Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards I don't like the sound of Acoustics.

all acoustic pianos have ear-splitting volume, but your ears acclimate within 15 minutes. this does not mean it's good for you, or is less ear-splitting than before you started playing.

I was just making a joke (with regrettable taste):

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/business/boeing-737-max-simulator-training.html

After practicing, playing and performing on acoustic grands for 67 years, I still have excellent hearing. That is because I never did play at ear-splitting volume, and I didn't have to turn down the volume control to achieve it. When you perform mostly collaborative music, you work as a team. There is no need to play more loudly than the rest of your ensemble.

It is sad that there is a desire on this forum to denigrate acoustic pianos. I have both. Each performs very well at the tasks assigned. If you love DPs, that is wonderful. Why does that mean you need to hate APs? You have a choice. Don't play an AP, but let others who can play an AP musically do so without harrassement.

My K300 in my living room is absolutely not ear-splitting. In fact, decibel wise (I've measured) it's quieter than my old digital piano at max volume (which was even more harsh on the ears because of distortion).

Now if I had a grand piano in my room, I'm sure that would be a totally different story and it would need to be put in a much larger room to be comfortable.

Saying "ALL" acoustic pianos have ear splitting volume is factually incorrect.

I think there's just a vocal minority at this specific point in time who are espousing that view. Whether acoustic or digital (or both), most people in the Pianoworld forum are *piano* players, not "digital piano players" or "acoustic piano players." We use the tools we have, whatever they are, to play piano and make music.

This is the answer

👍🏻

Perfect practice (aka deliberate practice as espoused by ABSRM) should benefit performance on either instrument type, so I agree 👍

I am positive someone out there is comparing X-plane or FS flight sim to your 25 million dollar simulator

just as some do here between a $100,000 grand and a $2000 digital and expecting similar results

and I still would prefer flying a Cessna 172 to your simulator. (not that the simulator would not be awesome, Just like my digital)

I'd take the 172 as well. The sim WAS awesome, mostly because of the fidelity of the simulation. After a few minutes in the cockpit, you were simply flying an aircraft - neither a sim nor the real thing. To me, this makes the argument about digital vs. acoustic bogus and a waste of valuable time one could use playing your instrument.

My 108-year-old acoustic piano is preferable to my 3-year-old digital piano.

A short note, I feel kinda bad about what I posted before.

I think I went overboard with my outburst, for instance, about "having to become a computer geek..." etc. etc.

For lots of people that learning curve is no big deal.

And there are certainly some great advantages to having a non-acoustic set-up.

I raise my glass and propose a toast to all of you here in the digital forum who have learned how to handle plug-in software type set-ups, etc.

And thank you immensely for the knowledge you share with us here.

Jeanne W

No you do not. acoustic pianos are 90db+ , this is at the upper limits of acceptable noise level for work environments, and that bar is only so high because corporations don't actually care about labor safety. if you get your hearing tested, you'll find that you're missing a large chunk relative to non musicians / non headphone users even compared to those of the same age as you.

the bulk of the harassment comes from the acoustic piano side of players. for digital piano enthusiasts of which i've only recently become a member, their reasoning for choosing digital is extremely clear and objective, uncolored by the substance free frat culture of acoustic worship.

You see, this is the kind of vitriol we, digital-people, deal with every day.

And then someone has the nerve to accuse us of ‘denigrating the acoustic’; but I ask, if you come to our land to insult us on a daily basis, “it’s dead,” “it’s an imitation,” “I wouldn’t let my children anywhere near you digital folk,” etc; what are we to do?


We attack till you show us some r-e-s-p-e-c-t ✊

I remember my first thoughts on owning an acoustic grand piano was when I was a freshman in high school. I had already been fortunate to have an acoustic grand to play on when my parents purchased one more so I think for it's aesthetic value to replace a Lowry organ that we had at the time. I was at a Thanksgiving Dinner and my uncle, a well off anesthesiologist was talking to my older brother and I about things he valued and he happened to be somewhat materialistic and he loved his fancy cars, fine wines, and collectibles from around the world. He also had a Kawai KG that I got to play from time to time. My brother happened to be quite anti-material as smart as he was going to Columbia at 15 years of age , Yale and MIT (yes one of those prodigies) he didn't believe materialism and scoffed at the idea of living a life in search of a BMW. Well anyway, I was part of that conversation I told my Uncle that I also believed in the simple life, but my dream for a happy life included a simple nice house with a nice baby grand to play on.

That thought stayed with me throughout college and when I got my degrees but it wasn't the central thing on my mind, but I enjoyed playing the piano quite a bit. I was self taught, not particularly very talented but I loved playing it and any opportunity I got to play a piano in college, whether it be at the student cafeteria, the student lounge, fine arts practice rooms. I sought them out. As I went through graduate school I thought it was nice if I could own a digital piano to play on so I wouldn't have to travel so far to play an acoustic piano so I did my research and ended up buying a Korg Concert Series digital piano such as the one featured in this video:



Unfortunately the unrealistic action and response of the piano along with the poor dynamic range made that piano a poor buy and it got very little use. I played it maybe a dozen times before I realized I much preferred the beat-up uprights I was playing at my college so I just continued to play on those. I eventually joined an adult program at a conservatory in Harvard Square and that piano was basically abandoned completely and I played on the nice Steinways at that school. Fast Forward a few years later I upgraded the Korg to a Yamaha P-80. Nice little DP but again a big let down when compared to the real thing once again and it also got very little use and then was sold on Craigslist. I still had in the back of my mind the idea of one day owing a home with that nice acoustic grand, so I plugged away in school, took out a ton of loans and thought carefully about what career choices I would have to make my dreams into a reality.

The day came when I finally got married adopted my step son and I was in a position to custom build that simple home. My home design included a piano room built specifically to house a piano with room for window seats, lounge chairs, spot lighting for the music stand and an HVAC system to keep the piano environment stable. Nothing was left to chance and I was able to build a piano room that was positioned so that no direct sunlight would hit a piano even with the windows fully open. As I was building my home, I was able to take purchase of a Kawai RX-2 at a great price and I enjoyed that piano for about 12 years. Eventually my career evolved to the point that I was able to start my own practice and eventually I replaced that Kawai RX-2 with a Shigeru SK2 and a Kawai VPC-1 for silent practice.

So from a Korg Digital piano I moved on to one of these:



The point being is that even when I had no money, no degree, no piano I knew what I wanted and I worked hard to make it happen. I had to purchase digital pianos as a necessity because at the time I didn't have the money, or a home to house an acoustic piano. I never rationalized to myself that my digital piano was a good substitute for an acoustic piano, that a digital sounded or played better than an acoustic, or that if afforded me the complete piano experience- if that was what I desired but I looked forward to eventually having one of my own since I was a teenager. It wasn't a driving thought that burned 24/7 in my mind but I kept that dream in the back of my mind and before I knew it, there it was- along with that nice little house.

I believe ownership of a nice acoustic grand is reach for anyone with a little planning, a little hard work, and patience. We don't have to make excuses or make silly rationalizations. You don't have to be filthy rich, materialistic, or sign your life away to own one. Maintenance costs are no more than the cost of filling your cars gas tank's two or three times a year. Digital pianos are what they are- nice practice instruments but they are no substitute for a real piano experience- if that is what one wants. By design, they are electronic facsimiles of a real acoustic grand. They have practical advantages but we are only fooling ourselves if we believed they are suitable replacements for the real thing.

Right on, pete14, they will not bring any objective arguments, so they bang the table and play the victim.

That may have been the starting point of digital pianos. but they've far exceeded the original design goal. it's no longer about replacing acoustic pianos, digital pianos have long since surpassed acoustic pianos in all the ways a piano should be. your argument boils down to how photoshop can not replace paint. and yet here we are today with 99% of all artists working in photoshop, window posters are being replaced by live graphics displays, physical art collection moving potentially towards NFTs and blockchains.

recordings are digital, the vast majority of anything people purchase to listen to is digital. rejecting computers to feel more human and one with nature is complacency ontop of ignorance. there is no such divide in reality. digital is as real as any other form of matter. it is not only the future, it is the now

This has devolved into a bit of a sad argument.

As Gombessa said, most piano players will play either digital or acoustic, for the love of playing piano and using whatever they have at their disposal to do so.

I was recently disappointed with the NV5s which pushed me to move over to acoustic and I'm very happy now. However, I had previously played exclusively on digitals for 10+ years and if I had a budget of less than ~£3,000, and despite having plenty of objective arguments why I prefer acoustic, I'd happily go back to digital if needs be.

People who are getting really defensive over the DP vs AP debate and taking it personally is honestly really weird and lame.

I think you'd find that it is the acoustic piano crowd that's defensive and lame. Order matters. there WAS acoustic, THEN digital came and made acoustic obsolete.

The ability to control the volume makes a tremendous different for me. With APs you'd have to use the pedal and acoustic treatment.