Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Kawai announces Concert Artist CA99 and CA79 digital pianos

Where to you live?
I wish Kawai would be more aggressive in its distribution in other first world countries like the U.S. :>

3100€, here in Italy... I'll wait for the price to drop

from some videos I watched on the tube, it seems to have a great sound, though.

what about this "SK-EX Rendering"?

it would seem that only the CA79-99 use this sound generation system

The CA78, CA98, NV10 and NV5 also use the SK-EX Rendering, but they use the first generation, while the CA79/99 use an improved version.
However, Kawai did not think it necessary to coin a new name for the new version (like they did before, when they made improvements for example HI, HI2, PHI, HI-XL, etc.), so I assume the difference between the two is rather small.

thanks for your reply, jobert
I'm curious to test one of these on person

It may also be to not give the impression the 'flagship' Novus models have an outdated sound engine. I expect anew name with the Novus 11 or whatever they'll call it.

James has "kind of" confirmed that the new version doesn't have longer/larger samples, for one. I agree with JoBert, there are probably some tweaks to the audio processing for the rendering characters but nothing too major. In any case, it will be very interesting to hear the new version and see if the differences are audible.

Chile

Hey guys, I'm new to this forum, but I've been playing piano for a few years and I had been using a Casio Celviano AP-420 for that time. Unfortunately it has crapped out on me and several of the e flats and f sharps have are playing at seemingly max velocity regardless of how light I play them. After doing some research I decided to order the CA79, I live in Canada so pricing is rough but after some negotiation I ended up paying around 4200 CAD (3150~ USD) + tax including delivery and assembly for the satin black model, did I do alright? Also does anyone have insight on the type of bench that is included with this model?

It's apparently not in North America yet, my dealer said they are expecting stock around mid-late March, I was wondering if Kawai James had any updates on this. Also any advice on what to expect when switching pianos? I haven't been able to test any CA series pianos, but they have sounded the better to my ears compared to Yamaha's and Roland's offerings. And the GF action seems to be highly praised in this price range which helped me decide.

Anyway sorry for all the questions, I appreciate any responses, thanks.

People here on the forum have been bashing manufacturers for blowing up even the teensiest feature improvements with the biggest ULTRA NATURAL SUPER PROGRESSIVE PLEASURING marketing monikers. (And probably rightfully so, in some cases.)
So now we also bash them for allegedly deliberately hiding substantial improvements, also for marketing reasons?
Talk about "damned if you do, damned if you don't".

Personally, this interpretation doesn't make sense to me. Especially since having "flagship" models that are a bit behind the curve isn't anything new for Kawai: Before the NV-line took that role, the CS-line were the flagships "above" the CAs. And for several generations, the CS-line has lagged behind the CA-line. The newest improvements were always rolled out with the CA-line, while the "flagship" CS-line was still in stores with the technology of the previous CA-line. And for longer than just a couple of months. And Kawai newer kept mum about those improvements in the newest CAs. Following that "hide the new features, so we don't make our flagship models look bad" logic, Kawai would never have marketed their improvements in the CA-line but would have kept them under wraps. Which obviously didn't happen.

So following occam's razor, I have a hard time believing that we are looking at a "there were substantial improvements, but we are not telling anyone" reverse marketing situation here.

Just received my CA79!!! 🤗

Work to do in the afternoon...

wow awesome

1) I never bashed Kawai for their marketing, and am not bashing them now. I don't care what they call features, just providing a possible interpretation.
2) Improvements are not 'substantial' Vs 'not 'substantial', that seems a needlessly reductionist binary perspective.
3) CA98 vs CS11 is not nearly the same as CA99 Vs Novus10. I am quite sure the average person buying a €10,000 digital piano twice as expensive as anything else offered by that brand would expect everything to be top of the line.

We'll see what is what, but I think in this case Occam's razor can be placed back in it's box.

Cool! Don't be shy about sharing vids and pics! :P

That's not fair. Still waiting for mine... Should also arrive today.

Heck, I don't even know when I will receive mine.

Hi! I'm new to this forum. I have been playing piano for ten years and considering in buying Kawai CA99 or Kawai NV5 to replace my Casio PX-780M. Which one is better in terms of action? And also, which one will last longer. I mostly play classical pieces and anime covers (Animenz, Theishter, etc.).

Someone on another thread said ca99 action is bad and they played nv5 and nv10, so I'm guessing the nv5 is a lot better than ca99, it's kind of put me off a ca99 hearing this bad news, I thought the action was supposed to be very good.

Action feel is so personal, it makes absolutely no sense to take any other person's experience as gospel. You might play the CA99 and like its action better than the NV5 or NV10. You really just have to try for yourself and make your own determination.

Literally every single opinion but that one says it is an improvement over the GF-II, widely considered among the best digital actions, if not the best action. If *one* person on the entire planet having a negative opinion puts you off it without trying it yourself I suggest not reading any opinions on any product...



Absolutely. If the entire planet would hate how an instrument plays that I love, well, that would be everyone's problem but mine.

Anyone?