Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Why no "High End" Digital Pianos?

Thanks Tyrone for clearing that up.

I wonder if they'll put their new flagship action in a replacement. Maybe not a V-Piano II, but a more high-end stage piano than the current ones.

Wait, what? N3X doesn't have Bluetooth? You are serious? I didn't even consider that it wouldn't have it.

As I see it - real feel hammer action and incredibly well made samples is just half or less of what an acoustic grand piano does.

The acoustic spread of the sounds in a room you sit - that is very physical - is really hard to reproduce. I saw in this thread examples with so many speakers like it becomes surround sound, kind of. That is probably the way to go.

So we must differentiate between recorded piano and the feel of sitting by a physical grand piano.

In the end what counts is the music and the performance - and it does the job if both those are "high end". Too much focus on the physical, maybe, and not so much about the art.

You can listen to old 78 rpm records of artists/performers that elevate you - sound is crappy as anything - but the art is there. The composers work interpreted by a good performer.

I see the sound itself more like make up and appearance - it's not the art that a good performer/artist express.

It's a pretty hard-sell above the USD$5000 level when "high-end" digital pianos encounter serious competition from "low-end" acoustic pianos. Like photography a few decades ago when digital cameras were not yet competitive with film cameras; acoustic pianos still dominate the "higher-end" of the digital piano market.

Well by golly, since that market is so huge and profitable, you just need to go into business, and build that super-premium digital piano!

Maybe Koenigsegg will design it for you!?

Also - how do you build a "high-end" digital piano that solves the inherent flaws of the technology? In other words, how do you build a "high-end" digital that gives you the "sound quality" of a decent acoustic; after all that would be the point of buying a "high end" digital piano.

The only thing we know for sure is that we can use a real acoustic action; but no matter how much money you throw at the problem, what solutions can you buy that are practical solutions to the inherent flaws of sampling, modeling and speaker technology - so that the final product creates the "sound quality" of a decent acoustic?

I think the sound quality is there in samples. Was it a Roland with 12 speakers - is that surround 11.1 - don't know. The latest drum samples for Toontrack Superior Drummer - is 11.1 mikes in a room. Yesterday it was release Orchestral SDX with 11.1 as well, doing the type of percussions that orchestras do.

To the most part - it's about SPL - sound pressure level - and the quality of what that gives. It probably means a surround system - 12 channels - each having 100W or something to represent dynamics for a grand in a concert hall.

I remember the first time I was in a live concert hall listening to a Rachmaninov piano concert.

I've had better experience cranking up hifi at home - listening to that. I was more "there" in the music that way. I surely have peaks 100+ dB SPL - and is all absorbed by what I hear - nothing else exist.

I felt too detached in concert hall - even having decent seats.

So what presence does the DP system give in this sense?

How we perceive the sound from playing is giving us feelings and that is what we remember sounding good - because it's feeling good.

Decent sound, good feelings and excellent performance - that is unbeatable.

So I think it's more about the physical experience feeling "there" - than the actuall sound quality itself. We need something like 100+ dB SPL and be surrounded by it - to feel and perceive it the same way as a acoustic grand piano in a nice room.

The technology is there - pretty sure of that - but is there a market and who is prepared to pay for that extra.

I saw an ad for a sampled grand piano for computer being 400 GB or something - is that what it takes maybe. In a hardware sampler like a DP is - 2 GB seems to be considered large like in the new Nord Grand - can it do it justice. There has to be compromises.

I was into maybe getting surround phones at some time for video games. Not sure how well that works - if you get leakage between ears like being in a room with a giant grand piano?

Some phones claim doing 7.1 surround - not clue if that is working.

I think it's easier doing a full experience of sitting with a grand piano with phones if surround really works. Have not checked the latest technology up yet but will in time. Doing a bit of video and also writing music for that - I am curious if that might be a way to go.

Is there a market for this? Who knows?Do the market research and find out. Perhaps it has already been done. But I suspect the market for such is vanishingly small.

What's more, even if the price does not matter to a billionaire, there's still the cost and value comparison to an acoustic. Who would spend six figures on a digital piano when the world's finest acoustic can be had for such a sum. And the latter would bring the prestige of an established line of product that's lacking in a new "high-end" digital. In the world of ultra-high priced merchandise I think that brand prestige and similar intangibles play a big role in the buyer's mind.

This is more expensive than you might imagine ...Development might run in the millions of dollars. They'd have to sell a lot of pianos before this business would be profitable.

I don't think Roland would be the right player for this ...Nor Yamaha nor Kawai. This is a job for a specialty entrepreneur.

(By the way ... the Viper is history.)

Exactly! Thank you my brother...:-) If you want the best then a 9ft grand is what a rich person would go after not some Digital aberration - the rich have neither the space or sound constraints your average pianist will have and neither will worry about the maintenance costs - that's why there is no high end digital piano because there already is one the grand piano.

Not speaking of sampling and modeling, but there are DPs with soundboards, of course. Yamaha also has the TAs that play synthetic sound through their acoustic soundboard. Are their inherent flaws that you can think of that are still not being addressed with such implementations?

Some people might because they prefer a different decor. These two comments are entirely missing out on something which often people who are on a budget don't understand. When we (I am including all people in the 'we' here, and not only those not on a budget) buy things that are only a small portion of our disposable income, then other considerations come into play, including just "whim." On a whim, I want a hotdog with crab on it (BTW, I had this before - it was good!) On a whim, I want a piano that fits into the decor of my home.

The acoustic grand piano has a style that dates back to the Victorian era. Not everyone has a home where a piece of Victorian era furniture. In particular, some people might prefer something in a more contemporary style, such as the USD 110,000 DP below.



Those who like the above are often the sorts of people, like my wife, who pay homage at the altar of Bang and Olufsen.



Personally, I'm a much more 'functionally' oriented person than my wife (perhaps because she herself is an fine art world professional specializing in contemporary art) and if I am going to spend $40,000 on speakers, I could care less what they look like, only how they perform and what they sound like.

But my wife sells works of art to people who would be just as willing to pay $1.5M as $1M for them, just to hang on their wall. Why shouldn't people who are less budget-constrained like that, get exactly what they want, even if it is entirely aesthetically motivated?

I’m assuming there’s some heavy science behind those speakers, or are we paying for the cubist aura reminiscent of Picasso?

With due respect to my wife, I think one pays for the cubist aura reminiscent of Picasso.

She recently lost her B&O earbuds that cost more than the headphones most on here use. I now have to replace those for her.... with another B&O pair. This causes me more pain that it does buying an N1X or NV10 will. Because in my mind, it is so useless and money flushed down the toilet.

Still, I do appreciate aesthetics. Pure aesthetics such as art. I just appreciate less "industrial design" sorts of aesthetics. For example that Apple Computer and B&O try to foist on us. My wife though...

I think what threw me... is Roland's own advertising. They noted the RD 2000 has its "best action yet" or something like that. Which simply is not true. I really thought the RD 2000 was the state of the art from this maker.

Peace
Bruce in Philly

Honestly, I can't wait for the new era of digital pianos where alongside the built in speakers of the cabinet, one would be able to get bluetooth / wired speakers to mount them strategically in a room, and get the full experience of a piano sound filling up the room! I think with the current VSTs, modeled sound which can be put into physical pianos, pair that with great speakers tweaked to the sound engine, and you would have something really close, and probably much less expensive than a high quality grand.

I'm kind of surprised that you didn't know about hybrid pianos such as Yamaha N-series (AKA AvantGrand with their flagship being the N3X) and Kawai NV10. Although I wouldn't call them high-end (since you're an audiophile, I would assume you refer to what's high-end in audio), they are the "highest" end mass market digital pianos. Both Yamaha and Kawai produce acoustic pianos which is why they can also use their real grand piano actions in digital instruments. It doesn't get much higher than that, besides the fact they use actions from their baby grands and not big concert grands. But one can arguably say they have put their best technology there.

Roland can't make such an instrument because they have no experience in manufacturing acoustic pianos (and grand piano actions in particular). It's a bit odd for you to expect Roland to produce a high end piano. What I also find odd is also the fact you need this to be a stage piano. Stage pianos are used for gigging. You need to connect external speakers but although that may seem like a perfect task for an audiophile you need to remember acoustic pianos are not producing sound from two stereo points. And even if the stage piano was produced with multichannel capabilities, it is still highly doubtful that a regular customer would be able to cope with proper speaker placement. And even if he can do, that's still not how a real piano produces sound. A real piano emanates sound from the entire soundboard which is why the Yamaha N3X has a soundboard and transducers that make the soundboard produce vibrations.

With all that, I mean an acoustic piano is not an audiophile product and you can't expect that they will just give you a great keyboard with sound source that you need to hook to your tube DAC, preamps, amps and uber speakers and voila, it becomes "high-end" piano.

The RD2000 uses a PHA-50 action, which is the same as they put in the Roland LX705 console piano. However, aside from the Roland V-Piano, which as pointed out is no longer sold, the Roland LX706 and LX708 use a newer action called the "Hybrid Grand keyboard" action.

I tried the PHA-50 action side-by-side with the "Hybrid Grand keyboard" action, along with a few Steinway acoustical grands, in a piano store in December, and the latter did indeed feel better and slightly more authentic to me. This was especially noticeable on the black keys when played near the fallboard, but aside from that special case, it just felt slightly better overall.

Oh, come on Ty!
That is even worse than Bruce comparing digital pianos, to high performance cars.
I don’t think your wife would get much work, in the art world, if she was hanging art on clients walls that depreciated like digital pianos.

That Whaletone is pretty cool looking though.

The RD2000 had Roland's best action until a few months ago.