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DO you need to be able to travel/carry the piano? P515 is heavy, FP-10 (if you can find one) is lighter...

If you measure the down-weight and up-weight on your acoustic and post that here (in grams), we can compare that to the list of digital pianos and find one that fits your Bechstein [/quote]


Any suggestions on how to make those measurments?

You can follow the other video I posted below (simpler). Using coins, use small coins that can fit between the keys.
With a weigh scale, add a number of coins to the scale until you get a weight that the scale is sensitive enough to measure. Then divide by the number of coins till you have the weight per coin.

This is a simpler video



Below is a link to a PW post showing digital piano touch weights.

http://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbth...piano-key-action-and-static-touchweights

No, it will live at a friend's place, so when I visit her, I can keep up daily practicing. I don't intend to use it to play music. Mostly technical exercises. The p125 that I now have is plenty heavy.

Thanks.

Down weight 53 gm. Return 33.

Additional test showed that weight to sustain a note when the key is released with a weight already on it was 95gm for F4

Here's a helpful article on weighing for actual sustain. It has results for a lot of popular pianos, and tends to confirm my likely choice of a Yamaha p-515. That takes 96gm for a sustained note, which is just a gram more than my Bechstein. The Roland p-60 OTOH, is more like 80 gm.

https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/keyboard-action-and-key-weight-experiment/

You didn't mention your budget, nor your purpose. Will you keep it in the home or take it around?
Are there space limitations?

With sufficient budget, you might like the hybrid pianos which mimic the action of an acoustic far better. Budget, portability requirements and space available for a cabinet digital wasn't outlined?

No mention of a Kawai VPC1 (say, with an iPad), or MP11SE?

I think ideally, I'd test the models in the store as well as taking ideas. So much more to these actions than just downweight.

VPC-1 with Pianoteq set on Vintage Bechstein

Sounds a good choice. Plenty of realism on that old jo-anna; I use it myself.

I guess might rule out the VPC1 + computer approach.

Budget is not an issue. Space is. It's my primary partner's apartment, and while I'm there a few days a month, I can't permanently occupy her space. If I could, I'd get a small acoustic grand. Again, sound is secondary, and in fact a problem, because nobody (including her neighbors) wants to hear hours of scales/arpeggios and the like, so I don't care how good the sampling or speakers are since I use headphones always. I need a good simulation of the action, not the sound.

I think we can safely rule out P-515 if the DP is to match this (sorry @Pete14). I suspect even the PHA-4 is a heavier action than this. Heck, I'll even go ahead and say most DP actions are heavier than 55gms downweight.

Stage pianos - Korg Grandstage? Yamaha CP88? RD-2000? (since budget is not an issue, and you like using headphones)

Hello,


Yes, it is.

The Kawai ES110's possibly isn't.

Cheers and happy keystrokes,

HZ

But note that Brian immediately followed that post with:


Reading the Sweetwater article that Brian linked to was interesting. It showed that some pianos would depress and make an extremely faint staccato sound at a certain weight (like the 53 grams above) but would not actually SUSTAIN a sound until a much higher weight was used (in Brian’s case 95 grams).

So the Sweetwater article decided to only compare weights required for sustained sound (I’m assuming because almost all piano repertoire involves sustaining notes). They included a chart of their results of many popular digital pianos, and found that about 93 grams was a median weight for the group, with a range of about 20-30 grams around that number.

Here’s the chart:
https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/media/2020/08/DigitalPianoActionComparison.pdf

Ah; not that Sweetwater article again! Folks, do watch this as well



... and form your own conclusions.

This is an interesting topic. As I, like many guys, am simply trying to understand relative key "heaviness" between different pianos, I would like to discuss these arguments a little more. (And by "arguments," I don't mean to argue; rather simply "discuss"!)

The rebuttal video made two good points:

1) Double-stacking weights will give erroneous results, because "that's not the way it's done." This is absolutely correct.

He didn't explain why, but this is because the twisting moment force that causes the key to start rotating around its fulcrum is defined by the multiplication of a linear force ("weight") AND its distance from the fulcrum. Decrease the distance, and you decrease the rotational force (and vice versa). So to compare apples to apples, the position of the gram weights must be kept constant, i.e. no double stacks of weights.

2) Professional piano regulators never find the weight required to sustain a tone; rather, they only adjust the weight required to reach the escapement point. Again, he says, "this is just the way it's done; I don't know of any professional regulator who finds the weight necessary to sustain a tone." Again, these statements are also indeed correct.

What he doesn't address, though, is that we're not looking to regulate an acoustic piano--we're trying to quantitatively compare the amount of force required to play different pianos. And I think most people would agree that playing a piano involves striking the keys with enough force to produce a sustainable sound. To me (for this experiment) it makes a lot of sense to measure that force and not the force necessary to reach some mythical silent escapement point. I say mythical, because most digital pianos generally don't even have a real escapement mechanism; most have either none or only a simulated escapement.

Bottom line, the Sweetwater video tried to offer a quantitative comparison that applied to both acoustic and digital pianos. It was a little faulty, but I think the overall concept still has merit. Perhaps if they redid the experiment without double stacks of weights, they might have a more accurate and somewhat useful list to organize digital (and acoustic) pianos from lightest to heaviest actions.