Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Roland HP605 vs LX706: does the HP605 piano sound better?

Hi, everyone.

This is my first post and hopefully I'm not annoying everyone in some way by starting a thread discussing this topic as I'm not sure if it's a dead horse I'm beating or anything. I apologize, if so.

I bought an LX706 just today (has yet to be delivered) and was looking for some opinions on the two models in comparison, as well as opinions on the default piano sounds.

It took me hours to decide on the LX706 because the default piano sound on the HP605 sounded better to my ears, but everything else aside from the weight screamed LX706. I'd like to know if anyone has had this experience comparing the two models or if you all think I'm just nuts.

According to the marketing, which is always a totally reliable source of information (:D), the LX706 should undoubtedly be the superior model, but I found it sounding more distant and less clear than the default Concert Grand piano sound from the HP605. I also felt the lows were noticeably more convincing than in the LX706. This was true while listening through both the speakers and headphones.

Can anyone speak to this? Otherwise, can anyone recommend any piano settings for the LX706 that might approximate the sound of the HP605 or be an improvement over default, in general?

Thank you in advance.

Hello,

I was in the situation you are in, with a slight difference that I had an hp605 and switched blindly to LX708 because of how much I loved my HP605.

The same feeling that you had I had it at the beginning as well, and it certainly looks like they tweaked it a bit, and you might want to change the default sound, because personally I cannot go back to it.

My proposal would be as it follows:
- switch to European Grand V2 and go to piano designer
- change the C4# character to +2
- open lid up to 5 instead of 4
- change soundboard to 5
- add hammer sound to +1
- duplex scale +4
- save settings and go to ambience and select Studio depth 7 or Lounge depth 8

Let me know what you think after you receive it for me, the new range of pianos definitely improved my playing, and the new action is a bliss, I can now experience what it feels like to be able to control dynamics as my mind wants. The European V2 has a huge dynamic range.

PS: watch out for your software version when you receive the piano, since some updates came out for lx705-706 to enhance speaker sound. I think the latest is 1.06, you can check yours by going to settings and switch until you reach version.

Wow, tudor33sud, that is excellent information. I'm excited to try out those settings tweaks. I'll let you know what I think when i get it, hopefully Saturday. Thank you!

Yeah, I had to change the settings a lot to make piano sound really good. And it is really strange that the default sounds is worse, because people in piano shops listen only to default sounds usually.
By the way, I saw Bonner's "CA78vsCLP675vsLX-706" comparison on youtube, and all the pianos sounded good, although the guys said he used only default sound settings. Looks like ther could make post-recording changes.

Would you mind sharing your current setting that you enjoy the most ?

So, I bit the bullet and bought an LX706. Everything about is wonderful... except for the native piano sounds. They seem to have a "distant" character to them, perhaps "muffled". It's hard to describe, but they don't seem to envelope you as much as the HP605's native piano sounds no matter how much I experiment with the Piano Designer settings. Headphones or speakers, it doesn't seem to matter, though it's worse with the speakers. All the other sounds are stellar, though, so at least there's that.

I have yet to upgrade the firmware. I tried, but I guess it doesn't like my USB drive because it says "No external media found" no matter the format (NTFS or FAT).

Anyone have any other suggestions on improving sound quality, or can recommend a USB drive model that will work?

Thanks!

Maybe you can give us more details about what USB drive are you using?

Cheers!

Sure, it's this guy: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B013CCTJKE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

(64GB Samsung)

Anecdotally, I just played some music through the LX706's speakers over Bluetooth and it sounded amazing. Clearly, the speakers haven't been optimized for this model. They probably have the audio configured for the LX708 and never changed anything for the LX706 as someone suggested in another thread. Shame! I hope it's better after the firmware upgrade if I can ever get it to work.

Sometimes you just have to adapt to a new thing. It's not uncommon that new things doesn't feel right on first sight.

Have you tried connecting other device such as your phone via USB to make sure the USB port is working?


If that's not the case, try to borrow the USB drive from your neighbor or friends to make sure and prevent you to buy too many of them in case it doesn't work


when I encountered problem with USB drive, Kawai guy recommend me to use smaller capacity USB drive (under 8gb). I am not sure if it works with Roland

Hi,

I was at a piano store and got to try out the LX706 and it sat right ned to a yamaha clp-686. I have to say that the LX706 really sounded like the sound is coming from the back of the piano or from a distance and this got really obvious when compared to the CLP-685.

Did this get a fix with FW or could ju fix it with some tweaking?

Also is this also present on the 708 for those who have tried both? Im mainly looking at the 708 so I'm really anxious to know.

There have been a few posts (here and there) describing the piano sound (on the 706 at least) as ‘distant’. I doubt dealers will be applying firmware updates to their pianos in the showroom, so... in the same spirit of Boboulus...

I am also keen to know whether, having applied the firmware update (on which two speaker settings are enabled - ‘dynamic’ and ‘natural’), does this ‘dynamic’ speaker setting change anything, or does your LX706 still sound distant?

This might help prospective buyers in knowing whether this has been improved with the FW update, or whether this remains to be the characteristic sound of the LX706.

I have an LX705, and I do recall that I found it sounded clearer (to me) than the 706 in the showroom. FWIW, the speakers are arranged differently and there are some down-firing speakers on the 706 under the keybed... wheras on the 705, they fire towards the player (albeit from the speaker box on the piano stand).