Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Kawai announces ES920 and ES520 portable digital pianos

Thank you. These small black parts have to withstand friction and the vertical force of the key post at the same time, so the black material cannot be rubber or foam, I guess. Remains plastic or felt, hmm.

Is there lubricant / grease at this contact point of the RHIII? Then it can't be felt and should be black plastic (as it looks like on another foto, but I'm not sure).

I'm sorry I don't know, however I don't believe this area of the keyboard action has ever caused any problems.

Kind regards,
James
x

I look forward to your observations. I bought my ES 110 about 3 months ago.

OK, but these are very different instruments otherwise. FYI / FWIW, I use a $200, 9 pound Vox keyboard amp that is FIFTY watts, sounds great for piano, and is easy to schlep along with a 25 pound keyboard. Of course, watts don't always = watts, so 20 versus 50 may not mean much. But it's loud and clean, has mutlple inputs, bass, mid and treble controls, and can run on batteries (with Rav Power, as can the ES 110).

Am I correct in thinking that the amp you're referring to is the VX50KB?

It has pretty nice specs for the cost and weight. How well are the ES110's stereo piano sounds reproduced by the single speaker?

Kind regards,
James
x

I googled myself, too, and immediately fell in love with the design of this amp. What a beauty!

Speaking of appearances, here's another video on the ES920. It's, once more, in German, but that will not matter to anyone not speaking German, as it's not a review (the sales manager doesn't say much more than that he likes the rhythm section feature, and then starts playing). But... you get to see the ES920, including music rest, from a few new angles. :-) So, to be more precise, it's not really a video on, but rather a video of the ES920.

I don't know too, but the Nord Grand action has lubricated "key bushings" on the attached picture. Its RH-N action is a modified RH-III, so it is possible the grease is just one of the modifications.

Yes, that is the amp. It's a tube amp. I also own the much bigger Roland Street Cube (which does not sound awesome for acoustic piano but is otherwise the best busking amp out there) and the Roland KC-220 (a dedicated piano amp that runs on batteries, which sounds great for piano, has 2 6.5" woofers and 2 1" dome tweeters). In order for piano, KC-220 > Vox KB50 > Street Cube. The Vox is a close second to the KC-220, weighs a lot less and is a lot easier to schlep (but needs a Rav Power for batteries; the Roland runs on AAs). I brought it to LA for my one month vacation that turned out to be a move due to Covid. I use the Vox outside, where having a stereo signal doesn't really matter, due to sound disbursement, no walls, etc. When practicing, having internal keyboard speakers is great, due to the sound being right at you and coming from the keyboard, and the stereo effect is great. But for outside, and also for a gig, a separate amp is fine, even a mono one. I've not noticed any problems (phase, etc.) when using the Vox. It has 3 inputs, so I plug left and right in and I assume it sums them to mono internally. This way, I can use the Vox as a busking or solo gig amp (to play background rhythm section) and also input a keyboard, and it has individual volume controls for each channel, so I can mix them perfectly.

Thanks for the additional info Skyscrapersax. It sounds like the KB50 is a nice little amp.

Cheers,
James
x

It is! One of the few that actually sounds good for acoustic piano. I forgot to mention that it also has a headphone out, line out (for additional speakers) and 1/8 aux in.

- Jeff

Peeling off protective foil makes such a beautiful sound! Aaaah...

First USA prices I've seen:

https://www.adorama.com/kwes520b.ht...9RoCVP0QAvD_BwE&utm_source=adl-gbase

https://www.clvmusic.com/B/20090900...J41c7mZartxVtSInRnU6v5BYH7BoC1EIQAvD_BwE

Note: these are not the "big" sellers. They don't list it yet.

BTW, doe the SC-2 case fit the 520?

Three questions:

1. Where did you buy it?

2. Price?

3. Is the action lighter than the ES-110? If you've nnot poayed one of those, how would you describe the action?

Thanks.

This is not me in the video. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I'm disappointed they didn't do a slow-motion peel-off, a la Techmoan, though.

It looks like this chap is able to hold the ES520 pretty easily with one hand/arm, too...

Cheers,
James
x

AZ Piano Reviews does the ES920...https://azpianonews.blogspot.com/2020/09/kawai-es920-review-digital-piano.html

Hmmm.... I just read the AZ Piano review of the ES920, and I kind of wondered if he actually had one to play, being that most of the info was available thru info from Kawai. He mostly just added his longish embellishments that aim to make things understandable for the beginner. He really had nothing but praise, essentially saying Kawai took what already worked well in the ES8 and added some cool features and speakers.

For you Yammi P515 lovers, he clearly says (without naming names) that the ES920 does it better- action and piano sound.

I'm excited about these new boards and I'm glad he liked the ES920, but didn't really enjoy the review.

But it matters not- I've developed a near-sighted vision for the ES520, and while compelling in its own right, the weight and extra cost of the ES920 has disqualified it in my mind as a serious buy.

It's the usual "review blog" scam. Just that it doesn't link to an Amazon shop for commission and lists a phone number and email address instead.


I clearly say that too, I've never seen a live ES920, but here have my expert opinion.

My 520 finally arrived today. It was supposed to arrive on Tuesday but the delivery company messed up and lost the package, then it got the packages damaged, so I finally got another one delivered this morning and now have the ES110 and the ES520 side by side, both with their respective stands, and tested them for a few hours.

For context, I'm a beginner player, when I was a teenager I had keyboard lessons for a couple of years, always with unweighted keys, and I hadn't played for 20 years, and only 6 months ago I got my first digital piano with weighted keys and started learning to play piano for real at the beginning of the Covid quarantine. Initially I got a Roland FP-10, but after 5 months I felt that key action was a bit heavy for me as a beginner, and I also found that I really wanted to have a rhythm function built-in to use as a nicer metronome, and always playing around on the phone to get backing tracks was too fiddly. So I switched it to a Yamaha P125. The sounds were comparable, and the rhythm and accompaniment features were really great. But I didn't like the keys so much, felt too plastic and too shiny white, fingerpring magnets, and also even though they were lighter than the Roland, they felt too springy, like pushing your fingers back up after you pressed them. So I returned it after 2 or 3 days and got an ES110. I found the piano sounds better, the rhythm function more basic but still enough for what I wanted, and I really liked the key feel. Only disadvantages was the worst UX, a hardcoded split point, and missing some sounds like the Clavi and the Wood Bass combined with the Cymbal sound. The church organ was also not as nice/

So here's are my thoughts on the comparison between the ES110 and the ES520:

General build and features:
* Even with the extra 2.5kg and the longer depth, it still doesn't seem prohibitively heavy to carry. It's not my case, but for people that are going to be transporting it a lot, it's much easier to detach and reattach to the stand, as it has 4 easy to turn knobs that you can screw easily with your hands, rather than the standard screws of the ES110 which definitely require a screwdriver
* The music rest is about the same side, but it has a slightly more upright angle and it wobbles a lot less when you put a lot of stuff on it. The downside it that it's slightly more far away from your eyes due to the extra depth of the ES520, but it's at the exact same height.
* Attached to the stand, the keys sit at the same height as the ES110, but it's about 2cm shorter on the bottom, so for tall people there's a bit more space for your knees (not my case)
* The fact that it's deeper than the ES110, and also a bit more straight, it means you can easily rest a tablet in tent position or a small laptop on top of the speaker grill to watch videos while you play (in the case where you don't want to put it on the music rest as you also have some sheet music there). With the ES110 I had to use a tripod to hold my tablet, which was fiddly. I realize this probably won't matter for most people but for anyone doing online piano lessons it's nice
* Also very nice for people doing online lessons, or using iRealPro or another app to do backing tracks, is the Bluetooth audio functionality. In the evenings when using headphones I had to use a small mixer to get the piano and the laptop/tablet/phone sound together in my headphones, now I can just connect to Bluetooth audio, no need for a the mixer and 3 cables. Even for general music listening, getting Spotify to play on the ES520 speakers is convenient, it almost makes the Amazon Echo Plus I have on the living room obsolete. Now, if the ES520 add audio recording to MP3 like the ES920 and it could record the combination of what's streaming and what you play on top that would be a really nice feature.
* Even though I had memorized most of the function shortcuts on the ES110, it is really nice to have buttons for everything. The only downside is the rhythms. It has the exact same 100 rhythms the ES110 did, however on the ES110 I could memorize that the Swing was 74 and the Bossa Nova was the 81 and go to that directly, now I have to press the up/down button a lot. I can save the most used rhythm in the startup settings, but if I do use the metronome, it resets it to rhythm 1, which is very very annoying, so if I alternate between using the Swing Rhythm and the metronome on 1/1, I can only save one of those in the startup settings, and to switch between I have to either turn off and on again to get back to the saved startup option, or press the up/down button a lot.
* You can change the split point when using split mode, which very annoyingly the ES110 couldn't, that's a welcome fix
* Changing or turning off off the effects, reverb and amp is nice, though I don't really have a use for all the other extra configuration, but some more advanced players might, there's a ton of options.
* The built-in speakers are a little bit better than the ones on the ES110, but it's not a major difference. They go a bit louder, and they seem a bit better on the lows but the ones on the ES110 were already decent.
* There's a button in the back to turn off the speakers when using line out instead of a function key to do that like the ES110
* One of the headphone connectors is a mini jack, it's convenient to have one connector of each kind rather than two full size ones like the ES110
* There's a bunch of settings to tweak the headphone output, but I honestly couldn't notice any difference between all those modes using my Sennheiser HD 599 open headphones. I do notice a difference between those headphones and some other cheaper closed headphones ones I have, and the built-in speakers.
* Having the USB connector at the back is nice, no need for a MIDI to USB converter anymore

Sounds:
Piano 1:
* I can't tell the difference between the EX ConcertGrand on the ES520 and the default Concert Grand piano on the ES110, they are virtually identical.
* The new default SK ConcertGrand piano sound is quite nice, I prefer it to the EX ConcertGrand one.
* The Warm Grand is similar to the Mellow Grand on the ES110, but I think it's a tiny bit nicer
* The Jazz Clean is similar to the Studio Grand on the ES110, it has a bit more punch
Piano 2:
* The Rock Piano is also similar to the Rock Piano on the ES110, but again it has more punch to it
* Modern Piano seems about the same to me as on the ES110, can't notice any difference, didn't like it so much on the ES110, and on the ES520 is the same
* The new Upright Piano and Pop Grand sounds are nice, the first one is quite bright, the second is like a mellower variation of the EX but not as much as the Warm Grand
E. Piano:
* The Classic E. Piano is much better than the one on the ES110, the old one jumped too fast between quiet and loud, the one on the ES520 is much more balanced. And it's also nice to have the 2 variations
* The 60's E. Piano is about the same as the one on the ES110, but then there's an extra variation
* The Modern E. Piano is about the same as the one on the ES110
Organ:
* The Church Organ on the ES520 is miles ahead better than the one on the ES110. It reminds me of the one on the Yamaha P125, and the Principal Oct. one is also very good.
* Don't like the Ballad Organ is a bit weird. The top 3 octaves are ok, but anything bellow that, including the middle octave, sounds a bit weird. Also the volume of this instrument is noticeable lower than any other sound on the ES520, you have to raise the volume when you switch to it
* I like the Jazz Organ and the Drawbar Organ sounds on the ES520, but I think I slightly preferred the Jazz Organ on the ES110, it was more punchy. Maybe tweaking the parameters can help, but tried a couple of different things but couldn't get it to sound the same as the one on the ES110. Some Ray Charles like grooves just sounded better to me on the ES110. Maybe it just because I got used to that specific sound, these two still sound quite nice, but I just preferred the old one
Harpsi/Mallets:
* Yay, there's a Clav, and it sounds great, I missed it from both the Roland and the Yamaha
* The Hapsicord is a bit better on the ES520
* The Vibraphone is about the same as the one on the ES110, and it's nice to have the Marimba as well
Strings/Choir:
* A lot of options, and all sounding great. Both the String Ensemble and the Slow Strings are more realistic than the ones on the ES110, and all the extra pads and choirs are nice. The Jazz Scat option on the ROland was really fun, though, and it's a shame they didn't add anything like that to the ES520
* The funny thing is, the String Ensemble on the ES110 was more artificial and synthetic than the one of ES520, but I quite liked it for the Pirates of the Caribbean tune :)l
Bass:
* Both the Wood Bass and Electric Bass of the ES520 are better than the ES110, and it's nice to have the 2 extra variations of the electric one
* I like the new W. Bass and Ride sound that has the wood bass combined with the cymbals sounds, both the Roland and the Yamaha had it, but not the ES110

Keys
* Quite similar, same kind of matte finish, not as nice as the ivory imitation of the Roland FP-10, but still have quite good realistic feel.
* The shape of the keys is slightly different from the ES110, they are less rounded on top, which makes the gaps between keys slightly smaller.
* They are as noisy as the ones on the ES520, when you release them they have the same kid of shake. Playing the sound off, I would say the volume of the noise is about the same, but the ES520 key noise has a slightly lower pitch. For a totally ridiculous analogies, let's say that the ES110 has key press noise in the key of C#, while the ES520 has is in the key of C
* The key action definitely feels heavier than the ES110. It's still light, but there's definitely a difference. I can do grace notes on the black keys with the same ease, but some fast melodies seem slightly harder. Not as bad as in the Roland, though, it's a small difference between the ES110 and the ES520

So, in conclusion: it feels like overall a better piano than the ES110. Sounds are overall better, user interface is much better (except for the annoying rhythm selecting thing), the Bluetooth audio for the way I use the piano is really great (though it might not matter at all of others), the key action is kind of a tie I think. If it had the mp3 recording and the auto accompaniment like the ES920 it would be an easier choice. In current UK prices there's the Kawai ES110/Yamaha P125/Roland FP-30 around 500£, the Kawai ES520/Roland FP-60 around 1000£, and then the Kawai ES920, Yamaha P515, Roland FP90 around 1300/1400£. I never tried the FP-60, but from my experience with the FP-10 I'd say I'd always pick the ES520 between the two, but I'm still not sure if it's worth exchanging my ES110 with the ES520 and paying the extra £££, I have until Thursday to decide since the shop extended me a bit the return period for my ES110

Hope this review is useful for other people

Nice review.

For an extra £500 you only seem to be getting improved technology. I guess for some people that is worth it, but it seems that the es920 will be much better in terms of value. Both the HI-XL engine and the RH3 are quite large jumps in performance for an extra £300; this seems like a trend with these 'mid-range' digital pianos, painfully midrange. I just hope that the 'improvements' for the RH3 make the key noise less irritating. I couldn't stand the rhc, and videos of the es8 show that it was comparable. If not then I'll probably have to buy a p515... when they're back in stock. I dislike their sound, but I can stand my clp535, so I guess I can cope with the p515.