Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Kawai ES920 VS Yamaha P515

The CN17 is just another name of the KDP110. AFAIK they are exactly the same product but with different names in different world areas. I don't know why Kawai does this naming thing... Anyway the KDP110 (CN17 in some countries) is more like the ES110 (which you forgot). More basic piano engine + cheaper action (and cheaper price), so they are a step below the CN29/39/49 series. You cannot place them all toghether, it wouldn't be fair.

The KDP series is only sold in certain price-sensitive markets, the ES110 is a slab. I know you only own a Kawai CN and have to talk yourself into owning a "midrange" digital piano, but you don't, just face it.

The midrange of Kawai starts above 2.000 bucks and features wooden actions, in case of Kawai fully wooden black and white keys.

LOL wasted so many posts here, yet there is not a single peice of information regarding the actual benefits of Yamaha's VRM nor the NWX and this guy still keeps posting like a champ.

If P-515 is a slab form of CLP-575 then its samples are looped

https://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/2371154/Re:_The_DPBSD_Project!.html#Post2371154
http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/1365103.html

ES-8/ES920 are not necesserily the best slabs in the market but calling P-515 the best doesn't make sense either. I'm not even sure if we do have the best slab dp and on top of that I don't even like the slab piano concept! I prefer a stage piano and in this department I look at the overal package (entire voice set and hardware) no the brand. Voice-set matters the most.

I don't know if you're right or not. I don't even know whether I care. However, I do know that in many cases, what matters is not only what you say, but also how you say it. "C'est le ton qui fait la musique", as the French (very fittingly) say ("It is the tone that makes the music."). Personal attacks are not so cool, IMHO.

Don't worry about JoeT. The CN pianos are lovely instruments. I'm tempted every time I play 'em; they seem to fit me well probably because my playing is, might as well face it, not midrange . . .

In my classification I did not make distinctions between cabinet-style, stage and digital pianos.OMG, the fact that I own a CN digital piano has nothing to do with my classification. But if you think the CN series is low-range, how would you classify the ES110? Ultra-Low-range? As I said, IMHO, it's not fair to place the ES110 and KDP110/CN17 in the same range of the CN29/39/49. Even their prices are very different.

Classifying a slab piano's action or sound engine as mid-range or top-range based on where the technology sits in a companies console piano portfolio is completely irrelevant to a comparison between the ES920 and Yamaha P-515. All that matters is how the actions and sounds compare directly between the two instruments. Both have folded actions with a similar geometry and similar pivot length. Obviously the materials and implementations are very different. There are fans of both actions in this forum and they exist within the same product class.

I'm less familiar with all of the specific console piano products that have been added to this discussion so I won't add any fuel to that particular fire lol.

My take on the P515 having owned one for almost a year:

I bought it because it fell within my budget and it meets my particular requirement which is to have a digital piano that I can learn notes on, and it won't be too much of a stretch to move between it and a grand piano. I would also like the piano sound to be accurate and adaptable, and I would like it to have enough dynamic range to be an expressive instrument.

Honestly the P515 does this, it's perfectly fine in this context. I'd hate for it to be my only piano and it certainly doesn't replace an acoustic. The action is robust enough to take a punishment - the Rachmaninoff concertos are not really a problem on it. I can play most things I want to on the action, and I just have to forget about any limitations and get on with it. What is its main limitation? Well if i'm being honest it's a little sluggish. Some people interpret this as heavy, but it's not heavy. It's just maybe that it doesn't bounce back quickly enough.

The downside is, the speakers suck. They are alright for monitoring and if I need to record a clip on my phone quickly they're alright for that, but the quality is a bit naff if I'm being honest. The speakers were clearly built in to the price range and the style - it's obvious that Yamaha wanted to stay under a certain price and weight. The sound through headphones is excellent.

A few times you get the odd bit of 'loud note', but it's rare. It's no worse than an unregulated grand but it's a bit frustrating at times. It's rare though, and I find it can be tempered a bit by changing the voicing and touch curve.

I actually would have preferred to buy a Roland, because I have an HP603 in Scotland which I absolutely love practising on - the action is great and the sound can be edited so that many of the idiosyncrasies of using a fully modelled sound engine can be ironed out, but it takes a bit of time. The thing is that in the UK, Yamaha is more expensive than Roland, but in the USA, Roland is more expensive than Yamaha by quite a lot. My HP603 was an end-of-line deal at GBP1399, and that kind of price just isn't going to happen here in America.

I haven't played the Kawai ES-8, but any Kawai digital piano I've played I've really liked. Honestly between the three brands, Yamaha, Roland and Kawai, it's just a matter of preference.

As for the Casio Celviano range, the only thing they've really got going for them is the price, I don't like the sound or the touch, even in the Grand Hybrid range.

That's strange, because the NWX action of the P515 has a big upweight (from what its users usually say) compared to other DPs, so its keys should bounce back faster.That's common with any slab digital piano (and most cabinet-style DPs too under $2500). A piano sound is very complex, so it requires very high quality speakers to reproduce all its big frequency range in a clean and convincing way, much much more than an organ, an electric piano or other synth sounds (which usually sound very good even with low-quality speakers).

I think the only way to make a slab piano sound good on speakers (not headphones) is to use (good quality) external monitor speakers and find their best sounding position in your room.

IMHO the ES920 is a strange hybrid just the other way round..
Once ES920 is out there I will be pretty interested in CA49 vs. ES920 comparison by musicians to learn about which strange hyrid direction makes more sense for them... (even thought the two are from very different families for different purposes).

Do you mean you consider strange the ES920 because it uses the HI-XL engine but has a plastic action rather than a wooden one? Well, consider a Kawai wooden action adds at least 8Kg to the weight of a DP. And Kawai doesn't produce yet an hybrid plastic/wood action like Yamaha does with the NWX action. And the HI-XL engine is not anymore the top piano engine from Kawai, so now it makes even more sense (compared to the previous ES8) they use it in a current middle/high-range DPs.

To me the strange things are more the CA49 (basically a CN29 with wooden action) and the DG30 (PHI engine, plastic action and the usual 20Wx2 speaker system on a DP that would like to look "premium", when the only premium thing I see is its price...).

P.S.:I don't think you will ever see a comparison between a CA49 and an ES920, considering they are very different DPs.

That's strange, because the NWX action of the P515 has a big upweight (from what its users usually say) compared to other DPs, so its keys should bounce back faster.[quote]

That may be the case but it's not as quick as a grand piano. I don't know the reason why.

Maybe it's not a matter of upweight, but of escapement. Acoustic grand pianos have escapements, so when you press a key until the bottom, the hammer is released from the key... So you don't feel its weight until you release the key and depress it again.
On any current digital piano (apart from some hybrid actions), the hammer is "always" connected to the key, so you feel its heaviness at any level of key press. This could make a digital piano keyboard more tiring than an acoustic keyboard, if you play many hours every day.

Exactly.


I understand weight is important factor for those who use their slab piano frequently for gigging... but thatis not me, to be honest.


I agree, CA-49 is the very strange one. Missing HI-XL in a full cabinet with wooden keys...
My experience is that slab with stand sets most typically have some disadvantages in sound via own speakers -- and that is why ES-920 is a bit surprising, too.

Yes, I know the pianos are very very different (in purpose as well) and maybe hence comparison at first sight is not natural.

However CA-49 and ES-920 allow this comparison of what is more important, a better action or a better sound engine? I think the question with respect to better action vs. better sound engine goes far beyond the comparison of the actual models.

That's a good question and my opinion is that they are both important.
But the ES920 action is a "very good" plastic action, so, even if the CA49 has a wooden action, I think I would pick the product with the better piano engine, more piano sounds and more options to customize the piano sound. But considering I don't like the ES920 look and I play with headphones 90% of the time, I would pick the very nice MP7SE instead (which currently has a cheaper price too).

Hey, how do you get those coupons and from which retailer? Thanks.

My $.02 is that a Kawai ES8 and Yamaha P-515 are very comparable in overall quality, but the feel of the actions varies enough that most players will have a very clear preference for one or the other.

Hi ColoRodney,

Sorry to nitpick, but I like to avoid confusion in my answers.


These are stage pianos: they have a lot more buttons, mod wheels, pitch bend, much better MIDI control functionality, no speakers, and hundreds/thousands more sounds (on average).






These are portable pianos: you can take them on stage, but they aren't designed for hauling from venue to venue playing in a band; rather, they are designed for less demanding gigs e.g., weddings, cruise ships, churches, student halls, music colleges etc.






Notice the main differences: aesthetically, stage-pianos don't look like they're built for home use (although the MP7SE is nice to look at IMO, and the CP88 has a nice style too, for a stage piano).

Now, the ES920 is designed to be lighter than the ES8, so better for hauling around in your car to weddings, etc., but it is not designed to be a workhorse for a rock band---the domain of the stage piano..

Kind regards,

Doug.

While all of that is true, I think the only universal distinction between a stage piano and portable piano is whether or not it has on-board speakers.

No, are there stage pianos with onboard speakers. The distinction is in fact pretty simple:

Portable pianos a geared towards amateurs (ES series, P series, FP series)
Stage pianos a geared towards professionals (MP series, CP series, RD series)

This affects availability of furniture stands and music rests, rugged casing, the amount of (professional) connectors on the back, also panel buttons, dials, faders, firmware/software features, programmability and general operation.