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I will check the headphones for the resonance and report back. At the moment I am out of town on my consulting and won't be back for a few weeks. Also, I will try to take a picture to better describe the bow in the top board. Thanks for the feeback and the excellent photo of the disassembled top.
Tom

Tommy, I think I understand what you mean, and I can confirm that the top board of my NV10 sags a tiny little bit too. I hadn't noticed it before, and I have to look really close to see it (I had to use a tape measure to confirm it), but yes, there's a couple of millimeters sag in the middle.

Also, one suggestion for checking if the top board has anything to do with your C#6 Bb5 and A5 resonances:

The top board is not actually screwed down. It simply slides into place and it is only the back panel that then holds it tight. So you could try this:

Remove the topmost back panel (the one with the big Kawai logo). That's easy to do. Just remove the 13 screws that hold it in place, then take it out. It is easy to put back into place too.
With the back panel removed, you could now (if you wanted) slide back and lift out the top board. Of course to lift it out, you would also have to disconnect the speaker cable first, which would defeat the purpose of trying to listen to resonances. But if the resonances are caused by something connected to the top board that is vibrating, then I would assume that if you change the position of the top board a little bit (without disconnecting the speakers or actually lifting out the board) then this should have an effect on the resonances (they could go away, or get worse, or change in quality).
So, with the back panel removed, just slide back the top board a centimeter or two (OK, an inch or so) and see (or hear) if that makes a difference to the resonances you hear. If it does, slide back the board into place and check again. Maybe you can locate the place where the resonances happen and do something to mute them. Or maybe the resonance were caused somehow by the way how the top board was held in place by the back panel (with the many screws). When I had the back panel of my NV10 removed by a technician, he recommended to always tighten the four corner screws first, before tightening the others (and also the four corners in a leapfrog fashion, tightening each a bit, then the next, and so on, going over them twice or so until all are tight). Maybe some stress in the cabin is causing something to vibrate and resonate, and tightening the screws more evenly can alleviate this stress?

And in case you wonder: No, opening the piano in this way does not void the warranty. Unless you break something in the process. Then this damage is of course not covered under warranty (but the undamaged rest of the piano still is, if something warranty-worthy happens to it later on). The terms for the US are here, in case you want to check yourself:

https://kawaius.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Kawai-CP-CA-CS-CN-Digital-Piano-5-Year-Warranty.pdf

(That warranty PDF doesn't (yet?) list the NV models as covered by it, but the page that links to it does, so I guess they simply haven't gotten around to updating the document when the NV series was released.)

As usual JoBert, you have a crystal clear way of explaining things!

Looking at my nv10, I can see what you're talking about. Yes, it seems the top board does bow down a tiny bit. I can only tell on mine by looking at it from an extreme angle:


On mine it's very minor and you have to be at exactly the right height and angle to see or be able to photograph it. And it's so hard to photograph that polished ebony finish!

Another way to tell: if you stick your pinky into the space just below the top lid where the tweeter grilles are, you can run your finger in the gap and feel a difference in spacing as the distance between the lid and the front cover diminishes near the middle.

JoBert and Gombessa,

Thanks much for your help, and that clear explanation of how the top is attached and a method for trouble-shooting. I am also relieved that you have both noticed a very small but real "bow" or "sag" in the top board. I am assured now that this is not a defect per se. Mine might be more than a couple of mm, but Gombessa's photo shows it to be much like mine is (from memory). I will try out these ideas when I get home in 2+ weeks and give a full report. I miss my NV10 while consulting, but I do have a Yamaha P115 in my office to keep my fingers limber - and appreciate the Novus even more when I get home!

Thanks again for the efforts. This is an excellent information exchange with informed and helpful people.

Tom

Well, a tongue in cheek comment but as discussed in the N1X thread, there's a gap in the NV10 for the tweeters grill, but the presence of tweeters grill means no support for the weight of the top board, hence bowing Yamaha doesn't have those front facing tweeters and so they used a solid wood panel to directly support the top board.

That picture really shows how the fallboard protrudes out from the rest of the body when in the up position (as mentioned by Cybergene in another thread). I had never noticed that before. The N1X fallbaord definitely nests better on the body when open for a more clean look.

I can also see the bow in the top-board. It makes sense if there has to be a gap for the tweeters and the thus the top-board remains mostly unsupported at the front edge.

While my N1X top-board is supported and there is no bow, it doesn't have forward facing tweeters and subsequently has a more muffled or subdued sound. I especially notice this when I run my VSTs through the N1X speakers. I have to use my external monitors to get a more natural sound otherwise the sound is too muffled. I would probable not need external monitors while using VSTs with the NV10 due to the front facing tweeters. I guess it's a trade-off.

However, my OCD might kick in if I was a aware of a bow in the top board.

God Bless,
David

My own thought is that the tweeters are *tiny* and though the gap serves a purpose, there's no reason it needs to spam the entire front width of the piano. And even as it does, you can still support the front edge with a bracket on the front cover that recesses a bit behind the grille, right?

But as to the fallboard lip sticking out, I don't mind it as much because that is how nearly every acoustic grand does it as well, and I like the fact the NV-10 replicates that stylistic feature (I guess it's a traditionalist versus innovative bias).

It's great that there is some choice out there for different preferences, isn't it?

I just looked a bit more closely at my N1X and it doesn't appear that the top-board is supported along the front edge either. There is a small gap between the top-board and the solid board that goes across the front of the piano. So the top-board is essentially "free floating" along the front edge, but there isn't a bow in my top board. I have determined that with a four foot straight edge.

I'm not sure why it doesn't bow and the NV10 does.



I guess I've never noticed it on an acoustic piano either. I'm sure it will stand out now that I'm aware of it.

I'm definitely a proponent of choices. Otherwise my hard drive wouldn't be full of VSTs.

God Bless,
David

I suppose you've sacrificed a chunk of your gun collection for all those VSTs

No, still paying off my N1X. It's harder than I thought it would be. Guns that I have not shot in years all of sudden become essential every time I consider selling them.

God Bless,
David

So it has been my 16 enjoyable months with NV10. After the new firmware, there is no more noticeable weird noises coming off speakers with various settings. Sometimes I miss the old default firmware's sound but it is not big of deal. The only one concern that left now is hammer head. Yesterday, I opened up the body, carefully inspect every key's hammer head and all seems to be in consistently excellent condition. I play for about 2 hour everyday in slow/relaxing manner and not too aggressive. I hope that we can all keep up with this thread and monitor how the mechanism turn out after times and in regard to playing style. So far, we have one case of catastrophic failure. I believe it was computerpro3's situation.

Thank you for the update vancedo, good to hear that your NV10 is performing well, and that the April firmware update resolved the noise issue that you were experiencing.

Kind regards,

James
x

For those interested, CG has some pics up of the innards of his N1X: It's particularly interesting to see the difference in approach that Yamaha and Kawai have to mounting their optical sensors/emitters:

https://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthre...avantgrand-n1x-hands-on.html#Post2900662

N1X (look at those fiber runs!)



NV-10:

Hi Everybody,

My NV10 arrived this week and I really enjoy it so far. Last year I tried an NV10 in a store and though I really liked it I noticed the infamous hissing/buzzing in the speakers so I decided to bide my time, I've been following this thread ever since. Then suddenly the N1X arrived, and then also the NV5 which made me wait even longer.

Finally a few weeks ago I went to a good store in the Netherlands (Oostendorp) where they had all the models I wanted to compare and I quickly realised (again) that I really prefer the touch and the sound of the Kawai pianos above the Yamaha's. For me the action was the most important difference, I could also appreciate the Yamaha sound but for some reason (must be me) the N1X really feels like playing a digital piano while with the Novus series I get the feeling I'm playing a real piano/grand.

I hesitated a bit between the NV5 and NV10 and although I found the NV5 very pleasant to play it is really a piano action and I'm used to playing a grand so I decided to go for the more expensive NV10, and so far I'm very happy!

kind regards,
dohnjoy

I think there might be other considerations when comparing the solutions. It's just a guess on my side, but I think since the Yamaha solution uses optic fibers and I don't see the separate sensing entities being powered, it could mean that there's a central photoemitter unit which emits light in a grouped fashion (in contrast to emitting separate 88 light sources) that is then transferred through the fibers and thus to multiple "sensors" sharing the same light source. This will not only facilitate reading in groups but also make the actual "sensors" pretty simple (I use quotes because those are just two optical termination points with lenses that emit and receive light) and there's nothing that can break, there's no electricity at the sensors. The same for the receiving unit. This saves space and also removes the reason for eventually calibrating each "sensor" separately because there are actually no sensors, those are light termination points and the light is shared across multiple groups. Optical fiber is known to be a very reliable thing that most probably won't need servicing or calibration. If something needs to be replaced, that would be the group light emitting unit or the group light receiving unit.

Furthermore, in the Kawai solution there are only hammer sensors which is why note on/off events and velocity is all measured through the hammer sensors. In the Yamaha solution it's a "distributed" responsibility between the key shutters and the hammer sensors.

In a wilder guess I even think the optical fiber wiring might follow some clever way of chaining because the fiber bundle that goes across the rail doesn't seem to be as thick as 88 x 2. Maybe they use some chaining of multiple sensors/couplers?

From doing a fibre optics physics lab many moons ago, we sent signals down the cable using different colours. At the other end you can have a sensor that isolates the signal of each colour. But for most situations you don't need anything like that, the bandwidth in the cable is HUGELY higher than you need for signals from the keys.

Congrats, dohnjoy (your name is really hard for me to type)!

I'm envious that you've had the good fortune to A/B(/C) test the NV10, N1X and NV5 back to back! From the looks of the NV5, it seems like a quite fine response to the NU1X, and I'm really looking forward to it coming to the US to test out.

My impressions of the Novus versus AGs was very similar to yours. The action was a noticeable step up and I just enjoyed playing it more (similar in difference to moving between a Yamaha GH1 and C3X IMO).

Good call. Also, there need to be two emitting fibers and two receiving fibers per key, right? So it would potentially be 352 fiber strands absent some kind of clever coupling/chaining. I presume however such chaining would work, on the receiving (sensor) side it would still likely need to be able to read every hammer sensor independently to account for simultaneous keystrikes. I see no reason why every emitting fiber can't originate a single light source, which should just be "always-on."

Just saw a video/review on the Novus NV10. The guy states that the action feels heavier when playing at low volumes. He further indicates that perhaps future models can compensate for this phenomena.
Is this something that y’all have noticed, or is this guy just nuts?

Which video? There are a couple of things that could be the case (all of which apply to real acoustic grand actions), including feeling the damper notch and letoff notch while depressing a key slowly...