Digital Pianos

[eastcountypiano]

I have been saving up for a digital piano and thought about $5000.00 would do it.  Then,  I tried two out and like the roland KR15m and the Yamaha CVP309GP, and they are twice the money of what I have saved.  I like the looks and the feel and all that it does.  I especially like the fact that I can play whatever I want and have strings or harp or whatever playing with me.  I can get a KR15 upright or a CVP307 RW upright for about $5000 less, which is exactly the same digital piano in the upright style...meaning I could go buy the upright now, but I love the look of the mini grand.   

So, is their a mini grand comparable to the one I want out there that I don't know about at a lower price than the Roland or Yamaha?

There is so many out there I might be missing a brand that.

[leahcim]

I'd be wary of furniture in digitals.

At least, first consider that if you're buying an acoustic instrument - tone and feel matter more, but they are often beautiful mechanical things. After a few years of owning one, if you keep it well maintained, it's largely as beautiful with the same tone and touch it originally had, which will likely be favourable when compared with any newer piano on the market.

A digital on the other hand is likely to have been surpassed after several years, leaving it's asthetic qualities [which are questionable to begin with imho] as the only thing left of value - at which point it's arguably an expensive piece of furniture to look at and you might lose thousands of $ to replace it. Few people buy out-dated digital pianos because they look pretty even if they once cost $10000 or whatever.

I would sooner buy a nice digital and spend $5000 on nice furniture and place them in a way that you can look at the nice furniture when you're playing or, if you really don't like the asthetics, spend the money on something that would hide the digital piano [in the way that some hide televisions and hi-fis and computers, although obviously you need to be able to play it]

As for other makes - with a criteria of "asthetics" it's difficult to see that there are any worth worrying about - but if you were thinking in terms of the sound / action and technology then there might be. Yamaha, GEM, Roland, Kerzweil, Kaiwai, Technics and possibly more are worth looking at - and they all generally have models that in the stage piano, upright and grand styles, in general the tech inside is identical between the models, although the upright / grand style tend to have bigger inbuilt amp/speaker systems whereas the stage pianos you often need a separate amplifier [which given a good budget will sound better, but it's not everyone's cup of tea to go down that route] although some have built-in speakers.

It's pretty safe to say that your current budget is sufficient [probably more than enough] to buy a very good modern digital piano.

Something else might want to look at are silent pianos [i.e real pianos that have digital pianos builtin] or the Grandtouch stuff from Yamaha [which is a real piano action and case but a digital piano sound] - I'm not 100% sure about budget and extra sounds though, but you're getting furniture with some functionality to it.

[jeremyjchilds]

Do you already have a piano?

Because if you don't I would definitely recommend buying a pianoforte.

[ranakor]

i don't know where the "it'll be outdated soon anyway" comes from so what if something better comes out in 2 years you can't buy it now it shouldn't effect your decision the right question is at equal price (today) wich would you rather play a digital or an accoustic? having a lower budget than you (1900) i picked a digital & don't regret at all

does the look of your digital matter that much? if you're looking just for a piano the clp 280 (best of the new yamaha clp line) prolly fits very well & is much cheaper than those & even much cheaper than the 5000$ you planned to spend

[leahcim]

i don't know where the "it'll be outdated soon anyway" comes from so what if something better comes out in 2 years you can't buy it now

If something better came out as quickly as 2 years, you'd hope that you'd have the money to get it - and you certainly wouldn't spend $10000 I hope on something that would last 2 years.

One way to get that money would be to sell what you currently have.

My point was that money spent on furniture is unlikely to keep its value because of the heavy depreciation of the rest of the instrument - something that doesn't really affect an acoustic in the same way.

[That said, there is the ebay factor - someone will buy it if you use the correct buzzwords to describe it]

But 3-ish years hasn't seen significant improvements for owners of clp-1xx to worry about the new Yamaha range for e.g [and there are valid arguments that they aren't particularly state of the art nor innovative anyway], not that the clp280 is the best digital piano they do imho, but I was thinking a bit longer term than that.

As you say though and as I did, there are plenty of current digital pianos that are well under the budget given.

[intermezzi]

No doubt you could afford a good digital or acoustic upright, but what I hear you saying is that you really want to find a digital with a grand case and not pay twice as much as your budget. A silent piano or Yamaha grandtouch will be even more than the CVP-309, so I'd stick with the digitals. Have you seen the Yamaha CLP-175? It has the same grand case as the CVP-309, wooden keys and lots of voice options, though not as many of the extras like the colored screen and accompaniments. But it's in the $6000-$7000 range, closer to your budget. I don't think Kurzweil is still making digitals, but I have seen used Kurzweil digital grands out there for around $2000. And I hear Pearl River is now making a digital grand which is probably much less expensive than Yamaha or Roland, but I haven't tried one myself. Good luck!