I’d love to see others sharing about the experiences they’ve had with different brands (good or bad) as well. Instead, by doing that, they will end up losing many sales because any rational new buyer of a digital piano would be better off choosing either a Kawai or a Roland digital piano for the reasons that I have clearly explained in this 2017 update. —Kawai: the top of the line series of digital pianos is the Concert Artist series of digital pianos (CA 97, CA 67, CA 17). —Therefore, assuming you cannot afford buying the very expensive Yamaha Clavinova CLP-685, you are left to choose buying a digital piano between the Kawai CA (CA67 and CA97) and CS (CS8 and CS11) series and the Roland HP and LX (HP603, HP605, LX-7, LX-17) series. However, from that solid digital base has arisen one of the best brands out there, especially seeing as they’ve only really made a name for themselves in the market over the last 15-20 years. The equivalent to the Roland HP603 is the Yamaha CLP525. Whether we and I like it or not, at the present time and sadly it has been like that for decades so far for digital pianos, it is Yamaha who managed to accomplish this goal with their Yamaha Clavinova CLP digital pianos!! Let this kind of outrageous prices be the domain of the blind and irrational idiots who buy into Roland’s marketing traps!! And mechanically, everything lags light years behind the big boys. These prices were true on the 4th April 2016 in the UK. But as things changed, companies started being able to very closely replicate the sound of an acoustic instrument and the demand for straight-up piano imitations grew. As far as this list is concerned, you may as well consider Nord to be the opposite of Casio. And while I do recommend sticking to the major brands covered in this article, I believe that one can learn and play on any keyboard (even on one of those cheap 61-key arrangers), so if your budget is very limited, I’d say go for it! In July 2020, Yamaha presented their new Clavinova CLP-7xx series, which comes with a number of welcome improvements in both the ‘touch’ and the sound departments. When it comes to sound, it’s entirely subjective, and higher-end instruments don’t necessarily sound better to everyone. In short, the truth about this new modeled piano sound technology? I wouldn’t pick one brand, but instead, would focus on several models within your budget based on your needs. The Roland equivalent is the Roland HP605. While there is no doubting the quality of the Roland brand though, their products are expensive. Another area where Korg excels at is pro-grade arranger workstations, and in particular, their Pa series, which could become your favorite songwriting and performance partner, providing you with the highest quality sounds and styles for virtually any genre. In fact, the array of knobs and buttons across their range covers almost every live eventuality you can think of; looping, sampling, you name it. Well, nowadays, to simply state the truth with true facts on the Internet is now considered “incendiary and malicious” and it is censored systematically!! One exception: the market leader Yamaha that cannot always control the many sellers that they have and therefore customers can sometimes find lower prices for the Yamaha Clavinova CLP digital pianos at various places. Because they are so sound-focused, you also get a range of input and outputs to cater for pretty much any situation. I can assure you that these noisy keys problem is NOT present on the Yamaha Clavinova CLP digital piano keyboards nor on the Kawai digital piano keyboards either!! The bottom line is that these pianos don’t have the mechanics to back up their aesthetics. It’s relatively expensive but worth every penny. On the other hand, Roland has very limited (financial and else) resources compared to Yamaha and therefore the people dealing with customers’ feedback make a point of intentionally not listening to most of the feedback that they receive on their products from their (not valued but instead too often ripped off) customers due to a lack of financial resources for this particular purpose, as Roland is more focused on maximizing profit from the products that they sell to customers than on listening to their (not valued but instead too often ripped off) customers! I’m trying to decide, Yamaha ydp 144W set (DP, chair and headphones = 900$) or Kawai kdp 110 (1000$ just DP). Go and listen to the digital pianos that you want and make your decision always remembering these three main features by order of importance: keyboard touch, piano sound, and headphones experience. The YDP-164 has a heavier and slightly quieter key action. By Richard Blenkinsop / February 16th, 2020 / There are currently 2 comments With so many … Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. Now where to check the latest prices on your next digital piano, whichever one you would like to buy? Just go to page 18 at the end and basically read the table that will give you an excellent summary of the features for the particular Yamaha Clavinova CLP models that you might be interested in. Roland HP603 digital piano at £1549 on 01.04.2016.jpg, 237 KB, With your mouse, right-click the following link, select “Open Link in New Tab” and click on the picture to increase its size at https://outrageouspricesofrolanddigitalpianos.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/comparison-small-size-roland-hp603-digital-piano-at-c2a31549-on-01-04-2016.jpg, —Comparison (small size). BUT, it is hard to believe but it is true, the prices of the Roland digital pianos tend to increase with time, as it was shown very recently during March 2016 for the price of the Roland HP605 that increased from £1799 to £1939!! The big problem with this assumption? Overall, I’d consider it a better instrument than the YDP-144. There are two brands that I couldn’t include in either of the categories above. Founded in Japan in Osaka in 1972, the company still operates out of Japan and their keyboards are considered to be among the most important digital musical products ever released in terms of driving forward the market. They strongly want to keep ripping off their blind, gullible and irrational customers as long as possible through marketing traps!! For this heading, see the full content further below, after the CONCLUSION heading. So far, I have posted extracts of this blog on only two piano forums and each time I have been banned from these two piano forums for daring giving the conclusion of this blog that uses only true facts. Hi Alan, the difference in feel between these actions is pretty significant. The PA table-top series, aimed at beginners, feel like they couldn’t withstand any kind of impact. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. I particularly appreciate how you’ve broken down the categories of instruments and given clear examples. 16 CC step sequencers, 16 riff generators, 16 arpeggiators. In fact, they are one of the most used brands worldwide for studio-based workstations and the most recognizable, along with Nord. Now, instruments should be chosen for subjective reasons too, but at least be fair toward the work Kurzweil has put into their product. The T2L sound engine operates somewhat similarly to Roland’s SuperNATURAL engine and allows players to modify parameters on demand. I wish I could have found myself such a simple blog, as it surely would have saved me an awful lot of time reading and researching all over!! I already have some experience by playing acoustic guitar (pop songs) since 20 years ago, so I know I’ll need something more professional in 3 or 4 years. This sampled piano sound technology has been around for several decades and it has now reached such a level of quality and sophistication through many successive improvements over the years that it is now an extremely mature technology for any digital piano that uses it, be it a Yamaha, a Kawai, or a Casio digital piano. First, Yamaha currently is the market leader for digital pianos and they have been at this position FOR DECADES because, for their Yamaha Clavinova CLP digital pianos, they constantly provide the best set of features and the highest quality at the cheapest price.  Second, they use the sampled piano sound technology that has been refined for several decades that it is now a very mature technology.