Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum New Kawai K500 with heavy touch weight of 65-85grams

Good luck.

This kind of reminds me of the "dead pixel policy" when buying new TV/monitor. One might think a brand new LCD panel is guaranteed to have zero defects, but actually a handful of dead pixels are allowed under the warranty, the number depends on the kind of pixel defects and their spatial distribution.

I hope it will work out for you, but this illustrates that when one seeks a piano buying advice online, the choice is real only for the buyer but hypothetical for everyone else. You could go by specs, reputation, even sound recording, but unless you're playing it in person, you're not assessing the actual specimen!

There's been several posters with similar issues of Kawai's coming crated from the factory, with little to no dealer prep. "Factory Direct" piano without the "Factory Direct Discount".

Pick your dealer with care no matter what brand it is. Actually Kawai can do a great job, my dealer got a K800 in for a couple of days from Kawai specially for me to try and we played it straight off the delivery lorry - Kawai UK had already done an amazingly good job preparing it and it was lovely, perhaps rather better than what I'd expect after good dealer prep.

I had the same problem with ADIRL after buying a K500 Aures 2 which arrived in September. The dealer sent a technician who installed lead in the front of the keys making them sluggish (I read that lead work on the front of a key in uprights is a no-no). After a lot of time and effort I managed to get a replacement piano from Kawai. Unfortunately, that too has a heavy action (although not as heavy) averaging 59g for the white and 65g for the black keys. I am pretty sure I measured it correctly. Kawai says that it is within specs. The dealer delivered it at home with keys that were not level! Obviously no regulation was done and prep was bad. I finally got the dealer to agree to send a technician to level the keys. I am expecting him in a few days. I am hiring another technician to come after that and regulate/lubricate the piano. He does not believe that will reduce the touchweight by a lot. Technicians generally do not seem eager to mess with a touchweight of a new piano. I am new to this forum and asking for advice. A few say that 61 g downweight or so on average is not bad. Ok, but it's heavy. It's not normal. For me it compromises playability and I am disappointed at both Kawai and the dealer.