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Hello CyberGene,



I believe one reason for not making updates for the display-less models publicly available is because those models do not feature USB to Device functionality. Therefore, updating would need to be done via the rather less convenient method of sending a MIDI file to the instrument using a sequencer.

Kind regards,
James
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Thanks James, that's what I needed to know. I don't care if it's cumbersome, I only needed to know they are capable of updates in case there's the need for that.

I'd definitely buy the CA98 again. For me, the favorites are persisted properly, so when the piano starts up, I just select between my custom headphone / speaker setting according to what I'm using - and that's it.
Apart from that, the action is great and so is the headphone sound. I expected a bit more from the speakers but they are fine as well.

If I had realised it, I would probably have hesitated between:

• waiting for the firmware to have left the "alpha" state before buying a CA98 or
• buying a CLP-685 instead.

Now that I own the CA98, I can live for a limited time with the bugs and the less than optimal ergonomy, but the fact that I'm not sure that they will be corrected in a near future worries me (the original firmware is dated from October 2017, i.e. already 4 months).

I haven’t seen Kawai keeping a software bug unaddressed. I understand your frustration guys but rest assured Kawai will fix those.

I'm really really happy with my CA78. I figured out what I was doing wrong with the the favorite settings which now work fine. The only thing bugging me is the fact that whenever I tweak things in the virtual technician and 'Store' those settings, I lose them if I turn the piano off and have to redo them each time. I do very little tweaking in the 'piano' setting options so it's not such a problem there. It would be nice to see an update that fixed that in the future along with the things Paf mentioned.

I haven't noticed a problem with the GUI restarting or crashing when using the headphones.

If I had one complaint, and its minor, is that playing through the speakers at full volume is quiter than what I expected/liked. But through the my Sennheiser RS 175 open backed headphones the sound is fantastic. Overall I am really pleased with the purchase and don't regret it for a minute.

Hello ADIRL,



That's good to hear - thank you for your positive feedback.



I'm glad to read that the Favourites function is working correctly after all.



May I ask you to confirm the procedure that you are following to adjust VT settings and store them, please?
Also, is this using 'Pianist' mode or 'Sound' mode?

Kind regards,
James
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Sorry James but sometimes I find you´re not clear enough.
With regards to the bold text in the quote, does it matter?
Are Pianist Mode custom settings capable of being used as default (user) sound, or not?
Is this function (saving settings as default sound) working properly in Sound Mode, and every user claiming it to be faulty is wrong, or not?
Does GUI freeze when plugin in headphones, or not?
Is there any battery requirement involved in this much, as suggested by some users, or not?

Thanks in advance for your clear reply.

All a bit odd.

You don't need many people holding off on buying a £3000 piano to make it worthwhile to get some more developers involved in fixing the bugs.

Have to say, like others, I do find this kind of thing off-putting. It speaks to general standards. Beta testing really just needs proper process.

That clearly hasn't happened here. So really Kawai should get their skates on and treat these kind of threads like gold dust, because people are actually telling them exactly what they need to fix to polish up their product and make it more saleable.

Maybe folk could chip in with both the bugs and what they would suggest as the fix, as well as suggested extra features, on this thread?

A comprehensive crowdsourced list might speed up the process and help Kawai James to at least forward on to those people at Kawai who can actually get actioned.

What is obvious to people on here might not be to some developer in Korea who most likely doesn't even play the piano!

I could be wrong but I believe storing certain settings to survive power down requires a USB stick rather than them being stored internally. On my CA97 I think this is the case anyway.

You must be thinking of something else. With the CA97, I have never encountered any setting that wouldn't survive a power down (if the "Store" option was properly selected to actually store it in internal memory in the first place), that instead you would have to store on a USB stick.
Now, if you want to do a factory reset, that's a different thing. Such a reset will of course reset all settings, so you first have to store them on a USB stick.

Right, or if you want to export and share those settings woth other Kawai users, in a propietary format. But never to just store them into registrations!

I'll test again in both modes later on today James and let you know what happens.

Plus I made a mistake on what headphones I use. The RS 175 are my TV phones!
For the piano I use Sennheiser HD 598's which were highly recommended by various people here.

Hello mabraman,



Sorry about that. I will try to make amends with this post.



Yes, I believe it does.

As you may be aware, Pianist mode and Sound mode utilise separate sound engines, with independent Virtual Technician settings (i.e. VT changes made in Pianist mode do not carry over to Sound mode and vice versa). The reason for my asking that question was to ascertain whether ADIRL was changing Virtual Technician settings in Pianist mode, Sound mode, or both.

Now, I had a chance to double-check a few functions on a CA78 (running the latest v1.0.2 firmware) earlier in order to respond to your other queries. Please note, these are based on my personal experiences playing the CA78 and should not be considered as an official response from Kawai. If Kawai customers are experiencing any issues with their instrument, they should contact their dealer and/or Kawai distributor in their country for assistance. Using the forum to report "bugs" is not recommended, and can be misleading to other visitors - especially if the "bug" is actually caused by user error, or a misunderstanding of how the function is intended to work.

Anyway, with that said, please allow me to respond to your queries.



In Pianist mode, I entered the Virtual Technician menu, maximised all the parameters, then selected 'Store to Sound'. Then I turned the instrument off and on again, entered the Virtual Technician menu, and saw that all of the parameters were maximised. I'm therefore confident that the Virtual Techician's 'Store to Sound' function is working as intended in Pianist mode.

Note however, that the Rendering Character (Classic, Romantic, Jazz, etc.), Resonance Depth (1~10), and Ambience (Type/Depth) settings are *not* stored, because they are outside of the Virtual Technician menu. In order to store those settings, the 'Store to Favourites' function at the bottom of the main menu should be used.



In Sound mode I tried the same operation: enter Virtual Technician Menu, maximise all the parameters, then select 'Store to Sound'. Upon powering the instrument off and on, then returning to the Virtual Technician menu, all the parameters were still maximised. I'm therefore confident that the Virtual Technician's 'Store to Sound' function is working as intended in Sound mode. It's important to note that in Sound mode, Virtual Technician settings are stored independently for each sound, so changes made (and stored) to the 'SK-EX Concert Grand' sound will not affect the 'SK-5 Grand Piano' sound.

Also note that - as with Pianist mode - the Reverb (Type/Depth) and Effects (Type/Depth) settings, along with addition options such as Dual/Split/4Hands and associated settings are *not* stored, because they are outside of the Virtual Technician menu. In order to store those settings, the 'Store to Favourites' function at the bottom of the main menu should be used.

So to summarise this point: in my experience, the Virtual Technician's 'Store to Sound' function works correctly in both Pianist mode and Sound mode. I hope this is clear.



I connected my earbuds to the 1/8" jack 10 times, and then a set of headphones to the 1/4" jack another 10 times. I did not experience any GUI freeze.



I don't believe so. Kawai DPs have used non-volatile memory to hold user settings and recordings etc. for many years.

I know that you didn't specifically raise this query, however I also tested Bluetooth Audio with the CA78 (using a pair of headphones), by pairing the instrument with my iPad Air (1st gen, latest iOS v11.2.5). Audio playback was flawless, using AudioStretch to scrub through a few MP3s, and the YouTube app watching a few videos. Just to make sure, I also tried pairing my old Android phone (Samsung S4 Mini I9195, running LineageOS 14.1-20180126), and was able to playback some MP3s stored on the device (through the headphones connected to the CA78), again with no discernible audio issues.

I hope this answers your queries, and clarifies that the functions I tested worked correctly.

Again, if Kawai customers are experiencing any issues with their instrument, they should always seek assistance through the official channels first. I can appreciate that at 8pm on a Saturday evening, if something's not working as expected, it's far more satisfying to post on a forum than wait until Monday morning to give tech. support a call. However, using the forum to report "bugs" is not recommended, and can be misleading to other visitors - especially if the "bug" is actually caused by user error, or a misunderstanding of how the function is intended to work.

Once again, I hope this is clear.

Kind regards,
James
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Thanks to everyone and please excuse me for using this thread.
At the end I've resolved to buy a CA98. I'm going to place the order to a local dealer today.
I'll let you know when it comes!

Clear as water to me, James, thank you very much for taking your time to answer each question.

Thank you James,

Your explanation helped clarify things.

I went ahead and changed the voicing of certain keys in VT, along with making various other changes, in sound mode, stored it and then turned off the piano. When I turned it back on the settings that I had changed were still changed . The same thing happened in the 'pianist' mode.

I don't know what I was doing wrong in the first place but I'm happy that everything is working as it should.

I regret making the post complaining about the settings in the first place when the only explanation can be is that I was the one making the error!

I've been practicing all morning and really enjoying the sound and feel of this piano.

Thanks to James for his efforts.

Everything which is described as "bugs" in this forum has been reported a month ago to Kawai Europe (at least), directly and using their own forum. Kawai would have had enough time to explain to the users what they do wrong and how the functions work, or to give a rough timeline for correcting them if they acknowledge them as errors.

For example, I still do not understand if the problems are common to all users, or dependent on the hardware version of the piano, or on how stupid the user is. What is certain, is that they do not occur on one CAx8/NV10 only. Severall users complaint that the favorites do not work. The GUI crash on plugging headphones in has been observed by several users, in some cases even systematically. Maybe those problems affect only the first production batch?

Therefore, it should not be a surprise for Kawai that the questions are brought into public forums by users beginning to desperate.

Regards
Patrick

PS1: I have no problems with the "store to sound" function of the VT. I don't understand why these settings cannot be saved to favorites, but I think it is a feature, not a bug.

PS2: A new bug on my side: after "starting with favorites" (the only way favorites works on my CA98), the "saved to sound" VT settings are only restored after I touch "Pianist" or "Sound". Not as big a deal as the favorites, but also something I would describe as annoying.

Hello paf,

My apologies for this delayed response.

If you are experiencing any issues with your Kawai instrument, I would recommend contacting your dealer and/or Kawai distributor directly (email or phone). As you are based in Switzerland, I believe Kawai Europe will be happy to answer any queries you have.

With regards to your queries:



Please refer to page 80 of the CA98/CA78 owner's manual for list of settings that can be stored to Favourites memories, which includes all available Virtual Technician parameters. I checked the Favourites function the other day using different sound and Virtual Technician parameters in both Pianist and Sound modes and everything seemed to work correctly.



I believe this is the correct behaviour. The "Save to Sound" VT settings are stored independently of Favourites. If you exit Favourites mode to enter Sound mode, the previously defined Sound mode settings will be recalled.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,
James
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Hello ADIRL,

Thank you for your reply.



That's good to hear, happy to help.



Yes, me too!

Enjoy your new piano!

Cheers,
James
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