Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Kawai announces NOVUS NV5 hybrid piano

Hey, don't forget to include the NU1X in that list as well! If we are talking about comparisons and price the NU1X is best comparison and it appears to be a few thousand less in the US. Of course the new NV5 appears to give you the gazillion features that other DP's have and the Avante Grande series does not. Along with the soundboard.

I think the much more important feature of NV5 is optical sensors on the hammers. That would truthfully measure the actual velocity of the hammers. NU1X measures velocity under the keys and that's why it's difficult to predict whether the hammers is actually hitting the rail, hence the loud note issue. That issue has since been fixed (?) or at least alleviated but I would prefer a solution with hammer sensors since that's the most natural way to measure hammer velocity: at the hammers, right That doesn't make NU1X not expressive enough or something and with the supposed fix they should be on par, however for a peace of mind the NV5 offers the better solution. Well, there's one advantage with key sensors and that's the ability to measure key-off velocity (which in the NU1X is actually more elaborate than that since it measures continuous position of the key/damper and would produce effect such as half-dampening through the keys, in addition to the more ubiquitous damper-pedal one).


Sure, as I said that's a fair point. The graded hammer weighting is also a feature that's of dubious advantage to the pianist. On the other hand it's a fixed weight that won't change dynamically, whereas with the dampers you have changing weight for each key throughout your playing. I guess one easily gets used to it, most of us have played real uprights and grands and never thought of that So, I was just hypothesizing and sorry for intruding this thread which is about a very nice new instrument. Let's move to the other one created by TS.

It’s called the NV15, navindra.

I wouldn't hold "binaural audio" as an important requirement for a digital piano or VI.

Most binaural music and piano sound systems are lousy; there is plenty of binaural audio on the internet to try for yourself. You can test drive PianoTeq's binaural system. Binaural audio production is difficult and the type of headphone and ear shape have a major impact on the binaural effect.

That said, the new Yamaha CFX binaural system is well liked. I would speculate that is due principally to excellent recording and processing vs. the "binaural audio" effect. Kawai's newest audio is well liked also.

Another case to try out several different models (with several different headphones) to decide what is best for you regarding action and sound.

James only said it would likely be a "multiple of 5." NV-20 fits that just as well as NV-15



That's kind of what I'm thinking. There are a lot of poor binaural implementations out there, and some really excellent plain stereo renderings. Seeing all the talk in the N1X thread about how pivotal binaural sampling is, i'm left wondering whether people are actually impressed with the binaural aspect of it, or if Yamaha produced a really nice patch that just happens to be binaural, but would be just as impressive non-binaurally?

Indeed, I've tried the binaural patch in Garritan CFX and it's meh. And the regular stereo classic patch is so nice through headphones. So, it's not whether it's binaural, it's just that Yamaha probably created a great patch. But you can't deny how many people (me included) share the same weird feeling of needing to check whether the sound they hear is actually coming from the headphones or they forgot the speakers on. I still do that from time to time. Which comes to prove the binaural effect is working.

Have you listened to it yourself? CFX through N1X's internal speakers are.... ok. meh. I've said before I prefer the piano sounds of the NV10 through speakers. CFX through my HD800 headphones are awesome. Headphone to headphone comparison between NV10 and N1X - for me, the N1X through headphones is clearly much better.

I assessed first-hand both speakers sound and headphone sound of the NV10 and N1X before I bought my N1X, and the binaural sound decided me. It was that much better.

I’m thinking NV20 or NV30 first. NV15 might come afterwards if Kawai wants to expand the line up.

Oh man. Time to convince my wife that we need both an upstairs piano and a downstairs piano. Seriously, this looks like a wonderful instrument. I can’t wait to try one out. Congrats James and Kawai!

A piano store in the Netherlands lists the NV-5 for € 6180. For comparison the same store sells the NU1X for € 4380 and the N1X for € 7480. See prices. So it is approximately in between. This will probably be similar in the rest of Europe.

Although it lacks binaural sound, it has an authentic damper pedal and a soundboard, which may justify the 40% price premium over the N1UX.

I do love this move from Kawai!

Finally a true competitor to the NU1X, I think that's great! I can't wait to try it out and see which one I like better.

One thing i already like is the design, i like the design without toeblocks even tough it's probably a bit more fragile, if you have kids for example. It looks great, that said.. personally i like the real acoustic cabinet from the CS11 even better, but they are both beautiful to me so no dealbreakers there. In my opinion the NV10 is the best looker out of the hybrid grands too, Kawai got the looks down, if you ask me.

I also very much appreciate the real damper system. Too early to jump to conclusions, but maybe that would make this the best digital (upright) piano if your goal is to practice playing acoustic as well as possible?

It will be interesting to try it out, of course that assumes that I ever come across a Kawai dealer that would actually stock such a thing. Not sure about the damper pedal but for me when I was comparing the CA78 to CA98 I didn't think the soundboard was worth the additional cost. Definitely not worth a 40% premium.

For me I think the big difference is that it has all of the other stuff as far as controls and voices and such along with a touch screen. The NU1X UI, if you can call it that, is spartan at best. I actually like it because all I ever do is just turn it on and play but I know for a lot of people the lack of the other options is a deal breaker. Still nice to have another hybrid upright out there. I wonder how long until the Kawai N3X competitor is released? Can you say NV15?

Good points, well worth thinking about for people who are considering a future mid-range piano purchase. In our rural state in the U.S. there isn't a single store that yet stocks the NU1X, but I've played the NU1 and I rather liked it. Obviously the NU1X would be better, and is probably worth the $6,000 USD that its selling for, but there's one drawback to it that I'm not happy about--its limited voice selection. If I'm going to keep a new digital piano for as much as eight years before upgrading, this is going to be really irritating. Assuming the NV5 measures up (which I'm sure it will) that drawback will be nicely addressed.

If the NV5 is priced within $500 of the NU1X in America, I'll try both models out extensively, and I think Kawai is going to have the upper hand. It means driving hundreds of miles to a major city to find these pianos, but there's nothing to be done about it.

Since James confirmed (j/k) that the N3X was the best hybrid grand *for now*, I'd put money on that coming out as the NV20 rather than the NV15. Knowing marketing folks as I do, 20 sounds more like a "1-up" over the NV10. So there you go, my prediction is the next Novus to come out will be the NV20 which will be a grand cabinet with Millennium III action and then "something" else added to make it more compelling than just a cabinet change. A haptic vibration system perhaps?

I wouldn't expect any follow-on NV pianos for a while. The NV10 hasn't been out two years yet, and the NV5 hasn't even shipped.

Look at the Avant Grand line. Three main tiers with two or three revision/replacements over a span of about ten years.

I don't think the next NV is imminent. The market won't support too many ... and Kawai knows it.

Well, for the Avantgrands the press releases for the different models were dated:

• N2 & N3: May 7, 2009
• N1: Jan 13, 2011
• NU1: Sep 17, 2012
• N3X: Jan 19, 2017
• NU1X: Jan 25, 2018
• N1X: Jan 24, 2019

So the initial 4 models of the Avantgrand were announced over a span of 40 months. For Kawai, the NV10 was announced Oct 20, 2017 and the NV5 was announced today - so 2 models in the Novus line over 22 months. So there certainly seems to be room to release another, probably more advanced Novus, in the next 12-18 months. Say an NV10 but with the addition of a soundboard, and maybe a bell or two more. This would not be a replacement of the NV10, but a new product like the NV5 - one at the higher end. There might be a reasonable hope by the time of your retirement, there might be an NV15 or NV20 kicking around.

Is the binaural output on the N3X as well? If so, then I have. If not, then no.

But your question doesn't really get at what I was positing--is it the "binaural" nature of the AGs that people like so much, or is it just the quality of the patch? Whether I've heard or liked the binaural output on the AG is somewhat irrelevant, IMO. Some seem to be quick to list "lack of binuaral sound" as a minus on the Novuses (Novi?), but that feature could be completely orthogonal to what they actually want (a realistic, convincing piano sound through headphones, perhaps one that they like better than the existing SK-EX rendering output, even if it's traditionally recorded). Again, taking Garritan CFX as an example, I tried the binaural recording perspective one, and never bothered to use it again. So if that was the patch included in the NV5, it would fulfill "binaural audio" requirement, but perhaps still end up being "meh."

I think someone confirmed (maybe even Jeff Hurchalla) that the binaural patch in Gartitan CFX is messed up with distant and close microphones having swapped left/right channels which is the reason for it not sounding good. And the binaural Nord patch is a big hit. So I think “binaural” might be good exactly because it’s binaural. Pianoteq isn’t a good example because they have other more important things to improve, so their binaural mics might not be representative (or well implemented at all) on how good binaural is.

Wow! That would completely trash it! But if they have the original recordings from each mic, am I wrong in thinking they could fix this?