Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Is a good acoustic upright worse than a top digital Kawai CA97?

I see. Sorry if I've intruded on this exercise....but I agree with him, with the important additional point that grand pianos are clearer in voicing than uprights, in general. And that better designed and maintained pianos are less opaque than poorly designed and poorly built ones. So DPs are more similar to grand pianos than uprights.

But in general there is a greater density of sound from APs than DPs - difficult to pin down technically, but it is to do with the soundboard and the slower decay times, which I think we all acknowledge, in any case.

I've taught piano since 1998, and around 2000 I began teaching on digitals (Roland, btw). I also encouraged over the years the purchase of digitals for students to learn on as a good alternative to acoustics where budget/space/sound limitations are in place.

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A pianist can make beautiful music on any instrument. I've had to perform on some pretty bad/poorly maintained acoustic pianos, yet I get complemented on my playing. Would it been more pleasurable for me to perform on a well-maintained Steinway? Of course. Would I have been able to do more subtle nuances on a better piano? Possibly. But the point is that the instrument does not make or break the musician.

I've taught piano since 1998, and around 2000 I began teaching on digitals (Roland, btw). I also encouraged over the years the purchase of digitals for students to learn on as a good alternative to acoustics where budget/space/sound limitations are in place.

There is a point at which a piano student would benefit from upgrading to an acoustic grand piano (generally late intermediate), but there are even ways of accommodating if they cannot. Every student needs to learn how to adjust to the sound and fell of whatever instrument they are performing/competing on, and there are specific ways one can do this to prepare them.

A pianist can make beautiful music on any instrument. I've had to perform on some pretty bad/poorly maintained acoustic pianos, yet I get complemented on my playing. Would it been more pleasurable for me to perform on a well-maintained Steinway? Of course. Would I have been able to do more subtle nuances on a better piano? Possibly. But the point is that the instrument does not make or break the musician.

I've taught piano since 1998, and around 2000 I began teaching on digitals (Roland, btw). I also encouraged over the years the purchase of digitals for students to learn on as a good alternative to acoustics where budget/space/sound limitations are in place.

There is a point at which a piano student would benefit from upgrading to an acoustic grand piano (generally late intermediate), but there are even ways of accommodating if they cannot. Every student needs to learn how to adjust to the sound and fell of whatever instrument they are performing/competing on, and there are specific ways one can do this to prepare them.

A pianist can make beautiful music on any instrument. I've had to perform on some pretty bad/poorly maintained acoustic pianos, yet I get complemented on my playing. Would it been more pleasurable for me to perform on a well-maintained Steinway? Of course. Would I have been able to do more subtle nuances on a better piano? Possibly. But the point is that the instrument does not make or break the musician.

Also, Roland has been delisted recently from the Tokyo Stock Exchange : usually when it happens it means the financial assets are too unstable to maintain a consistent stock value... So let's hope the sales keep going up, for it's becoming vital to Roland now it seems.

It's tricky because I'm trying to negotiate a path between mixed points of view but for the moment I want to explore bennevis's assertion. If I can paraphrase - and apologies if this is an over-simplification or I've missed the point; digital simulations lack the harmonic richness/complexity of APs. As a consequence, component notes in an AP chord are hard to identify while those of a DP are relatively easy to identify.

I'd like to know if bennevis can, as he seems to claim, correctly identify the notes in the linked sample chord. We know of course that the respective transducers - speaker cone vs strings+sound-board - are reason enough for a significant difference bewtween DPs and APs but I'm not convinced that the harmonics issue isn't being overplayed.

Interesting point. Id like to muddy the waters somewhat by adding "Straight strung" or "overstrung". . . .because there is a difference.

This is another interesting point - straight or overstrung. And I always take a look under the lid, and don't ever remember coming across a straight, all in line, strung piano. I imagine they'd be even worse in terms of muddy voicings.

This came up either here or on some other piano chitter-chatter site recently.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/20...-piano-design-ive-fallen-in-love-with-it

The Barenboim piano is rather at the high end of the market, and of course has characteristics designed into it, which are desirable.

Sigh....

Twisting words to suit your agenda...

You're clueless....I'm done with you. Better things to do with my free time.

Jay

But despite all this, I'm still looking to get a nice digital for quiet night time practice. Kawai and Roland are high on my list of contenders.