Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Kawai k300 or top end hybrid/digital

I'm in need of a top end digital piano or a very good new upright accoustic lije the kawai k300 or a Roland lx708.
I'm looking to be able to play music that demands very expressive ppp-fff
and wondering if I'm better to go for a top end digital.

For that price I would look for Yamaha N1X (but I think they are unfortunately more expensive than N1), but N1X cost the same as K300 (standard, not Aures) and has grand action. I did not played K300, but heard that it's performance is not good (or better to say - could be better), especially compared to its bigger brother K500, but for the money even K300 should be excellent.

LX708 is significantly cheaper than AvantGrand and K300, or you have source of cheap used K300 that;s a different story. I do not know what is your budget, so just pointing viable options. There is also Kawai NV10.

Look also for a threads called K500 Aures vs NV10 or Aures vs NV10, there are like 3 threads here, will find them fast through google, they should help to anwer your question.

LX708 is excellent instrument, but it all depends on what you need besides dynamic and what is your budget.

Have you played acoustics before ? In my - admittedly very limited - experience they are in a whole different ballpark than the digitals.
I've only played for about a year and a half but I've had quite a few instruments in that short time

- Roland F140
- Kawai K300 ATX2
- Kawai VPC1
- Kawai ES8
- Yamaha U1

Out of these I'd say the easiest to control - for me - was the VPC1 followed by the ES8. However I never found half the joy in playing those as I did in the acoustics and I have currently settled on an old U1 that I love dearly.
The current state of digitals - even the very high end - leaves me completely cold compared to the acoustics.

Your milage may vary - but in my opinion there is a lot more to playing an instrument than the "performance" regarding control, repetition etc.

IMO still the technology is not there to make a digital piano that sounds and feels like the real thing.
Go for an acoustic.

I have not found any digital / hybrid that compares to an acoustic, even the ones with grand actions. Perhaps simply a matter of taste, but I just don't find them convincing.

Now go ask in the digital forum and see what >they< say :-)

Thanks for your comments .Asking these sort of questions could be biased answers depending where it's asked here will probably be towards acoustic and the digital forum will I think always say digital .

So I feel by asking about playing from very soft to very loud might rule out an average upright compared to a top end digital at around my budget of £5000

Another vote for the acoustic (K300). Personally, I find that with a good acoustic in the house, I’m satisfied with a basic digital piano for what it offers. But with expensive digital pianos, I still think about getting an acoustic piano.

If you need complete control from ppp-fff and are limited to a budget of £5000, I might suggest an Avantgrand N1X with Pianoteq. Pianoteq will allow you to set a velocity curve where you will be able to produce all velocities on your instrument between 1 and 127 with your particular touch, and although Pianoteq frequently has complaints about it's timbre, because it is a modelled VST, it allows extremely fine control of expression.

That said, if you are looking for your piano to sound exactly like an acoustic, you should buy an acoustic.

If you're already playing a VPC1, that should give you a fairly good idea of what a quality digital is capable of. If that doesn't have the capability you're looking for, it might be hard to find a different digital that will. You will find incremental improvements in other high end digital actions, but IMO it will not be dramatic.

Well, except that a VPC1 still has a digital action, while a Yamaha or Kawai hybrid has a real acoustical piano action. As to whether going to an acoustical piano action is dramatic, I think many people would say it is.

I find that most digitals, including high end models mentioned in this thread, have compressed dynamics at the fff and rely on volume to stretch the range. Most of them, however, do very well on the lower dynamic ranges, and far better than even a generally good upright like the K300, regulated properly.

IMO, of all of the digital pianos I have played, I do think that Roland is the best at replicating a natural velocity curve with minimal tweaking. If you want to become an expert in VST's, you'll get even better digital results.

The idea of a digital piano being convincing isn't necessarily the point of this question, it seems to me about maximizing one aspect of playing within a certain budget comparing 2 known & available products. The question of satisfaction is personal, but the question of dynamic range is simple. A high end digital does have greater dynamic capability than a studio upright.

Each option has limitations for technique when trying to play at the extremes of dynamics, so keep that in mind. Are you trying to produce and explore the widest range available to you? Digital. Or are you looking to improve your technique within the range available to you? If the latter, then I would recommend an acoustic piano over a digital.

Don't ask me, ill always vote for acoustic with questions like this.

Several questions:

a) Is this for public performance? Recording? Your own pleasure?

b) Have you tried playing either a K300 (or Yamaha equivalent), or a Roland LX708, or an acoustic grand piano ?

. . . Did either of them do what you need?

Since you have Pianoteq and a VPC1, my first suggestion is to optimize your VPC1 + Pianoteq setup.

. . . 1a. See what "raw" MIDI velocities you can produce, with your VPC1.

You can see that on the Pianoteq "Velocity" display,
or use the "Audio/MIDI setup --> MIDI" display to watch the notes as you play them.

. . . 1b. Use the "Velocity" map in Pianoteq, or a Kawai software tool, to map that "raw" MIDI velocity range to a range of 1 - 127, to feed into the Pianoteq sound generator.

. . . 2. Play with the "Dynamics" slider in Pianoteq.

That slider affects the "dynamic range" that the Pianoteq sound generator produces.

My experience is that "Dynamics" settings of 40 dB or less sound rather dull -- not that the individual notes are dull, but that the volume range is compressed.

But (again my experience) settings of 60 dB or higher will produce a very wide dynamic range, from inaudible to screaming/harsh loud:

. . . but the volume is very difficult to control closely -- playing a scale, _evenly_, is impossible.

Do the experiment, and see what you find. It won't cost anything, and will yield useful information. Please report back --

Thanks (and please forgive me, if you've done all this already) --

I play and practice for my own pleasure .I much prefer to play music that has plenty of expression .I have experimented with pianoteq but I have become tired of using VSTs .I feel the whole experience of a computer software has become a distraction from playing and decided VSTs are good for doing recordings only which I don't do a lot of.
I'm going to have to go to a good piano store and try the Kawai K300.
I have played the Roland lx708 at 2 different stores and got a good experience from the first try but a bad experience the 2nd attempt.
I'm also waiting for the kawai Nv5 hybrid upright to appear.

Well you are taking a step in the right direction going with an acoustic but keep that VPC-1 for late night practice!

I’d get the k300 without batting an eyelash. I’d get a decent digital for silent practice. You just can’t really beat a nice acoustic upright unless you want to step up to an acoustic grand. An acoustic piano is a whole different instrument.

Maybe look for a used larger upright. Like a K500 or a U3..

Do you know whether action on K300 allows on full repetition and full dynamic control, with keys not being fully back?

I have a Roland LX17 It is a very nice digital but I have difficulty loving a digital as much as
my 2 accoustic pianos.Perhaps I am old fashioned !
Sure one of my accoustic pianos is a Sauter 130 so it is in a different league to Yamaha or Kawai
uprights.The other accoustic is a Kawai 49" piano from 1985.. It has a really lovely mellow tone
which is surprising.!
It is difficult getting a ppp sound on an upright especially when playing fairly fast.It is possible
on the Sauter 130. It has a great deal to do with the pianist as well ! Best wishes on your final
choice !