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Just curious... what is the most popular digital piano brand here with posters?

Please do not post what you like...... but do post what is your impression of the most popular.

It appears to me that Kawai is the most favored here.... is this true? Maybe Yamaha is 2nd.... my brand, Roland, appears to not be liked much here.

Again, just curious.

BTW, when I was doing research to replace my old Roland RD-600 with an RD-2000, both on-line and hands on, the folks I most respected denoted there was no one-best but more to my taste. I kinda didn't like hearing that thinking that someone out there went all out with a real acoustic action and big-computing processing... but found they were right.... it really is taste. So, said another way, is there a "taste bias" here?

Peace
Bruce in Philly

The answer depends on ...

1. Timing. Kawai seems to be discussed here more than the others. But that was not the case some years ago. It was Yamaha. And Roland was big too.

2. Meaning. Does more discussion mean more interest? I don't know.

More discussion means more problems. Most of the threads are about problems with digital piano or someone looking for a better digital piano or VST.

Difficult to say. Kawai, Roland and Yamaha (alphabetic order, yay!) seem to have have strong followings and it's difficult to say which is in the lead. Then Korg or Casio, perhaps Kurzweil, then Williams, Medelli and the rest. Me? I have a Casio, and yes, I think they get an unfair rap here - must be the 'underdog syndrome.' I have a Pentax DSLR (which is now faulty) and I get the impression that, from the various camera forums, Pentax too are the 'underdog.' Hmm, some coincidence? Looks at self in mirror; mirror shatters......has another sip of wine C'est la vie.

Hmm, my utterly anecdotal, unscientific impression is Roland and Kawai tied for first, then Yamaha closely followed by Casio. After that, Korg, then Kurzweill. That's my guess and I'm sticking to it!

You can crawl the user profiles and produce a tally of the top brands and models. No need to rely upon random opinions

Purely anecdotal, unscientific, un-researched and humble opinion: the most popular is #1 Yamaha #2 Kawai and #3 Roland. Kawai gets discussed more but due to various issues more than for its popularity.

Osho

Just by glancing on the titles on first 2 pages

Kawai - 17
Yamaha - 9
Roland - 4
Dexibell - 1
Casio -

A couple of thoughts that may or may not be true:

- Kawai customers tend to be more discerning, so are perhaps more likely to post to forums about their interest/research in an instrument, or if they experience any issues/dissatisfaction, etc.

- Kawai does not have an online user registration system in place for customers to report/log issues, and are therefore more likely to post about issues to forums.

James
x

My 2 cents,

Pianoworld is heavy on pianists and Kawai’s keyboards are targeted at that market, so I think they’ll always be in the top 3 here on PW. My sense is that Kawai does have a slight edge on finesse in this area. I don’t put too much stock on the complaints, like James said, pianists tend to be more discerning. My personal preference is Roland and then Kawai. But if it is just for pure piano, I prefer Kawai.

On forums heavier on gigging musicians, other brands are higher up the social totem. For example, on MusicPlayerNetwork Kawai’s in the top 10, but the top 4 are probably Nord, Roland, Yamaha and Korg - not just for piano, but EPs, organs and synths.

Additionally, while I prefer Kawai for piano, I just get a good feeling from the Roland build quality; feels over-engineered. Even the plastic Roland Go Piano felt like it wasn't going to break. This doesn't reflect on Kawai's build quality, but both Yamaha and Roland have an edge in this department.

With regards to piano sounds, Roland SuperNatural piano sounds have a good feel/response to them, so while I think Kawai has slightly more finesse, the Roland responsiveness is very good (I'm talking SuperNatural, not sure yet about the PureAcoustic sounds). But Yamaha's sampled pianos leave me cold, something about their approach is sterile for me - nonetheless, I agree that they're probably #2 on PW, with Roland further down the list.

Interesting. It's always been my belief that:

• The digital forum is not truly representative of "real world" data.
• Yamaha is significantly more popular/known than Kawai in the real world. Undisputedly, Yamaha has a bigger marketing and distribution reach.
• The ABF forum is more representative than the digital forum.

I did a quick count of stats from the ABF Recital #60 and this is what I got:

• Roland: 5
• Yamaha: 7 digital, 4 acoustic
• Kawai: 10 digital, 3 acoustic
• Casio: 3

It's really interesting to see that Kawai still pulled ahead here.

Most people I’ve talked to in Bulgaria don’t know Kawai as a brand and would even mock it in a lingual knee-jerk reaction since it sounds almost the same as the plural of Kaval (кавал) which is a traditional end-blown woodwind folk instrument, but the word is also the most common slang word for a BJ 🤣 It’s a bit tough, you know... People here universally think that it’s only Yamaha that can make quality instruments.

My perception, for the last four(ish) years (since I subscribed) is, for the sample in THIS forum, Kawai comes first, then Yamaha then Roland.

As apparently there are more Kawai fans/users, they tend to speak highly of their instruments and influence others that come after advice. That was my case (though I would not buy Kawai again for a series of reasons not relevant to the thread).

Also, as Groove On pointed, here, despite the forum not being exclusively for pianos, most posters are focused on it and thus Kawai is naturally a strong competitor; whereas in other forums, given the differences of the audience, the list would be different. For instance, on Keyboard Corner, which I also follow, my guess based on the topics would be Yamaha, Roland, Korg, Kurzweil, Casio, Hammond, Behringer (yes, the B) etc. with Kawai appearing on occasion.

You guys have a BJ’s over there? That’s nice to know.

We have to pay a yearly BJ’s membership, but it is worth it!

Do you guys pay for a yearly BJ’s membership?

Kawai can be quite easily confused by a non-Japanese speaker with kawaii (cute) - I think the rise in kawaii culture outside Japan might be having a slight negative impact on Kawai’s brand image as well.

Perhaps the actual topics and nature of the posts should also be considered?

Analyzing this data I suspect Kawai owners tend to be people who like posting about their Kawai's. It also suggests Casio owners are offline playing theirs instead of posting about them on forums. To me, Roland is not a brand known so much for pianos as it is for synthesizers, to me to me to me. Every Roland thread includes people asking "they make pianos?" no? Dexibell, that is Dolly Pardon's sister right? Did anyone check that Dexibell thread to see whether "piano" is mentioned? Yamaha?