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Good day guys. Yesterday I received my KAWAI NV5. I played it at the store and I was so excited about keybed and piano sounds. But when I started to play on mine I found that some keys are really slow to come back on original position (especially black keys) and the result is that when I play I have some "ghost notes". I found out also that is almost impossible to play fast "ribattute" (the same note). Did this happen also to you? What you did with this problem? I am pretty shocked that a 5.800 Euro piano has this issue. I played also CA-99 and it was perfect, and also the YAMAHA 785. Do you think that a tech can resolve the problem? Otherwise I will change immediatly the piano.

THANK YOU for your help (and please forgive me for my english) :-)

SIMONE

It seems that the keys may have been disturbed in transit. The keys might need adjustment or regulation. Call your dealer.

Probably just needs a tech to check the action: remember it's a real acoustic action, so might need regulating, especially if lots of customers have abused it.

thank you for your reply. I bought a new one that arrived in the box so none played it before me.

I agree with the others. A real acoustic piano action, although much more nuanced and easier to control than a typical digital piano action, is also a lot more complex.

Play it as many hours as you can before the technician comes, so any other problem notes appear now.

Although it probably won’t make you feel better, I’ve seen this happen on €50.000 pianos, too!

ehehe. thank you very much. I hope that a tech will come soon!

I have a Kawai K300, which is an acoustic, but which has the same or a similar action as the NV5, and is probably built in the same factory. I had the same problems. It is a regulation issue and can be fixed. The dealer's technician replaced pins in two keys so that they were not as tight. Later I had two other keys developing the same problem, but these could be fixed by the technician by applying some fluid to the hammer mechanism. He said that if it would not go away, he would have to take the action with him and regulate it in his workshop. In the meantime I have one other key becoming a bit slow. I only notice this with dampers lifted. It is certainly humidity related. At 50% no problems (so far) but around 55-60% some keys became slow.

I have seen other people on forums with a K300 or NV5 having similar problems....

I like the K300 very much, both the sound and the action (after the slow keys are fixed), but requiring the action to be regulated multiple times is a bit of a let down (I bought it in March).

I addition I have a slanted logo problem, which the dealer informed Kawai about multiple times (as they cannot fix this themselves). Kawai has not yet contacted me after months. This problem is also not unique as there are multiple users here on the forum that had this on their digital kawai piano.

t seems their factory in Indonesia may have some problems with quality control. I have to say though that the slow key problem in my case only developed after a while, when humidity went up, and not at arrival, so it probably wasn't apparent in the factory or at the dealer. I believe the piano is expected to behave well between 30-70% humidity. But as said, in my case slow keys started to appear >55-60%

I had also some problems, which got fixed by the Technician. It's not a big deal. I also had a slow key on the NU1X before.

It's a new, virgin piano? That's good!Understand that even a new piano can have regulation problems.
Most digitals won't have such problems because of the simplified action.
But such things are expected in an acoustic piano ... and in the Novus because it has a grand action.
I hope your dealer treats it as such. Meaning: I hope he comes out to regulate it properly.

I am sure he will! I love my NV5 but it makes me so nervous to have so many ghost notes.
Thank you.

Keep us updated, Simone. I am interested in learning what exactly the technician does to fix it.

If anything it's Less easy to control and less uniform. There's no way you can have hundreds of moving parts and achieve the same repeatability / tolerance as a cast plastic key with a single pivot.

More nuanced would really just describe that inherent unpredictability.

My experience so far with a CA-58 digital piano and and a K300 acoustic (both Kawai), is quite the opposite, once the 'slow key return' issue was regulated. The acoustic is much easier to control than the digital, particularly when playing softly. Night and day. One source of problems is the let-off simulation in the CA-58.

More generally, I do no see why fewer parts necessarily means something will function with better control and more reliably. That really depends on the dynamics of the system. I would think that an important reason to have so many components in acoustic actions is control. In the end you are just throwing a hammer at a string, which I am sure can be done in a much simpler way as well.

Update: the tech went to fix the nv5 at the music-store and now it’s completely different. No more ghost notes. It’s like playing a new instrument. So... i can say that it is a common problem with many nv5 that hust need to be fixed by a professional tech.

Be careful not to confuse consistency with nuance of control. More nuanced control refers to more control over tone and dynamics.