Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Digital pianos are overprized

So I wonder, is there more to the sauce than just lots of tomatoes?

I mean common... Kawai, Yamaha.. anyone, at least make a deal with best service and throw in the galaxy vintage D in one of those dp's, it's just 5 or 6GB, not too demanding on hardware and sounds and plays pretty darn good!

I don't get how criticizing the (in my opinion) excessively high price of pianos turns me into a communist. I myself buy and sell things every day, i work, i get paid, i pay. I have sense of what is approximately the value of the things and the cost of producing them. You pay for the materials, you pay labour, machines, buildings, you get all the expenses, you have it, simple marhs. No politics involved. It would be nice if someone from inside yamaha or Kawai or roland would tell us how much money they cost to get done 1 unit of any of their pianos. Of course that's not going to happen.

Just cheking prices for new refrigerators. It is ridiculous. A refrigerator is much more expensive to make, regarding materials and labour, than a digital piano. But for the price of a very good refrigerator you afford an entry digital piano at most. I think even considering top digitals as kawai mp11 or similar ones, they should retail for 500€ and that is enough for everyone making profit. 2000€ is crazy
Materials for a digital amount to how much? 50€ max. Labour? All they made in china, let's say another 50. Technology? The most advanced high.tech thing is the same touch screen you find in any smartphone since 2010. Samples are nothing cutting edge. So I think that the cost per unit in any 2000€ digital piano is no more than 150€ for the maker. How crazy is that they retail for 2000 and more? Maybe marketing guys are paid as sport stars. They must be genius for being able to make so much people accept those absurd prices as something normal.

Oh i talked about refrigerators, but you can take sofas and it is even worse. For the price of a humble roland fp30 you get a sofa that could be in the royal suite of a 5 stars hotel.

This seems like a lot of ill-informed nonsense ...You claim something costs too much, but offer no substantiation.

Then you make up a bunch of numbers, none of which are supported by evidence.

You omit most of the costs of operation ... perhaps because you know nothing about operating a business.

And finally you overlook the fact that these pianos are selling well ... which means that people are agreeable to the price.
Perhaps you are not. But others are. That means the prices are acceptable.

I'll call your post a rant. Pure and simple.

I most certainly would prefer the acoustic over the hybrid. Here in Denmark it would be easy to find a used grand in fine condition at the same price as a new N1X or NV-10.

EDIT: I just checked a Danish website, where people advertise their stuff for sale, and today there was a Gaveau grand advertised for 267 EUR (abot 300 USD). Judging by the pictures, it is in good condition. But even allowing for quite a lot of work done to it, the price would still fall short of the price for a new hybrid.

Imo, i think this is actually bad practice. I didn't realize this before but ever since i got an acoustic, I noticed I have shitty dynamics because there is no volume control knob. If you ever plan on playing on an acoustic, you should consider this a disadvantage not an advantage unless you play the digital at max volume control and leave the volume to your fingers.

So this is now another acoustic vs digital thread? Let me end that with the conclusion that it usually comes down to: It's best to have both, if possible.

So, as someone who owns a P-515 and a K300... how would you describe, to someone who's only ever played a digital piano, the difference in sound/feel and aural/tactile pleasure? I know, not a fair comparison due to the rather small speakers on your slab, however I guess you've used headphones too (and a fair few of us prefer them to on-board speakers anyway).

Actually, I wouldn't want an acoustic piano even if I got a good one for free somehow.

I suspect that Yamaha, Roland, Korg, Kawai and Casio are all in bed with one another (price fixing, etc) as they are all Japanese companies.

So, as someone who owns a P-515 and a K300... how would you describe, to someone who's only ever played a digital piano, the difference in sound/feel and aural/tactile pleasure?

You say that with sampled pianos ‘someone else pressed a key on an acoustic; this event was recorded, and then when you hit a key a reproduction of that recording is rendered.’ (I’m paraphrasing).

By this metric is it fair to say that when playing the new VSL concoction one is reproducing a recording made by a “robot” and therefore devoid of any humanity?

If this is the case, take cover now! The scavengers are coming for you!

If this is not what you meant, I apologize (English is not my first language).

I’m pretty sure if someone offered you a Bosendorfer 225 for free, you would accept it.