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Yes, I agree. I was able to get my previous generation piano at 36% off of list price when the new series was announced.
This is a bold prediction about the Roland.Unless maybe you work for Roland?

I never buy old technology. It's discounted because nobody wants it And nobody wants it because it's bad. And it's bad because the new thing made it bad. But I get it it's a psychological thing and different people think differently.

CG: When does technology become old and bad? I ask because everything on the market today will someday be old (and maybe bad). So maybe today's new pianos are bad, though not yet old?

Anyway ... the technology is not what gets old. And I don't think it gets bad. If dewster were still here I imagine that he would say: The technology is just fine. But the implementation stinks.

He felt that the technology can support enormous samples with no looping and wonderful resonances ... but the makers choose not to do so.

There's some new technology in the pianos ... but it's mostly already-old tech ... repackaged with minor improvements and lots of hype and fluff.

After all ... we're still using sampling after thirty years, right?

I think as soon as I buy technology, it becomes old technology. These days, it’s an endless pursuit to try to keep up with technological changes.

On the other hand, Iron Man only uses new technology.

It depends... From what I see, digital pianos manufacturers are very slow in improving their products, compared for example with computer or smartphones. So, sometimes a new DP model is just a refresh of the old, with some little improvements that you may consider not very important for your needs.

Of course if the new product is a big step forward (for example, an improved piano engine with more velocity layers, more realistic resonance effects, longer samples, etc.) then I would consider to buy the new product. This was not the case for the CN39, so I bought the CN37, and today I can say I'm happy with my choice. If I want, with those 300 euros saved I can buy some good monitor speakers that will certainly sound much better than the internal speakers of whatever digital piano in the same price range.

+1!

I know this is unpopular in the tech community but I never got into superheroes. I’m just a human guy who has too few hours in the day to try to keep the tech up and running and the fewer tech gadgets I have to update and struggle with, the better my life is in many ways.

🤯

Don't care much about the concept of Super Heroes either but seeing Downey Jr. is always so much fun.

Personally I share your sentiment: it is virtually impossible to keep up with technology, even as a relatively young person (33).
Luckily, outside of very fresh branches of tech that still develop like crazy (e.g.: computers around the year 2000), we don't have to. Companies release tiny, incremental changes and market them as "teh big dealz you can't pass up!11".
In most cases you won't miss much if you skip 2-3 generations and can be happy about big, easy noticeable improvements once you do upgrade.

Life is too short to fall victim to the marketing hype.

I have a strong preference towards music made with acoustic instruments, while others might enjoy electronic music more. "Natural sounds" were a weakness of synthesizer technology since their inception, only somewhat remedied by the invention of sampling.

When look at where Roland is at home and what Yamaha manufactures beside synthesizers, I can see the reason for their different approaches.

I still have these friends who are otherwise software engineers and work in the high tech industry, who decided that they won't be consumerists and think smartphones are useless, etc. They don't have Facebook, they don't read emails on their stupiphones (it's just a phone, you know!) and will occasionally send some pretty outdated jokes/memes to our friends' circle through Skype (although we don't use Skype anymore...) and then being frustrated that we don't laugh because we already did so a month ago in our own Facebook group, where we also posted other related memes, etc. We would also organize "alcohol" evenings in those Facebook groups and it would all go well except for those same guys that we need to call separately on the phone only to realize "I'm busy, can we do it the next day...". Or "ohh, you sent me an email but I read it only at night when I'm at my desktop computer at home". Etc, etc... Sometimes going intentionally against the trends and the technological progress is rather absurd. And I'm pretty positive that it's either because one is a hater or he's not comfortable with new technology

That's a pretty extreme description and I'm not saying that buying the digital piano of yesterday at a discount makes you a grumpy old man But it's that line of thought that usually leads to that.

Wow! I think you nailed it! 🧠

I think that it’s a matter of searching for what suits your needs, and understanding the limitations and strengths inherent in varying technologies despite their age.

For example, the N3 is a ten-year old instrument, so if we go by the ‘old tech sucks’ premise, it should be perceived as garbage if compared to something newer like the N1X, yet if you look closer, the N3 is the better instrument.

First there’s the undeniable advantage coming from its form factor: speakers are completely unobstructed and there’s a whole lot of them. Yes, it’s a multi-channel system, but the physical amount/placement of the speakers further enhance this aspect; whereas, the N1X uses less/smaller speakers crammed into a small cabinet, and therefore, producing -by many accounts- a more muffled experience. So yes, the N3 will kick the N1X’s sound, imaging, clarity, and overall immersive-factor out of the water.

The N3 uses older samples, but blend these with Pianoteq 7 and you’re in heaven.

P.S.

Did I mention the understated beauty of the N3?

I try not to be a grumpy old man, in terms of technology, but I need to strike some kind of balance and decide which technology to keep up with. I’ve been an iOS developer for ten years so you won’t catch me using an old flip phone, lol. The future is mobile, and desktops are becoming less and less important.

Maybe, eventually, computers will fade into the background so much that we won’t know we’re using them and won’t have to maintain them but it doesn’t seem like we’ve gotten there yet.

I’ll just add that I’ve seen Scorsese’s latest film, The Irishman, and not any of the Marvel films. I’m interested in the failings of humans, and how they face their own mortality. The Irishman is an elegiac film, something you might expect from a 77 year old director who is trying to make some sense out of his own life’s work.

P.S. Facebook is evil. Abandon Facebook.

I have a good friend who has made a fortune off technology (BTC & tech company IPOs) yet is completely uncomfortable with new technology. He uses such things as slack only because his company requires it. But for himself, he spends his free time programming Apple II computers, Commodore 64s, and Atari computers - each of which cost more today than when new. He tells me he likes it because he fully understands everything under the hood, which he can no longer do with the newer tech.

What technology is used in computer games? Sampling or modelling of the sounds of action, surrounding environment etc.? In modern games all of this sounds so real that you feel you are really inside the battle in Call of Duty, for example.

I think that if it is possible to recreate in dynamics the sounds of such a complicated interactions,than iy shouldn't be difficult to make just a single instrument sound as if it is real.

So you are saying that if someone doesn't want to throw its money for something he doesn't need, he has to be an old pathetic guy (or he is on his way to become such a guy)?

Do you really need a piano at all? It's something that's useless, what does it make, sounds? You can as well have a radio for a lot less. Do you make money with it? Even if you did, you could have made more money with something else and better paid. It gives you pleasure? And that's important how exactly? Is pleasure something you need? And you can't have pleasure with something else that is more meaningful, come on!

I love Slack and I hate email. Death to email. I don’t have any nostalgia for old computers. I couldn’t bear to wait for an old computer to boot or compile a program, I don’t know how your friend puts up with it. I’ve used the old stuff, of course, but I never want to see the stuff again.

It’s great to have a lot of money but it is not the answer to everything. I recommend the film Danny Collins, starring Al Pacino. The film is based on a true story about a letter John Lennon wrote to another musician. Lennon makes the point, in his letter, that money allows one to not have to worry about food and shelter but that you’re still left with human problems, finding someone to love, relating to others, dealing with your own physical self, and its eventual decline.