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

It's just incomplete information. I'm sure all current Kawai pedals provide the half damper capability.

Check out this current thread:Questions answered about GFP-3 pedal

Was trying your suggestion on the EX patch today, with your settings. I've actually saved it as the default for my EX now.

Kawai ES920 vs. Yamaha P515

tl;dr; they're both good, it's mostly personal preference.

Yes, it's mostly personal preference, assuming anyone would prefer an all-plastic piece of junk that will likely fall apart on you soon, over a solid, metal-reinforced keyboard that will likely last you for years and years.

That's not exactly what he said, but he strongly implied it. Unlike most piano reviews, that start off with a discussion of the sound and the action, he went right to build quality, and proceeded to describe the ES920 as a plastic piece of crap, the front of which you can push in with your finger.

He also described the ES920's key action as "wishy washy", loud and bouncy, while the P515's is solid and fairly quiet.

If you're a Kawai fanboy, you'll have a hard time getting through this review, methinks.

Actually, at 45:15, he says exactly "Honestly, it's mostly up to personal preference". Listen to the summary that starts at around 42:34. The tl;dr summary by Patient player is correct.

Osho

Whenever I watch pianoforever I get the impression he has very little experience or even interest with digital pianos at all and just ignores the main points to obsess over some particular aesthetic or interface technicality. But he’s found something that gets clicks and no one else does (besides retailer brochure reading “reviews”) so keeps churning them out.

I wish he would demonstrate the difference between the accompaniment features instead of merely stating that he doesn't use it. Which is better at approximating a jazz trio? That's what I want to know. Sounds like it is the Kawai.

The Yamaha may be made of more solid material, but as a result the Kawai is 20% lighter (37 lbs vs 48 lbs). If you expect to move it around, that should definitely be a factor.

I guess I could be considered one of the fan boys. I've begun questioning continuing to read posts that focus on insignificant problems and with concerns that are not my own.

My brother shared an insight he'd read about: It's usually the best informed consumers who are the unhappiest with their purchases. Why? Cause they have all these ideas and expectations that come from reading too many reviews, and at some point you end up leading with your critical brain, which leads to being disappointed 'cause it doesn't live up to your inflated expectations and 'must-haves'.

I'm not close to being as accomplished as many here, but I was trained classically, have a good ear and can read well enough to learn songs for singalongs. The action on the es110 and es920 are way way beyond what I've played much less owned before in a DP.

For me the selling points of these boards:
1. Action action action. I feel very expressed on these boards without it being even noticeable, which is a good thing. It's fluid, plays wonderfully from ppp to fff, and even the key surfaces feel good. AFAIK (I haven't tried the P515 or FP-60 but have heard lots of user reviews of the action), these boards are easily the best at these price points.

I never even noticed the key bounce which apparently doesn't affect playing but some folks get kinda obsessed about. With the sound down, I hear my es920 as being one of the quieter actions I've played, something I usually check when playing keyboards at GC. But I do understand some people have practical problems with its noise in some settings.

2. Weight. Not everyone has the luxury of having APs at their disposal. I never even considered the ES8 because of its weight. I had a Nord Stage 88 Classic, and as I get older things just get heavier and heavier. It was 'only' 41 pounds, but I vowed never to get a board as heavy and was even reluctant to deal with the 37.5 pounds of the es920.

If James just goes on and on about the plastic build then I have no interest in that review unless he has something solid to be concerned about, and there are certainly plenty of quality, gig-worthy plastic body boards out there. I've appreciated some of his reviews, his enthusiasm for the action of the es110 solidified my confidence in buying one. But it's beyond the pale if he doesn't understand what a crucial issue weight can be for many of us, and doesn't focus on the action, sound generators, sounds, misc. features and UI. Those are things everyone needs to know from a review.

3. Auto-accompaniment. This was one of the main reasons I chose the 920 over the 520. This is not important for everyone, but some of us really love it, esp as it's implemented in the es920. I had an auto-arranger, the mighty Korg Pa1000, and while I was somewhat in awe of what a fantastic job they did (sound quality better than any board I've heard, Styles that are so good it's like having studio musicians on call, amazingly rich and full speaker system, etc etc)- in spite of that I was put off by how complex it was. Not unlike a workstation, it was once again a board that required tons and tons of time to 'tame the board, make it mine'. I've had several boards like that and have learned, ok, that's super distracting from the real thing at hand, actually playing and practicing music.

That's why I enjoy the arranger implementation on the es920 so much- it gives me a good practice partner with enough variety (main part, plus a variation) and easy way to change up from drums only, drums and bass, or the whole shebang, all with a single front panel button push or the foot pedal. They devised a half-way decent practice partner that is dead drop simple to use. Something the Pa1000 could not touch.

4. More than decent speakers. Aux in and BT audio streaming. The fun stuff you can do with ios or android apps. Piano technician parameters. All great stuff.

So yes, I do love this board, and applaud most of the design decisions that Kawai made. And celebrate that music technology has finally gotten really good and really cheap. I started buying digital keyboards in the mid-80s, and by my reckoning, it's only in the last 5 years or so that wonder boards like the es110 / 520 / 920 with excellent action and sound and light weight and affordable prices have become available.

Yes, that's much better. With those settings I hear more fullness and roundness especially in the lower register.

Well thought-out comments Randyman. Agree.

Here's another (well: "sales") review of the ES920, this time from Alamo Music:

At this point, the only ES920 review I'm looking forward to is Stu Harrison's. The Alamo review was okay, but it would have been better if Ted (the older guy with the pony tail) had done the playing, and given us his opinion.

Does anyone know when the ES520 will be widely available in the US?

The piano guy at Sweetwater told me that the ES520 and ES920 are both due to arrive there in mid-February.

One thing you might try is looking for acoustic piano dealers. Surprisingly I found some of them had stock while the more mainstream music outlets didn't. I ended up finding an es920 3 weeks ago at a Kawai piano dealership.

But yeah, they've been in short supply in general.

I've been anxiously waiting for this review:

Headphone update: decided to get the beyerdynamic dt770 80 ohm - they’re all out of stock. The 32 ohm is in though, should I get them?

So far I’ve been using my Bose qc35, but the cable is too short :-(


So, my question is: get 32 ohm version or longer cord and wait?

Wait for the 80 ohm version.

PS: Where are you located? I see them available at Amazon in the US.

Huh, I thought it was a fair review.

P-515 has noticeably better build quality, and quieter, heavier action. ES920 action is still very good, and behaves very much like a lighter acoustic action. Piano sounds in both are very good, with CFX tending toward clear power, and the SK tone being close to "perfect" especially wrt realistic resonance and how well the high treble is rendered.

He did spend a lot of time talking about build quality, but IMO it was warranted, considering the build of the ES8 and the MP series...