Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards About to purchase CGP700, other suggestions?

I'm about to pull the trigger on the Casio CGP700 from AZ Piano Wholesale. Wanted to get some other opinions since I know next to nothing about pianos or music in general. Here's my situation.
- Buying for my wife and I to learn on (I have no music experience, my wife had 2 years of Violin in high school) as well as my kids who are 4 and 5. I can basically play a poor mans version of fur elise (right hand only lol) and the tune from Beverly Hills Cop .
- Will not be traveling with it nor do I want to buy separate amp/speakers.
- I'm a techie so in addition to learning sheet music via an Alfred book or other, watching the Lypur tutorials on youtube, I'll be connecting it to an ipad for some of the piano games/apps available (Synthesia?)
- Want to spend less than $1000, the lower the better but want a full size weighted key model to learn on.

Any other recommendations? I considered a Yamaha DGX650 and Kawai ES100 but for my needs, price, and features it seems this newer model Casio would be a better fit.

Also is the included single sustain pedal enough or should I get the 3 pedal setup right away? I figured single for now as I probably wouldn't need the others for a while if at all.

Finally for an adult beginner would you recommend the Alfred books? I do really like the Lypur videos so far (on Lesson 5 but will restart when the piano comes).

It seems like a good choice. PianoManChuck has an enthusiastic video on YouTube.

Have fun playing !

I have a Casio PX160 for about three months and got a CGP700 last month. I have to say that I am not totally satisfied with CGP700, it is certainly not the step-up as I expected. I would recommend a PX160 instead, maybe with a stand. Or you can get other Privia, such as PX760 or PX780. I am a beginner myself.

The biggest point is the sound. Maybe I got used to the PX160. The CGP700 is not powered by the same AIR sound engine, and it feels not as good. The extra speakers definitely makes the lower-end sound fuller. However, there are a few keys (C3/D3) have extra vibration, makes it kind of odd comparing to the keys in both ends around these a few keys.

I originally thought the line-in function of it will be fun with other software piano. But it is somewhat odd. It is great to take in sounds from my phones. But it has some humming with the laptop headphone jack in the volume more than a half. I switch to the line-out from a Behringer Xenyx QX1202USB mixer (connect to the laptop through USB), and the humming becomes smaller, but still quite noticeable for volume in the 70% or up. So it is a no-go for the software piano such as Pianoteq or NI kotect. It actually perform worse than my 30-year-old Technic steoreo receiver with a cheap Polk monitor 35 book-shelf speakers.

I am a beginner, so I did not use much of the Rythm/Record/Accompanment function and cannot comment on it.

I am actually trying to sell the CGP700 and probably I will keep the PX160.

Also, if you are in USA. It might be worthewhile to take a trip to a Guitar Center to try both on hand.

Buying a PX-160 instead of the CGP-700 involves trade-offs:

. . . the speakers and amps aren't as good;

. . . you lose auto-accompaniment, auto-chording, audio recording, etc.

. . . you don't have a touch-sensitive, color interface (which can be
. . . quite useful when you start using advanced features, or digging into
. . . the menus).

The PX-160 isn't bad, but it's closer to a "basic piano".

One of the reasons I got a PX-350 (rather than a PX-150) is that I wanted to play with those "advanced accompaniment features". In practice (over two years, now), I've hardly used them. I _have_ used some of the extended "General MIDI" tones missing from the PX-150 -- it's very handy to have those.

I solved the problem of "inadequate amps and speakers" on the PX-350 by spending considerable money on a clean-sounding, powerful PA speaker. The CGP-700 might save you from doing that, and cluttering your living room.

Your fingers may be inadequate to detect any differences (they have identical actions), but you should listen to both models if you can. If the CGP-700 sounds better to you, I'd suggest buying it.

Either DP will do everything you need, to help the four of you learn to play.