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@Jamiecw
thank-you. That was very helpful indeed! Of the three things mentioned I think the one that would really bother me would be the unnatural decay - I'd rather have a short decay if it sounded 'honest' than an artificial-sounding long one!
The light action is probably OK because my old acoustic has a very light action (more akin to that found on things like the Roland F140) but I guess I'd need to try it which is a pain because my chances of finding one anywhere near locally are pretty slim - I had considered ordering without trying (yes, I know, risky) but it seems that would not be a good idea.
Recording problems - well, I guess I could live with that, but was aware of it from comments elsewhere on the forum.
Once again, many thanks, much appreciated!

regards
Pete.

I think the 3000 may generate some more actual purchase interest here than the 1000, as it conceivably has more to offer someone thinking about upgrading from an entry model.

Ha, my story was almost the same. Then I ended up on PianoWorld and learned about other brands, keyboard actions and VSTs.

This didn't actually lead to a much better informed purchase decision, it was more luck-based: The Kawai ES100 had just appeared on the market and made a good impression due to its 88 key sampling and native MIDI. But it could have gone wrong.

Nowadays Casio isn't the only low-budget option anymore. There are many models to chose from even in the lowest price bracket. There are now affordable slabs with wooden actions available. Most of that didn't exist five years ago.

In November 2017, I saw a keyboard on the Amazon.com landing page and suddenly, out of the blue, got the idea in my head which hadn't occurred before, that I might learn to play the piano. I think the model was a Casio CDP-100. My finger hovered over the "Buy Now" button, but then I thought, maybe I should check some reviews? Well, a few Amazon customer reviews made me think to google for keyboards which led me to reading about weighted vs non-weighted keyboards and the importance of 88 keys, so about 15 mins later, I ordered a keyboard from a third party seller on Amazon.com having never touched any keyboard before more than incidentally for a few seconds. I lucked out because the keyboard I ended up with was not the Casio, but a Roland FP30. Although, the Casio I would have gotten would have immediately shipped from an Amazon warehouse. As it turns out, the 3rd party seller that sold me the FP30 didn't ship it for almost two months until I threatened to cancel my order with them (and possibly that would have been the end of my idea of learning piano). When I at once hated the FP30 after trying it out, confusing it for

googling also cured the fault - the sound which a Pianoteq trial showed me could be fixed.

All of this before I finally discovered the PW forums about 6 weeks later. So the Internet has been a big help and in my case, did allow me to make a partially informed first buy without trying anything, but that was part research and part luck, and I'm just lucky the fault in my case could be cured with add-on software. Now of course, 16 months after that first piano purchase, I am trying to decide between the N1X and NV10, I will not make the same mistake as I did originally of not testing it out. So right now, I am waiting for the N1X to be released to local stores so I can try it in person, even though I already tried an N1 already a few months ago and so many have said the N1 and N1X feel the same - I still want to personally test it just in case

should decide to make a reappearance

As to my FP30, I've definitely gotten my money's worth from this keyboard that took me all of 15 mins to choose and order This is not to say I couldn't have gotten my money's worth out of a Casio CDP-100, but almost certainly in that case, I'd have already upgraded by now, instead of still being some weeks away from an upgrade.

Hopefully it sounds and feel better in person than the sample once more reviews are out. Have been holding up waiting for it to come, would be a disappointment passing on the deals on the es110 or fp30.

I am in the same waiting mode. If I had to choose right now, it would become a Roland FP-30, which probably works out as a good choice till I am ready to pay for better keybed action. I am tempted to acquire the Kawai vpc1, as this is now below 1300 euro (and I am okay to use vst's), but on the other hand, I am not sure how my piano playing "ambition" will evolve, so this 2 step approach might work better. Going for the new stuff, like the Casio Px-s1000, could help me to easily sell it after one or 2 years (assuming it becomes as popular as this thread :-)).

I'm of two minds on this. One is that I own the FP30 as my first piano, and it was absolutely the right thing. It allowed me to use it one year and see how my piano ambition developed. It has and now I am planning on spending 10x more on an upgrade. So I am tempted to advise you do the same except for one thing, which is that you said:

I bought the FP30, but immediately hated the sound, and then had to spend another $200 on a VST, and another $200 for a dedicated computer so I wouldn't need to constantly be connecting my laptop every time I wanted to play. Between action and the VST sound, I really feel the VPC1 is a sizable upgrade to a stock FP30, and if it really is so inexpensive, I am really torn about that. Hindsight being 20-20, if I knew then what I know now, I would have been personally better off getting a VPC1, assuming I could have gotten one at that price, than buying an FP30 which I now use as a MIDI controller for a VST.

The vpc 1 seems a lot more expensive than I thought..

But it is night and day compare to any of cheap entry level DP

Yes, and I include in the entry level DPs my current FP30. I think the combination of VPC1+VST is a significantly upgrade in both keyboard action and sound than the FP30 alone.

Thanks, that is good feedback. I already have Pianoteq 6, so adding a vcp1 seems a logic step. See for instance at Thomann, https://m.thomann.de/gb/kawai_vpc1.htm, 1299 euro. I will make a decision in April (now on a trip). Hope to find a showroom nearby, so I can try it. I already tried the fp30, and 1st impression was good, although noisy in shop, so hard to say.

Personally I would have returned the FP-30 immediately and checked other options. In my market adding 400 bucks to the FP-30 would get me into GH territory action-wise, which is a huge improvement over all those entry-level actions.

Hi JoeT,
Which one do you have in mind:
Last time you advised me to look at:
Yamaha YDP-S54. : around 1270 euro
YDP-164. : around 1150 euro
P-515. : around 1460 euro
Kawai CN27. : around 1170 euro
KAWAI ES8. : around 1330 euro
Roland FP-90. : around 1640 euro

Currently you get a new Roland FP-30 for 540 euro. So, you need to add at least 600 euro to get to a better action. Fair to say, if I step down on the latest version, like using Yamaha YDP-163, you can get this 945 euro, which is around 400 extra on Fp30

Did I miss one good step-up example?

Stepping up currently starts at YDP-S52 for just below 900 €. Which is a stretch you definitely should make, if you are not hard-limited to the 500 € bracket and still have spare money to spend.


Even if you go back to the "not latest version", they are still better than what Casio has on offer or what you get for example when choosing a P-45.

Beside that the newest Arius models will come down in price, once they are widely available like the previous ones.

From what I read, the YDP-S52 comes with Yamaha’s Graded Hammer Standard key action (GHS), also available in P125 (correct me if I am wrong) , which is so far as I know in the same category as Roland FP-30. Probably better than is to choose Yamaha YDP-163, as this has the GH3 action of Yamaha, which is a step-up from that category. For 945 euro, this seems to be a really good price, because if you add a furniture stand for Roland FP-30, you end up paying around 790 euro. So, only by paying 155 euro extra, you get the GH3 action. Of course, you lose the mobility of Roland FP-30.

This is wrong. The action in the S52 from the P-255, not P-125.


It is in fact a really good "beginner's piano" for that reason, it has the action from the Clavinova CLP-525.

At this point there is or soon will be YDP-S54 and YDP-164 in the shops near you (for the lucky ones), so those could also be considered instead of the old 52 and 163.

Still cant find any information on the upgraded action on this, the Casio website is wishy washy on how this is an improvement.

I will pop into the piano shop next week for a proper go. I had a quick go a few weeks ago but a compact didn't grab my attenion in a large showroom where it was drowned out by everything else.

Demo sounds from the PX-S1000 this time

PX-S1000 sounds

From the top counting down 7-9,11-12+15-16 Sound Good.

After +300 posts on the new casio px models, hasn’t anyone yet had the opportunity to test this keyboard? At least a comparison of how it feels compared to the action on the previous px generation.