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Hi everyone,

I started play the piano 5 years ago, but then after a year of playing I quit because of other commitments. Now my passion for piano is renewed and I'm looking forward to getting a digital piano for my birthday. I want a digital piano because I live in an apartment and also my budget means I'm not getting an acoustic one.

I've shortlisted three DP to the Yamaha P155, the Roland F-120 and the Casio PX-780, but I just cannot decide between them.

I've done a lot of research and so far the prevailing view is that Yamaha is the 'true' maker of pianos since they've got grand pianos, Roland is good but overpriced and apparently I read that they stitch samples from different pianos together rather than one piano, and Casio makes 'toys' (not saying that it's true; I just read it).

But I've gone through the specs and I like Yamaha because it's a renowned brand and I trust what it's doing. The P155 looks good and has specs that suits me, but then for the same price (in my area), the new Casio PX-780 offers so many more functions. But is it actually better than Yamaha? Also, the Yamaha was from 2009, while the PX-780 just released in April 2013. Has Casio stepped up the game or is Yamaha still leading? And the Yamaha only comes with a footswitch, while the Casio comes with actual pedals and the piano stand. In the meantime, the Roland F-120 looks beautiful, has the stand and actual pedals, but some people say that its keys are too light and it doesn't sound as good as the P155.

So now I'm really confused. I know its always a matter of preference, but some opinions would be lovely. Having a good feel and replication of an acoustic piano are important factors to me. I am not intending to play extremely complex pieces of music. Also, I am unlikely to be considering a Kawai or a Korg.

I really appreciate any opinion and thanks in advance for that. (:

Kenneth

Kenneth,
You should plan on sitting down and playing these three pianos because in the end, it comes down to what you like about the action and sound. The P-155 is a nice digital piano, but Yahama has not done much to refresh its models in the last 3 years. Casio has been making strides over the last 4 years to shed their image as a toy keyboard maker. The Privia line is not a toy by any means. Their latest models have their latest sound engines and the action is all new. Many like the new Casio action. The Roland F-120 is also a nice piano. It is Roland's entry level model and uses an entry level action. You might also want to try out a Korg SP-280. All are good choices. Plan on bringing headphones to help evaluate the sound.

Stop reading spec sheets, and go play both the P-155 and PX-780. Forget dates, forget refreshes, get your hands on them. A quality instrument ages well.

(Yes the PX-780 is slim console format / 3 pedals / sliding lid. The P-155 is slab format. The equivalent Casio would be the PX-350 in slab format. Also, how did 780 make the list? At least look at the PX-850 with its extra resonance simulation feature.)

You need to get the Roland F120. (Red, of course.) Then you can tell me what it`s like . . . . .

Why no Kawai in your list ?

Thank you so much for the input. I will absolutely go down to the local piano dealer. Oops, I'm sorry I made a wrong comparison between the PX-780 and the P155... I wasn't even aware they they were of different 'formats'. So far I think I'm going for the Roland because I want a console piano instead of a slab one, and maybe I don't need all the bells and whistles the Casio has to offer.

I didn't include Kawai because it seems like it usually gives less for the buck. I'm not sure if I'm right but that's just based on my elementary comparison.

Thanks!

Kawai has the best actions IMHO, which is most important feature in digital pianos. You can change the sound by using software piano, but you can't change action. I was going for P155, but then I tried Kawai in the shop and changed my mind.

You can probably try out the kawai ep3 . It should be within your budget.

If your budget can stretch a bit the kawai mp6 professional stage piano is bang for your buck. Action with let off. 256 note polyphony.

The works.

Again specs is specs.. They mean nothing if you personally don't like the touch/feel and sound of the piano itself.

px850 sounds like a decent option as well.. Flagship casio. Doubt you can go wrong with that.

Play them all and then go with your instincts. Forget everything else.

I would definitely disagree with that statement. Roland is the manufacturer with the most overpriced stuff based on what I've seen. Casio delivers the most bang per buck, but it only has entry-level stuff to speak of. Yamaha and Kawai are in between.

Make sure when you are making comparisons that you are not comparing sticker prices of console models with sticker prices of slab-style models. Slab models are often sold in big box stores or internet stores and their prices are real. Console models are typically sold by brick-and-mortar retailers tha expect you to haggle them way down from the outrageous price they put on their sticker.

P-155
PX-850
F-120

None of those pianos are special. Its just more money for gimmicks compared to the Yamaha P-105.

The in-between stuff at $1K-2K is a waste of money. Consoles are pretty particle board junk.

The only decent hassle free piano's priced right are
Yamaha P-105 (starter)

Kawai MP10 (advanced)
Roland RD-700nx

The VCP1 is a lot of hassle and extra expense for nothing. Just disable the internal sound generator on a hardware piano if you don't like it.

You obviously tried all of the digital pianos on the market

Hi Kenneth,
Welcome to PianoWorld! You are absolutely right, it is all about what you like so if you can, try and play as many models as you can before you decide.

I am a Roland fan. Why? I felt that the Roland DP I was looking at (RD700NX) felt and sounded most like my beloved grand piano. Since I wanted my DP for night practice, that is the model I went with. Would I do it again? Yes, in fact I did...

Kenneth,

You face the decision that many of us have faced in this complex, confusing DP market - what's the best DP for me give my needs, wants, and constraints. And you are doing it the smart way. Rather than just diving in, you're asking good questions from those who have walked the same path.

IMO, the key next step is... Asking more questions! You've gotten some really good feedback in less than 24 hours. If you're like me when I walked this path about seven months ago, you're realizing that the answers you've received clarify your thinking AND generate new questions. To some extent this question -> answer -> question growth path will continue. That's inevitable. So how do you know when you have enough information to make a good decision. That's difficult.

Rather than try to gather more information about DPs, I'd suggest that you think about "what's important" given your wants, needs, and constraints. Let's start off with one constraint you mentioned - "apartment". That's pretty huge.

People who live in apartments (or with spouse, kids, and/or roommates) have a noise limitation. Which probably means that you will be practicing with headphones plugged into your DP. I have a Casio PX-850 (see pic below for reference). Since my wife doesn't like the god-awful sounds I make while practicing, I use headphones ALL the time. But that's my situation...

How often will YOU play your DP with headphones? Virtually all the time? If so, what difference will a great DP amp and speakers make? Will the sound quality of a PX-150 (Casio low-end) be different from a PX-850 (Casio high-end)? If the DP amp has 1000 watts, 10 speakers, and a subwoofer, will you hear any difference in your headphones? Highly doubtful.

You've said that you want good piano sound and action in your DP. This is where it gets difficult in the price range that you mentioned.

I can't comment on the others, but my PX-850 sounds pretty good, but not as well as it could. Notice that I have it in a niche with a shelf on top. Which means that the lid can't be raised. Which means the sound isn't as full as it could be. That is my constraint. Your constraints will affect how good your piano sounds. Think carefully about where it will be placed and whether you'll want a shelf or something else on top.

Regarding sound, another consideration is how good you want that piano sound to be. Decent? Very good? REALLY close to an acoustic piano? Unless you are willing to spend thousands of dollars on a DP (and maybe not even then), the internal sounds of almost any DP will be no where near as good as a software piano.

I have Galaxy Vintage D and VILabs American Grand software pianos. The sound is so much better than the native PX-850 sound that it's not even comparable Both are rich and full with a sound that is close to a grand piano. Several weeks ago, I stopped by a Kawai dealer and played a CA95 - an excellent, high-end DP - using headphones. The CA95 keyboard action was excellent but the sound in the headphones no better than my software piano sound.

So a big question is, are you comfortable with adding a computer to your DP? It's not a trivial effort, but the folks here on the forum can help you with setting it up. It adds to the cost of your DP, but the sound quality, expansion features, and potential for growth in the future (like DAWs, other piano software, better speakers, etc) make it a worthwhile option to consider.

Which brings me to my last point - keyboard action. As long as the keyboard has a USB or MIDI ports, you can expand it. OTOH, the keyboard action is what it is. AFAIK, you can't upgrade the keyboard action. If you can, go compare the action of the Casio, Yamaha, and Roland keyboards you are considering with a Kawai CA65 or CA95. I tried out a CA95 and my fingers said "Oooooooh... This is NICE!" I think my Casio keyboard action is good, especially at the price. But the CA95 was WAY better. IMO, try to get the best keyboard feel that you can afford.

As I wrote above, what's most important is how all of this fits with your needs, wants, and constraints. Great sounding features become useless, wasted features it they don't fit with you.

Good luck with your decision.

Regards,

Dan.

p.s. IMO, the Kawai VPC-1 is the first wave of the future. In five years (or less), I believe that you will see similar keyboards from multiple companies.

"Kawai VPC-1 is the first wave of the future"

Its a future of bank account emptying to accomplish the same result as what exists today (V-Piano). And over 5 years you will end up paying the same price as a soon to be discounted because it failed in the marketplace V-Piano. The only difference is that you will be buying software instead of hardware every year.

You're already not happy with the PX-850's sound. Soon the entire unit will be collecting dust when you buy the VPC1. Thats a good 4K down the drain already to keep up with the Joneses.

StarvingLion, you must be the most disliked person I've seen on here for a long, long time and I can see why. Get a grip, yo.

I can understand being down on the V. It was an expensive and not 100% successful experiment on Roland's part and a number of people don't like it--it was contentious from the beginning. I don't see your beef with the VPC1, though. Kawai delivered exactly what we asked for and wanted* and it's been very successful already. It is well-known that tone engines get obsolete and then people buy new pianos even though their actions are still perfectly fine. Or they purchase software pianos and then the expense of the internal sounds was all wasted. Both of those waste money. The VPC actually kind of negates that. As technology improves, people may replace their software pianos, but that's cheap. For the pianophile, the VPC1 is the best way to avoid major expense associated with keeping up with technological progress. You seem to have the completely opposite idea for some reason.

Software piano users requested and got exactly the device they wanted in the VPC1. It was designed perfectly for that need and we are all glad it's here. The only way I could imagine you finding fault with it is that you don't like the idea of software pianos for some reason. If so you are majorly missing out, and you are also misplacing your distain on a very reasonable tool made for people much with much greater experience, appreciation, and skill than yourself.

The other option is that you pick on the VPC just because it is universally loved and your goal is to get a rise. If that's the case, I think you would be better off starting threads about why PianoTeq is the next generation of pianos and everything else is garbage (or the other way around). That's by far the best ground for trolling. In fact, you could then take it to the PianoTeq forum and spare the rest of us your "insights."


[*] For years people in this forum including myself have been complaining that a simple piano controller with a top shelf action and no tone engine didn't exist. We pestered James mercilessly about it over a long period of time. I cynically believed that Kawai would never provide it because it doesn't also force us to use Kawai samples in our playing. It's just not evil enough. I now admit that I underestimated Kawai's corporate culture significantly.

gvfarns, if you believe software pianos will cure Digitalitis then you're sadly mistaken. Somebody will come out with the must have hot physical modeling software priced to the stars and the next craze will ensue. People don't like me because I'm right when I give an opinion that they are paying astronomical amounts of money for stuff that will drop in price like a rock in the next few years.

I predict people will be giving away many of todays popular units for free because the environmental fee to discard them won't be worth it.

Quite the contrary. I don't have to believe or guess because I already know. I bought Vintage D back in 2011 after demoing many other software and hardware pianos--I had been using digitals for years at the time and was tired of the upgrade cycle. I've since demoed many digitals (software and hardware) and I haven't seen anything that made me think I should or could upgrade, so I haven't. I don't expect to any time soon. It was $150 and solved my neverending search for a better sound. Software piano technology is pretty mature and I believe it's not going to get significantly better. They are getting better and cheaper over time, but the difference in quality between generations has slimmed to imperceptible.

There are those who aren't satisfied with software pianos, but I believe for the most part it's because they can't be satisfied at all. I'm not one of those.

gv: Oh! How tempting to react to the madness! But we must always remember the first rule of the internet: Don't feed the trolls!

This new troll makes me long for our old friend, Gyro. He was a troll ... but a troll in the most inoffensive form. He was a bit loony, but never EVER contemptuous. Our new troll, unfortunately, goes the other way.

This kind revels in contention. If we feed him, he'll stay. If we ignore him, he'll go away.

It's patently obvious that you're just a troll and a stupid one at that. You think anyone believes you even own a DP? Get a clue.

The 850 is a very good piano for the money. I can easily sell the 850 for a few hundred dollars less than I bought it for. On a dollar per hour of enjoyment, it's an amazing value.

Dan.