Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Need help to buy a digital piano around $1500!!

Nguyen may be Vietnamese, but she has said above that she lives in West Virginia The Roland would probably cost more, but with the low prices she's quoted, I thought it would be worth her while to check Roland pianos, too. If not, the Kawai seems a good buy if she's happy with the sound of the best piano and the touch of the keyboard.

I am glad that you recognized that I am Vietnamese. Yes, we do have the Roland dealer around my area. Only one is kawai and yamaha.

Sorry, we do not have Roland dealer. Only kawai and yamaha.

I just checked the Roland website:

http://www.rolandus.com/dealer_locator/

The nearest Roland dealer is in Pikeville, KY. 2 hours driving. [You probably know that already.]

I can't find the listing of Casio dealers. A Casio PX5S (no loudspeakers), with a pair of powered "studio monitor" loudspeakers and good headphones, would be within your budget.

So would a Casio PX-850 (built-in loudspeakers, with cabinet).

It's difficult to make this decision, without actually playing the keyboards.

. Charles

PS -- I own a PX-350. I've upgraded the loudspeakers, and have been using Pianoteq. I think the keyboard "feel" is pretty good. But you have more money to spend, and can probably get something better.

Charles:
I have had the Casio PX 300 at home. The sound is not good sometimes and the key board is easily slippery.

The sound and action on the 300s (x00s) is very different from the latest series x50s (350, 850, etc). and from the PX-5S. It has improved by quite a bit. If you can try out any of the new Casios, you will hear and feel what you will get in any of their models ending in 50.

Just did a Google Product Search and found it for $1899 at Zzounds, MusiciansFriend, AmericanMusical, B&H, KraftMusic, and GuitarCenter, all with either free shipping or $5 shipping. And none of them charges tax unless you reside in their State.

As a Kawai CN24 owner i would strongly recommend that in your price range. same as the CN34 without all the bells and whistles. when i was shopping around i found it was the the best action for the price range i had IMO (less then $2000CAD).
I found the sound to be really good also. No compromising on any aspect of quality i must say .

The CN34 does not show as available at those websites - so I think the $1899 reference is to the CE220.

Hello, thank you everybody for helping to my first purchase piano. I finally decide to buy CN 34. It is nearly 2000 after tax.

Congrats! Let us know how you like it when it's delivered! I'm sure you will love it

Good! I think you'll love it. There's a lot you can do with it beyond playing and practicing piano, such as recording different sounds, if you're interested in that.

Thank you, Morodience and Toddy. It will delivery this weekend. I am so excited and can't wait to touch it. :))

Congrats Nguyen!

The CN34 is a very nice piano.

Kind regards,
James
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Based on our recent trips to the local schmitt's I have to agree of all the digitals I play tested I liked the cn24 (and cn34) action the best of the digitals. They have a full line of casios there, a high end clavinova (yuk I hate all the digital stuff) a kawai ce220 and a kawai cl26, and several rolands (pr301r and others?). The ca65 wasn't bad but at that price are several of kawai's upright pianos.

I would like to try the kdp90 but I don't think anyone is stocking those locally.

At the moment I have a 1990's clavinova clp-142 and a daughter who's just turned 7 who's been playing just short of a year. So we do have some time for now.

The teacher did push for us to get an acoustic but I do like the appeal of a good digital, especially since the climate is very dry here. The piano teacher constantly has to have her steinway pianos constantly serviced and has some fairly elaborate humidifier things set up.

Thanks Bnolsen,
I have my Kawai CN 34 two weeks and I completely satisfy with my choice. That was my accident choice because my first intentionally purchase is the ES7. However, after a few trips to the nearest dealer, I saw they first had CN 34 in store and I want to give it a try. Compare to the price and all the feature that CN 34 had, it is not bad but reasonably price.
Since I just start playing piano, CN 34 satisfies functions of an acoustic piano had but the sound is much better for me. I have tried old upright pianos and one grand piano but I still like the sound of CN 34.
One thing I concern is the headphone hook. The dealer gave me the hook without mouthing crews. I want to install it but do not know what kind of crews will fix with the hook. I feel it is so strange that a Kawai give the hook without the crews because I could not find the crews anywhere. Usually, a produce will come with all the necessary things.

Nhuyen, great to hear that you are enjoying your CN34.



If the dealer delivered the CN34 to your home pre-assembled, it's possible that they misplaced the headphone hook screws.

As explained in the CN34 owner's manual, the headphone hook set consists of the hook and two 14 mm screws.



My recommendation would be to contact the dealer and ask them to send the screws included with the instrument to you.

Kind regards,
James
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Incidentally my CN24 I bought in May was also missing screws. All the screws & hardware (I assembled it myself) were sealed in bags so it was not a case of shipping damage causing a screw to be lost. In my case it was not the headphone hook screws though, it was the "backplate" screws.

Because I was not missing all of the screws of a given type I just went and bought some more matching screws since it was far easier than getting the dealer to get Kawai to send them.

The headphone hook is actually somewhat troubling. I can't hang my headphones on them because my 18 month old son will grab them. I end up putting them behind the music desk where he can't reach them.

If anyone at Kawai were to listen there are a couple design changes I'd love to see that are really minor.

The CN34 has the backplate go all the way up to the keyboard like an acoustic. The CN24 has a gap that allows you to see through.. I'm not crazy about this but I'm wondering if that has to do with speaker location and allowing the sound to escape through the backplate. This is a super cheap thing (it's just a board that needs to 4" longer), no need to restrict that to a $500 more expensive model if it is cost savings.

The second thing is I would love to be able to completely conceal all wires.. if the power plug were on the back of the keyboard in a recessed socket and/or with a 90 degree bend in the cord and the backplate went all the way back you could locate the DP in front of an outlet and there would be no visible wires even if you bent over. This would make the whole thing classier and would again prevent small children from tampering with the electrical cord.

Because I can't make this work I unplug my DP when I'm not playing and insert a safety plug in the electrical outlet.. but in all cases I've got an ugly wire hanging out under the piano.

Thank you for your suggestions Ben.

Kind regards,
James
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Hi. I think Px5s have a very good ap sound,but EP is terrible. I tried to make it better at local market but nothing good is hapend.Does somebody have a better history about that? Please somebody help me to find a solution of this problem.Is it possible tweak ep sound on PX5s??