier than average.

Today I had the real please of playing the Kawais top digitals. Firstly I sat on the CA15, touched it, and thought ( after year of not touching good grand, only many digitals and crappy uprights) WOW IT FEELS LIKE A GRAND! However, I didn't like the sound was coming out from the piano, but the piano was standing in the middle of the room, nowhere near any wall. I didn't liked the sound much - I mean, I was impressed how it sound compared to other digitals I have played before, and I was amazed by its reality. Open and bright bass, good middles, however, the soprans. The is good sustain, but the were just kind of... Like covered a bit with a. Blanked... Missing the light and glory of real good grand.

After I sat at the Ca95. Th positioning not well as well, but sounded much better. And the keyboard - I need to say that it was very strange - the middle ones a bit bouncy like Roland, the highs and lows more in the ca15 manner. Can it be due to the fact of playing? I don't know, this is demo instrument.

However, I need to tell you, that if CA15 would have the audio in, I would buy it and play some VST instruments on this and I would be in the piano heaven. Unfortunately, I have to buy the CA65 to use this, or go another makers. Ech, what a pity that Kawai did not included this audio option to the CA15

I think the matter of Roland keyboard actions as Essbrace says above here. Exactly! But, whether you like that action or not is another matter - it seems to divide people like Marmite or Margaret Thatcher.

In any case, Jay Roland has confirmed this by saying the differences between PHAIII and Ivory Feel-S is in the cosmetic make up or the keys, as is the difference between PHAIV Concert and PHAIV Premium. They are mechanically the same.

Roland's Ivory Feel-G is different in weight and feel, though, and is made with stage work & gigging mind.

The illusion of different feel is then entirely due to different key surface / piano structure, and, in the case of V-Piano, sound engine. And yes Ivory feel G is very different, but is also very different from the PHA alpha II of FP4 (I have read people saying Ivory feel G is lighter than Ivory feel S / PHA III, probably thinking about the action of FP4).

That wasn't actually my reasoning for buying a digital at all, although it may be yours.
I bought a digital to be as close to an acoustic as I could get it without the problems of owning an acoustic, although I do also own an old Hirsch upright.



Those are the very reasons I chose a Roland RD700NX, because it felt and sounded so like a real concert grand. Now I fully understand that others may disagree with me but, and this is the important thing, I bought it for ME and MY perceptions, not because of what others may think.
As such I am perfectly satisfied with my electric piano.

Yes, I would love a Bosendorfer 290 Imperial, just as I would love an Aston Martin and a luxurious villa in Tuscany. But for what I want, need and can afford, and those are three massive compromises from the ideal, the Roland is a piano the like of which I never thought I would be lucky enough to sit at. (My old Mazda 323 Estate car still serves adequately and my house in Dorset is fine too)

I gave a Roland LX15 a decent try for the first time today in a shop and was impressed with the action. I then tried the FP-80 hoping that it would feel pretty much the same in a much cheaper smaller form but it really didn't. I didn't try the FP-80 for long but it felt like a simpler lower quality action in comparison.

These are both PHAIII actions I believe.

There's nothing left for me to say.

Summed up beautifully.

Jay

Well said Steve.

James
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That's just an illusion, apparently...

That's just an illusion, apparently...

This one just runs and runs. Me? I've ordered a bucket of popcorn.