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I agree if you use your keyboard just as a MIDI controller. But I disagree if you play using just the internal sounds of the DP. In this case, the sound and the action (and the connection between them) are both important parts of the experience of playing the piano.

LOL isn't music all about sound? If you don't like the sound, what will motivate you to actually play the piano?

Typically when this statement comes up, it means that when you have a DP, sound is something you have control over after the fact (e.g., you can use a VST, or control another instrument over MIDI), but you're stuck with the action, so you'd better make sure it's one you like.

Well, it works exactly the same both ways - if you don't like the sound, buy a VST - if you don't like the action, buy another keyboard!

I know, it's probably cheaper to buy a VST than a keyboard, but still, it's not like "you're stuck" either way...

VST pianos introduce too much lag time, no thank you.

Yeah, and there's that...

So in the end, when buying a new piano, do yourself a favor and get one which does it for you in both categories - a great feeling action and a lovely sound. You will thank yourself later!

How perfect to find this thread after many months away from the forum. I have a Casio GP-500, which sounds like the GP-300 played in this video. It has the perfect sound for Debussy and reminds me of Bechsteins I played while studying in Europe.

This is the first time I’ve actually heard the Kawai and Yamaha DP pianos that almost everyone here likes. To me they sound like crap and I cannot understand why people like them. I’ve always wanted to hear comparisons that used the speaker system within the instrument and not augmented through all sorts of electronics. Sound is a personal thing and I’ve wondered for many months what the other keyboards sound like.

I’m so glad I got the Casio. I never could stand playing Kawai and Yamaha acoustic pianos and I feel the same about their DP’s also.

There is no way you're serious.

Oh, I'm late to this discussion! Yet another worst sound coming from Roland LOL

You know Super-Natural starts with an "ES". Do you know what else starts with an "ES"? Shenanigans.

Shenanigans-Natural Piano = SN Piano by Roland.

I'm surprised how many think the Casio and Roland sound better than Kawai and Yamaha. I really love Kawai's sound and Yamaha's is really good too. To me the Casio literally sounds like a toy compared to Kawai/Yamaha. Roland sounds WAYYYY better than Casio but still not as good as Yamaha/Kawai. Kawai sounds awesome and Yamaha does too, it's all down to personal preference tbh (I like Yamaha's sound even more when I change settings, and i'm sure I would like Kawai's sound even more if I changed settings too).

After listening with headphones again, I think Yamaha sounds SLIGHTLY more realistic than Kawai's sound. Roland and especially Casio are left in the dust by Kawai and Yamaha in this. Casio is unbelievably bad. Roland is... odd. Kawai is excellent, and so is Yamaha.

He has a previous video with a different piece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd6EtQKFaGk
I think Roland really expressed the melody well but didn't sound realistic.
Yamaha was the most realistic and also expressed the melody very well. I can REALLY tell that it's Yamaha due to playing my P-515 for so long. Casio was... well... not good at expressing the melody and sounding realistic.
Also, there are slight variations in the playing but I don't think that's a big deal. I see people saying in the comments "well, he's a yamaha employee so he probably played the yamaha more expressively1!1!"...
If he really wanted Yamaha to win, wouldn't he have played even worse on the other pianos? Eh, whatever.

No one except 1 person found Roland's sound good! but I'm telling ya IMHO Roland sounds better than Steinway and Sons.


How can someone talks about the expressiveness of an instrument without playing it is beyond me. Next time I'm playing my keyboard I'm going to ask it to express the melody better and see how it does. Fingers crossed...

I like the roland sound.

Now, we are 2.

IMHO the issue with the default piano sound of most Casio DPs is that the sustain of the notes from the central octave onwards has a much smaller volume compared to the the sustained volume of others manufacturers main piano sounds. This makes you think the Casio main piano patch sounds more "percussive" when it's just that it has a thinner sustain volume. It's more like a fusion between an upright piano and a grand piano: you have the warm sound timbre of a german grand piano, but the thin sustain of an upright.

I think you are one of the very few people in the world (or maybe the only one) that thinks a Roland DP sounds better than a real acoustic Stainway&Sons grand piano.

I am 100% serious. And everytime I see here people raving about the Kawai sound I am truly, utterly perplexed. The Roland sound is so much more clear!

This is so true that recording with a line out tells you nothing about using the piano as it was designed to be used, hearing it through it's speakers. I can tell from experience, the Yamaha P125 I had sounded great when recorded externally, but playing with the built-in speakers the sound was just awful! Could not enjoy playing it at all!

The Casio here was disadvantaged by the fact that it was recorded at a lower volume, it seems. In comparison tests, people tend to prefer louder music, even if it is only louder by a small amount. That's why ABA tests need to have very careful control of volume. Of course, the dynamic response of these keyboards may not match, so it would be hard.

I agree with this too much. "percussive" is the perfect word to describe how the Casio sounds.