Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards How soon did you upgrade your first piano?

It's not the piano that's holding me back really. It's my adulting skills. I played piano when I was a wee Roadkill and I know I want to continue playing piano, so I'm trying to reduce my commitment to other things in life so I can free up the time I need for full commitment. Hopefully, I'll be taking lessons by the end of the summer this year. *fingers crossed*

Also, I'd love to have an upright acoustic which is what I had when I was a kid. Alas, I live in a rental and not sure where I'll end up in a couple of years.

The "NWX" action of the P515 (and Clavinova CLP645) is a huge improvement over the graded hammer action of the P125, DGX660, etc. Do give it a go if possible and see what you think. One other improvement I appreciate on the P515 is the synthetic ivory finish on the white keys. It's a completely different feel to the smooth plastic keys of the DGX and not nearly as slippery.

JoeT, Kawai ES110 is one of my contenders and if it lasts me a year (or hopefully two) until I feel the need to upgrade, I'd think that'd be a worthwhile investment.



Looking over this thread and many others, it seems most beginners seem to pick up on tones pretty fast enough. Hopefully I'll be just tone-deaf enough to make my first purchase last.

Just wanted to add an observation:

I've only played my new piano for half an hour so far, but one thing that jumps out at me is how dramatically more responsive than my DGX it is in terms of being able to play with different dynamics. On the DGX I could just about manage "loud" and "soft", but that's as far as it went. My current practice piece has lots of different dynamics marked and now with a slight alteration in key pressure I can easily get different-sounding "f" and "mf" passages, or "p" and "pp". That's a degree of control I simply didn't have with my older keyboard!

I'm afraid to "accidentally" play something out of my budget and "accidentally" pull the trigger.

But on serious note, I've heard a lot of good things about CLP645 and P515 so I'll definitely give them a try. Hoping the store has a decent selection.

Started out with a Kawai ES8, as an older adult complete beginner. My lessons were on a Yamaha acoustic upright, so it was my goal to get an acoustic in 2 years time if learnng piano was really something I enjoyed, and not just an idea that had persisted over the years. Lasted a year, went shopping and bought Yamaha U3H (1981), which I always play if I don't need to play silently.. kept the ES8 for head phone playing.
What I learnt from ES8 is that after a settling in period of trying out different piano and other instrument sounds, the default piano sound is best and I just leave it set at that. If I was buying a DP now, having had that experience I would get something with bigger speakers, or hook it up to decent speakers.
I love the Yamaha... feeling the music under my fingers, the acoustic sound. I don't have any plans to upgrade from here.

The ES110 has a different action than the ES100. So it might last much longer.


Just to clarify: On purchase, I considered the built-in tone not as important, because I thought I'm going to use MIDI and computers for tone generation. The reality of daily piano practice turned out differently, so the built-in tone became much more important. Luckily the Kawai ES100/ES110 has a very good built-in tone, so I didn't make a mistake.

I selected the ES100 over different models in the market back in 2014, because it was the only remaining entry-level piano offering native MIDI ports, which I still find highly useful (I can directly connect it to my P-515 for example, which isn't really possible using USB).

I started with a Roland FP-30. After using it a lot (and realizing I was actually serious about and having fun learning the piano), I stumbled across a Yamaha NU1x in a local showroom: I purchased it on the spot: it was about 9 months after the Roland

Kept my first digital piano p155, for 8 years, then bought p515.

Acoustic piano? About 35 years LOL. I had my first Wurlitzer console piano from the mid-70’s until about 2011 when I bought a Pramberger baby grand.

I played a Rhodes starting in the late 70’s and upgraded every 4-5 years until I stopped playing in the early 90’s. Since getting back into it in 2008 I’ve bought 4 and sold 2.

My father bought an acoustic upright when I was 5 and I inherited when he stopped playing in the early 1990s. I never touched it. In May 2017 I bequeathed it to my youngest daughter who had learnt on in. In September 2017 I had the urge to play and bought a Casio AP470 but it only lasted 6 weeks before I felt I needed to up grade it and bought a Kawai CA67.

I now get to play the acoustic when ever I visit my daughter (approx monthly), and I have now vowed that when I have been playing for 3 years (ie September 2020) I will purchase an acoustic grand to sit alongside my CA67. I will still need to practice mostly with headphones hence keeping the CA67, but I am now firmly of the view that the sound from an acoustic is unbeatable with a digital piano

Used my first piano ever, a Roland FP30, since February 14, 2018, and bought a Yamaha Avantgrand N1X today, exactly 15 months later.

From an FP30 to an N1X ... that's quite a jump.

No less than I wanted. No more than I needed.

Outstanding!! Enjoy the N1X!!

I've studied 3 years as a teenager on a Seiler upright.

Fast forward 18 years, I've bought an NP12 just before Xmas 2018 just to see if the call I was hearing was real. It was. I then got a PX160, ES110, ES8 and returned them all, before kind of finding peace with an FP90 in Jan. I'll upgrade to a NV10 or an Aures upright before the end of the year. I cannot get my Seiler back right now as it's in a home that's currently rented (and god knows how much work it needs), but surely once the tenants go, I'll attend to it.

Whilst the FP90 is enough to cover my needs from a technical perspective, I do find a slab does not fully give me the feeling of playing a piano. Unfortunately, the imprinting given by the upright is not something I can get rid of.

Congrats on your new shiny piano! When did you figure out that you needed a better piano?

I had a YDP-181 for 2 years then upgraded to an N2.

Once upon a time, a very lonngg time ago, my first piano was a Dale Forty upright, probably very, very cheap but all my parents could afford. Then, when I was eleven it was decided that I needed a better piano, so they forked out on a 1925 Rogers upright for £200 which was a real expense, like a year's salary. Unfortunately I wasn't all that impressed with the sound, but it lasted fifty years until I go the Roland HP703 digital which, as I discovered some 15 years later, didn't really have a 'proper' piano action. Enter the Roland LX7 and I have been able to practice and more important, really improve.

So my little comment is, if upgrading will improve your playing then go for it.

Thanks! I'm going to be.


Thanks! I figured it out (although it was partly G.A.S.) about 6 months ago - 9 months into my piano journey. It has taken me 6 months to pick the right piano. I literally started thinking I would just upgrade to a VPC1 with Pianoteq. I thinking about that now.