What to buy in this price range?

Hi!

In a few months i will be purchasing a new keyboard (digital piano), i currently have a Yamaha PSR-275. Although this was a nice little keyboard to get started on as a beginner i feel that an improvement would make the learning process more effective and generally much better.

I started looking around for a full size digital piano, after a little research i found the Casio px750 to be the best option in my price range of £650 (around $1000).

So now to the actual point of the thread, is this the best option in my price range? I'm not fussed about extra voices or unnecessary functions, just a piano that sounds nice and plays like a real piano.

I was also wondering if it would be worth saving up for a better piano. Is the increase in price to performance ratio high? I'm still a beginner so i don't really want to spend too much if it isn't necessary.

I have also had trouble finding independent reviews (Not from a music company/store) for the px750 and almost most other digital pianos. If anybody can point in the direction of some decent reviews I'd be grateful ^^

Hope this is in the right place, thanks ^^

TBH I'd spend a tad more and get the 850.

Its got beefier speakers, constant sustain pedal, let off velocity, and more string resonance.

I would find the sustain useful namely because the other PX range are off, middle and full. When I play a grand piano I have access to, I find the on off switch of my DP messes me up and goes all mushy.

Its outlined here:

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2041363/Casio_px_750_vs_px_850_in_Cana.html

There is also the ES7, there is one that appears now and again (and is legit) £800 with stand and pedals.
Though one through a dealer with stand and pedals sells for £1100.

For more money you get small improvements. Myself I personally love the Roland SN piano, except as I have mentioned the fact the 300 has a stupid joystick means it won't fit, the RD64 hasn't got enough keys and still has a stupid joystick.


The alternative is to get VMK188. You can get this baby for £373.40, add Pianoteq (£100) and some monitors (£200) you'll have a controller that sounds better than anything for that price, but has to be connected to a computer of some kind.

@ £599 Casio PX 350 done deal !

Hello Jordooee,

Based on your budget, I would move up from the PX-750, and strongly recommend you consider the Casio PX-850. Also, I urge you to do a Search, here on the PianoWorld Forum.

I am a new/recent owner of the Casio PX-850, and am of the opinion that this unit offers unmatched "bang-for-the-buck", at the present moment in time.

Here is a link to my first impressions/review:

Casio PX-850 first impressions/review

Good luck.

Cheers,
John

"just a piano that sounds nice and plays like a real piano"

If thats your criteria then you may as well not lie to yourself that you can get that with $1000 US.

You have to shell out $3K US in either digital or acoustic to get something that sounds nice and plays like a real piano.

My advice is to wait 15 months. Prices of digital pianos are going to drop like a rock because of inflation and hardware piano panic due to VPC1.

I can no longer tell if the new resident troll that attempts to derail every thread is joking, for real, or being sarcastic.

Look in your local ads. Currently, lots of fools trying to unload used acoustic pianos at obscene prices to greater fools. Gyro's mythical free used acoustic universe doesn't exist now, but it soon will.

Walter Piano cannot sell their superb top of the line acoustic console and studio pianos anywhere in NA. Does that sound like everything is hunky dory?

Tritium bought a 850 because it is cheap, not because the whiz bang features actually add anything of value.

The PX-850 will sound more like an acoustic piano than the PX-750. So if you can afford one, get it in preference to the PX-750. It has a decent keyboard action (shared with the other PX-x50's), and a sound generator upgraded from the rest of the PX-x50 lineup.

The Kawai ES-7 has gotten good reports here, but I think it's outside your price range.

Finding something that "plays like a real piano" -- that's the Holy Grail, and it's still missing.

. Charles

PS -- I'm about to write a comment on my own setup, which you might find interesting.

PS -- bias -- I own a PX-350.

Right now, I would highly value the possibility that the Moderators on this site review your post history, the extensive negative feedback you have received, recognize you for the obvious troll you are...and smite you down with a most righteous and well deserved ban hammer.

In other words you don't like opinions that differ from your own. OK. The fact remains, I answered the OP's question. Most of the other responses ignored the budget constraint and started touting pianos that do not add much to piano-like realism.

Fact is, most people who have bought dp's in the 1K-2K US range have disabled their onboard sounds and generally do not like the action that much either. So whats the point recommending them?

At least I paid the absolute minimum $600 for a new dp that solves a problem: sound level too loud from the soundboard of a real piano. The fact you don't like my negative reviews of midrange dps and of course the V-piano boondoggle doesn't make them incorrect.

StarvingLion, differing opinions is perfectly fine - it's a necessary part of healthy discourse.

However, your opinions and advice seem to vary considerably from day to day, and sometimes even hour to hour, making it very difficult for new visitors seeking recommendations to draw any firm conclusions.

Kind regards,
James
x

I respectfully submit that you make repeated, outlandish claims and remarks, and present them as "facts"...not opinions. More often than not, your outrageous remarks are disrespectful and demeaning to your fellow forum members -- by your unseemly ridicule of their preferred digital piano solution. In my humble opinion, your behavior and conduct in this forum speaks volumes.



I could be wrong...but I think the OP was requesting advice on a DP to purchase, so as to advance their study and training of playing the piano.

Apparently, your answer is to wait a year and a half, in order for your crystal ball prognostications to come to pass:



Yeah, way to "answer" the OP's questions.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I don't think I've ever seen that happen, and as I mentioned at some point there have been people far, far worse than StarvingLion in every respect. This particular forum is not heavily moderated.

However, people who are universally disliked eventually stop coming back. That's been something I think we can count on.

Yes, it's rare to see someone booted off of PW, but it has happened. Since that is unlikely ...

We can't expect a troll to disappear long as people continue to respond to him.
To assist in that I've changed my settings to ignore him.

It seems a troll thrives on both his bizarre behavior and on the responses to it.
I think the only way to push out a troll is to ignore him.

Hi gvfarns and MacMacMac,

That is certainly sound advice. It just burns me that a new member joins up, asks for reasonable, helpful advice, and BOOM, a character like SL has the potential (if left unchecked) to cause more harm than good...especially to a beginner who might not know any better.

From which data do you extract this wisdom?

Data? He don't need no stinkin' data! He's a troll. A troll's whole reason for existing is to give people grief and disrupt a forum.

So you want data? How about these facts... SL has the IQ of a turnip with the morals and ethics of a weasel. And I have it on very good authority that he looks like the north end of a south-bound cow. This is based on a double-blind study of randomly selected subjects (my two great uncles) taken over a 15 second period. That's proof positive!

Dan.

Hi jordooee.

The px850 should simulate a real piano better than the px750 especially when it comes to sustain & resonance etc.

In your price bracket casio is considered to be the best bang for your buck.

If you can u should probably save the extra and get the px850.

Also as a general rule, ignore starving lions posts for your own good.

+1

A px 750 would be just fine. It would play like a grand piano. However, what I would suggest for a beginner is too hold off a while before "upgrading." The reasons are the following:

1. In the US, it is not unheard of for beginners to take several years of classical lessons on a 61-key unweighted keyboard. They have little trouble adjusting to the acoustic upright or grand in their teacher's studio.

2. This PSR 275 is quite an instrument in itself, with a big grand piano sound. You can play all of Bach and most, if not all, of Mozart on 61 keys, more music than you could play in several lifetimes. J. S. Bach would have killed for an instrument like yours, vastly superior to the clunky keyboard instruments he played on.

3. This PSR 275 is just plain fun to use. You can plop it down anywhere, and play anytime. With a PX 750 it will be like a living room acoustic upright. You'll now have to sit down at a bench, in one place, and play, and you'll have to work to get the weighted keys moving under your fingers--not as much fun anymore.

4. The dropout rate is very, very high in piano, one of the unpleasant facts of life in piano. People, highly advanced players, have gone through conservatories, and after they graduate, they quit playing, never to touch the instrument again.

So hold off for now, until you see if this is the hobby for you. It might or might not be.

@Gyro,

Is this what happened to you, and, could this this be the reason why you now only practice on a cheap Williams "Overture" digital and don't make any recordings of your playing to prove you can play real concertos on it?

Gyro rejected the insidious Natural Selection going on at the conservatory in favor of devolution and is currently working on his first concerto for Fischer-Price Piano:

Honestly chaps, why the hate?

+1

I don't think Gyro ever disrespected anyone so why not granting him the same courtesy ?

+1

Now I've seen it all: A troll trolling another troll!
But, as others have pointed out, Gyro was never insulting or mean-spirited.
So double-bad on you, SL.

+1000

SL:
Not an original thought goes through that mind does it?

But it looks like you took my advice and got the piano that matches your intellect. Good boy!

Dear Jordooee,

first of all, welcome in our society.

I was thinking about the following: If you test some instrument at your local store and like it as a playability and sound, event it might be a bit (just say 20-30%) more expensive than you price tag is, try to ask for the option to pay it not at once but in few months. It will be a bit more, but that way you can get better instrument.
www.Musicstrore.de, www.Session.de have this option. Probably in United Kingdom (I guess you are from there, because your price in in £) man can find this possibility.

About Casio – I have tried just one model last year, but compared to Kawai in the same price range, I would prefer Kawai because of the keyboard.
What do you think about KAWAI CL-36 SB? Friend of mine bought the same for his daughter and it sounds pretty good.
Just as an advice also YAMAHA YDP-161.