Today i went to sam ash and look at the portable digital keyboards.

yamaha p140 and the kawai ep2.

I'm in between because the Kawai has more options and the yamaha has better action. The prices are 100 dollar different.

Anyone have any experience with these two keyboards that could give me pros and cons of them? Also if you have played both of these do you think they sound different because i couldn't seem to find any difference.

Which would you choose?

thanks a bunch for everyones help

Orynos just type ' Kawai ep2 ' in the SEARCH section above this page and you'll find a lot of info about this.

ok, sorry I totally forgot to search.

have you considered Yamaha YDP160 (with only $300 more)? it's a much better model than YDP140, unless you're short of money.

Unfortunately it has to be portable because I want to take it to college

I'd get the EP2, but you should go with whatever action you like best, which you said was the Yamaha.

I have a Yamaha P140 and it's a great dp.

Only thing with the yamaha is that it doesn't have all the extra functions like the ep2 like connecting to the computer.

Anyone know of any keyboard with action like p140 but with the accessories of ep2?

thanks

never mind it has a MIDI...

but does anyone know of a cheaper one that has very similar key action to p140?

thanks again

Perhaps you should also consider this:

YAMAHA P-85 @ Yamaha.com

Yamaha P-85 @ Musician\'s Friend

Yamaha P-85 @ Zzounds.com

It doesn't have a "GHE" (graded hammer effect) mechanism but only uses the "GHS" (graded hammer standard) but it's relatively cheaper and still has MIDI connectivity.

ok thanks

I tried both the Yamaha P140 and Kawai ep2 you mentioned, also at Sam Ash. I liked the feel of both, but couldn't tolerate the sound of the Kawai. It was far too bright for me. I liked the P140 a lot. It had good tone, action, and touch.

The P85 was decent for the money, but again, it was too harsh in tone. For me, it didn't compare to the P140...but then it's a lot cheaper, so it really depends on your priorities.

I can do 1k but was looking for one with similar action/sound for cheaper.

I'll probably get the p140 but going to check one more place this weekend.

Thanks for your input diinin.

orynos, make sure you go back and try them again, and spend some time on each one. I find that each time I go back, I think differently of many of them. I haven't liked the P140 as much on recurring visits, but that's just me. I really liked it the first time around. They moved it, so it may be the different location affecting the sound.

ok thanks... the place I'm going to tomorrow will probably have one there and I'll see what it sounds like in a different atmosphere.

thanks for everyones help.

Are you using headphones to compare?

I haven't look into head phones yet... just using whats coming out of the keyboard itself.


Also while on this topic do you recommend any really good headphones?

thanks

Do a search here on headphones. You'll find good suggestions for Grado, Sennheiser, Sony, etc.

I think it would be tough to compare the sounds of different pianos using the onboard speakers in the normal store environment with all the noise around. At least, it was for me.

ah good point... if i ask for headphones would they get some for me?

There's one way to find out...