Digital Piano Buyer’s Guide
Welcome to the Digital Piano Buying Guide from DigitalPianoReviewsBlog.com. Use the links below to quickly navigate to different sections of this guide.
Jump to section:
- Introduction
- Brands
- Touch and sound
- What’s keyboard action?
- Speakers and headphones
- Appearance
- Other features
- In a nutshell
Digital Piano Buyer’s Guide – Introduction
There are currently over 20 different digital piano manufacturers, and over a hundred different models to choose from. These numbers are sure to increase in the future, considering the rise in popularity of digital pianos over the past years. As a matter of fact, sales of digital pianos now outnumber the sales of acoustic pianos by more than two times.
If you’re looking to buy your first digital piano, you’re most likely (or will soon find yourself) overwhelmed by the amount of choices available. This isn’t helped by the various confusing terminology used by different manufacturers. This digital piano buying guide is aimed at helping you in your quest to find the model that’s just right for you.
Digital Piano Buyer’s Guide – Brands
As mentioned earlier, there are over 20 different digital piano manufacturers today. Some manufacturers carry only a single digital piano, while others carry several different lines e.g. Casio has Celviano and Privia lines, while Yamaha has the P-series, Clavinova, Arius/YDP and MODUS. So, which are the biggest players in the market?
Yamaha by far is the most ubiquitous and probably most recognizable brand today, not just of digital pianos but musical instruments in general. It also has the largest selection of digital pianos available. Being an experienced manufacturer of acoustic pianos gives it a huge advantage over many other competitors. If you find a general store selling digital pianos, chances are you’ll be able to find a Yamaha digital piano there.
Other brands which you would definitely hear about if you researched top digital pianos include Roland, Kawai, Kurzweil, Korg and Casio.
Casio can be considered a relative newcomer to the digital piano market, but its Privia family of digital pianos has proven very popular, providing quality tone, touch and (in some models) portability, all at a very reasonable price.
Here’s a video review of the Privia family of digital pianos:
All that said, however, you really can’t go wrong with any of the top brands mentioned. All are extremely reliable and consistently produce quality instruments, especially Yamaha. The fact that the brand name is so recognizable can also mean a much easier time selling your used digital piano in a few years’ time if you decide piano playing isn’t for you.
Digital Piano Buying Guide – Touch and Sound
Regardless of your reasons for purchasing a digital piano, the two most important criteria to be considered are touch and sound. After all, the main purpose of a digital piano (as opposed to an electronic keyboard) is to serve as an alternative to an acoustic piano. Thus, as far as possible, it should sound and feel like an authentic piano.
While it is fairly easy for most novices to tell apart the very low-quality digital pianos from the rest of the pack, distinguishing the qualities between higher-quality models can prove challenging. The problem is that the differences are fairly subtle to a novice, and you can really only tell them apart once you’ve had a fair amount of experience with an actual piano and trained your musical ear.
Furthermore, just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, what sounds great to one person might not necessarily sound that way to another. In fact, different acoustic pianos have subtle sound and touch differences from one another, so digital pianos are bound to have these differences as well. In addition, the terms used to describe tones (e.g. “mellow”, “warm”, “bright”, “brilliant”) can be highly subjective, and are not usually agreed upon even among advanced pianists.
For those unfamiliar with the terms typically used to describe the brilliance of a sound, here’s a concise video showing off (what Yamaha, at least, deems to be) “mellow”, “bright” and “normal”.
Asking the opinion of experts for the piano with the “best” sound or touch might not be the best thing to do. These experts have likely developed their own playing style and musical taste over the years with their favorite acoustic pianos, so their preferences might not necessarily agree with yours. Furthermore, expert pianists are not necessarily experts in digital pianos, especially when you consider how quickly the digital piano landscape changes and advances!
The good news? These minor differences between high-quality digital pianos don’t really matter all that much, or at all, for the complete beginner. Yes, if you play on an acoustic piano at school, and then switch over to your digital piano at home for practice, you’ll likely hear and feel the subtle difference and it can be a little awkward at first. However, don’t underestimate your own ability to adapt and adjust!
Note, however, that the differences absolutely DO matter if you are comparing low-quality digital pianos with high-quality ones. There might not be a single digital piano with the “best” sound or touch, but there are definitely many with “good” or “high-quality” ones, and plenty with “poor” or “low-quality” ones.
Piano purists might argue otherwise, but the “close enough” standards of most good digital pianos available today are perfectly adequate and enjoyable for novices to the instrument, and many piano teachers highly recommend them. What’s important is that YOU enjoy the sound and the feel of the piano, because you are the one who will be playing it for (hopefully) years and years!
Of course, as shown off in the video above, some digital pianos allow you to adjust the sound brilliance (as well as touch resistance), so you can tune them just right for your own enjoyment.
So, which are the “high-quality” digital pianos? If you are a beginner, you can go for the cheaper but highly popular entry-level digital pianos with more than decent touch and sound quality. The top 2 choices in this category which are suitable for both adult and child beginners are Casio Privia PX-130 and Yamaha P95. The caveat is that you should be prepared for a little period of adjustment if you intend to graduate to the acoustic piano in the future.
On the other hand, if you are an intermediate or advanced pianist (or a beginner wanting more realism), such entry-level pianos will probably not satisfy your needs. Having already developed some piano-playing habits of your own, and gotten used to the authentic touch and tone, you want something that mimics the feel and tone of the acoustic piano just that little bit more accurately and reliably. Arguably the best digital piano you can get at the lowest price then is the Yamaha P155 (which is featured in the video above). It incorporates the GH (graded hammer) action (also termed GHE or graded hammer effect), one of the premium keyboard actions available from Yamaha’s digital pianos at the moment.
Digital Piano Buyer’s Guide – Erm….what’s keyboard action?
Keyboard action simply refers to how the keys respond to your touch. In an acoustic piano, the physical action of hammers hitting strings when you hit the keys results in a very nuanced touch that has still not been 100% replicated in digital pianos today. This touch includes how much resistance is felt when you hit the keys, as well as how quickly the key “bounces” back up after it’s released, along with subtle decrements in key weight as you go from the left to the right of the keyboard. Digital pianos with this last feature are usually described as “scaled” or “graded” weighted keyboards.
Each digital piano manufacturer has come up with their own technology or technologies (and names for each technology) attempting to replicate this complex touch. For example, for Yamaha, there are currently several different technologies used in all of their electronic keyboards and digital pianos. In increasing order of both realism and price, these are: “Graded Soft Touch” (GST) → ”Graded Hammer Standard” (GHS) → ”Graded Hammer“/”Graded Hammer Effect” (GH/GHE) → ”Graded Hammer 3” (GH3) → “Natural Wood” (NW).
If you are getting a Yamaha digital piano, we recommend getting one that incorporates at least a GHS keyboard action. If you have the budget, go for a digital piano with a GH/GHE action (cheapest option: Yamaha P155). The GH3 and NW keyboard actions are currently only available in the higher-end and significantly more expensive Clavinova and MODUS digital pianos.
Digital Piano Buying Guide – Speakers and headphones
We’ve mentioned importance of sound quality, but have not mentioned the importance of built-in speakers. A digital piano can generate high-quality sounds which you can listen to through headphones, but can have terrible low-powered speakers which distort the sound when you turn it up to maximum volume.
If you plan to mainly use headphones for your practice sessions, and only play your digital piano through speakers for a group of people in a small room now and then, you don’t need very loud speakers, and 2x6W speakers are adequate. Be sure to invest in quality headphones; no point investing in a $1000 digital piano and having it sound terrible through your $10 headphones. Sennheiser is a reliable brand of headphones, and we recommend the HD518 or better yet, the HD595 if your budget allows.
In contrast, if you are planning to use your digital piano in a performance in a fairly large but quiet room, you might want to spend more on a digital piano with higher-powered speakers.
However, if you want to use your digital piano for performing in noisy environments, it is probably best to get external amplifiers instead of getting a digital piano with built-in high-powered speakers. Built-in speakers have their limitations, after all.
A word of warning: several digital stage pianos (but not all) do not have any built-in speakers at all and are instead meant to be listened through external speakers (that you have to purchase separately), so be on the look out for this!
Digital Piano Buying Guide – Appearance
Aesthetics may or may not be an important consideration for you. You should know, however, that digital pianos come in 3 main design styles: slab (cheapest), vertical (also called console/upright) and grand (most expensive).
Example of a slab digital piano: Casio Privia PX-130
Example of an upright/vertical/console digital piano: Casio Celviano AP-420
Example of a grand digital piano: Suzuki MDG-100
The important thing to note, and it cannot be stressed enough, is that even when the only difference between 2 digital pianos is their appearance (and perhaps the lack of two or all three foot pedals in a slab), the difference in their prices can be staggeringly large. This also means that a digital grand piano with Yamaha’s GHS action can cost much, much more than a digital slab piano with the superior GHE action. For this reason (also see ensemble and standard digital pianos in the “Other features” section below), price is not necessarily a good indicator of functional sound and touch quality.
We personally do not recommend paying such a high premium just for appearance, but if you’d like a fairly cheap vertical piano which looks great, consider the Casio Celviano AP-420. Otherwise, if you are not bothered about the style, and/or space is a constraint, go for a slab digital piano. A good sustain pedal which can be purchased separately (if your slab digital piano does not come with one, or comes with a poor-quality one) is more than adequate for your piano playing. Note that some slab pianos can be easily paired with beautiful decorative stands with a complete pedal board, so they can actually look pretty good.
Digital Piano Buying Guide – Other features
Apart from touch, sound and look, here are other features which you should look for before buying a digital piano:
- Portability and number of keys - Number of keys will affect both weight and size and thus portability. Some people feel you can get away with having 76 keys, and as a beginner, you probably can. You definitely don’t want anything less than 76. As of right now, though, unfortunately, there aren’t really any high-quality 76-key digital pianos with properly-weighted keys. If you absolutely must go for 76 keys due to portability, then the best one that we’ve found is Yamaha NP-30 (12 lbs). Be warned that the quality is definitely not on par with the higher-end 88-keys digital pianos. The lightest 88-key digital pianos currently come from the Casio Privia family (with the Casio Privia PX-3 at 23.8 lbs).
- Touch sensitivity – We have mentioned the importance of realistic keyboard action and touch in general, but have not mentioned “touch” or “velocity” sensitivity. This refers to the gradation in volume of the keys depending on how hard you hit them. The harder you hit the key, the louder it should sound. Ideally, you want 4 distinct sensitivity levels, though you can get away with 3 as a beginner. Generally, if you stick to the high-quality digital pianos which have realistic keyboard action as we’ve recommended, this is pretty much a given.
- Minimum of 64-note polyphony - Polyphony refers to the number of sounds that can be produced by the digital piano simultaneously. When holding down chords, playing with layering of instrumental voices (e.g. combining strings and piano at once), and pressing your sustain pedal, you can easily generate more than 32 sounds at once. The higher the polyphony, the better it is generally (and of course, the more expensive) as it means you get more expressive freedom in your piano playing, but there’s really not much point in going beyond 128. Again, if you stick to high-quality digital pianos, this feature is pretty much a given.
- Ensemble vs standard – An advantage of digital pianos over acoustic ones is their ability to sound like many other instruments such as organ, strings, violin and flute. An ensemble digital piano is one which has hundreds of such instrumental sounds (also called “voices” or “tones” by different manufacturers). Examples of entry-level ensemble digital pianos are Casio PX-330 and Yamaha DGX-640. Standard digital pianos, on the other hand, are limited in their choice of instrumental sounds (usually less than 20). This is one area where you can save money: if you don’t need a full ensemble, then opt for a standard digital piano which can easily save you a few hundred dollars. Ensembles are useful if you want to compose your own music with unique instrumental sounds, or intend to start (or are already in) a small band.
- Wooden keys – We recommend staying away from digital pianos with this “feature”. Not too many digital pianos have wooden keys at the moment, and we feel they don’t really add much to the realism of the keyboard touch. However, they certainly add a lot to the price! Wooden keys can be difficult to replace unlike plastic keys. In addition, they stain more easily and generally require higher maintenance than plastic ones.
- Recording features - Most popular digital pianos today allow you to record at least one track (which you can overwrite repeatedly). This is a very important feature for beginners and is a reason why many piano teachers recommend digital pianos. Learning from your mistakes becomes much easier when you can actually hear your playing over and over again.
- PC connectivity – You’ll be hard-pressed to find a digital piano today that you can’t easily connect to your computer. However, do take note that in the past, digital pianos typically came with what is known as “MIDI” ports or sockets to connect to your computer, and you would thus need to purchase a separate MIDI-USB interface cable. In contrast, a few modern digital pianos today have completely replaced their MIDI ports with a single USB port, so you can easily connect to your computer using a common USB cable instead.
- Sustain pedal – Practically all digital pianos have a sustain pedal jack. If you purchase a slab digital piano, it might not come included with a sustain pedal, or the included sustain pedal might be a simple cheap “on/off” pedal. You can consider purchasing the universal M-Audio SP-2 sustain pedal which provides a more authentic piano pedal action.
Digital Piano Buyer’s Guide – In a nutshell
When purchasing a digital piano, first and foremost, you should ensure that it has quality touch and sound that you enjoy. These are the two qualities you should try not to scrimp on.
Other features to be considered include the style (slab vs upright vs grand), type (ensemble vs standard; do you really need hundreds of voices/tones?) and the power output of the built-in speakers (minimum of 2x6W for beginners). The purchase of quality headphones or external amplifiers should be considered depending on your situation.
In addition, a good-quality sustain pedal can be purchased separately if your digital piano does not come with one. Touch sensitivity is a must, and a minimum of 64-note polyphony is required for optimal expressive playing. The ability to record at least one track so you can easily learn from your mistakes and improve your playing is also a necessity. On the other hand, wooden keys, in our opinion, are not worth the price. Finally, if you want to transcribe your playing by connecting to your computer, you’ll either need a plain USB cable or the more expensive MIDI-USB interface cable, depending on your digital piano.
As for brands, you really cannot go wrong with Yamaha, as long as you stick to their higher-quality digital pianos.
We hope you’ve found this digital piano buying guide helpful. You can check out our reviews of digital pianos from Casio and Yamaha that match all the features outlined here.
Filed under: Digital Piano Buying Guide.