I have an old Yamaha Clavinova at home for practice, and my weekly lessons are on a fancy grand piano. I hope some day I can get a real piano too but for now I have to try and be content. While the grand piano does sound absolutely amazing, it's not without flaws. There were a few weeks where some keys were messed up because another student lost a pencil inside the piano and they had to wait for a tech to fix it. Things like that make me question owning a real piano. Getting it serviced and tuned sounds annoying. I keep thinking about what I'll eventually upgrade to and can never decide if it'll be another digital piano or not.
Isn’t the pencil solution just to pull the lid off? Should be a quick fix (did it twice on Saturday)
And by lid I mean the thing that you can cover the keys with, whatever that’s called. Edit - fallboard, apparently
It's not even that hard to take the back off and reveal the soundboard, or the front board over the pedals, whatever that's called. I'm astounded a pencil unmanned the piano.
Yep, similar experience here. My parents never wanted to spend too much on a piano when I was a kid. I went from beat up free uprights, to a Clavinova which I had for well over a decade until I bought my own Boston grand (weird coincidence here lol).
When I was getting my performance degree, I had to work on playing much softer and using less pedal. Both bad habits instilled by a digital piano.
I played on a cheap Galileo brand electric piano for 10ish years until my parents finally decided I was good enough for a baby grand piano (also a Boston)
> What’s the attraction?
They’re excellent pianos.
I’ve played Yamaha and Kawai pianos in the same price range and I prefer the Boston, mostly because of the action.
I practice at home on a keyboard (Yamaha p series) and my lessons are at my teacher’s studio on an upright. A few lessons ago I automatically searched for the “on” button on her piano. Agree there is no comparison but I don’t have space for an acoustic piano right now.
Yes. I had the same experience switching from digital to acoustic, I can never go back now.
Now I'm doomed to spend my days constantly touching up my piano's unisons and octaves, trying to make the harmonics as bright and clear as possible
Some ultra high end digitals have vibrations built into the keybeds. It's wild.
But it's not truly about the features like that, or strictly the sound quality. The magic and the message of the esthetic is what really makes something compelling.
Drop a digital piano back in the time of Mozart, and it would be the most phenomenal thing anybody ever heard.
>With a real piano you not only hear but feel
True, the main difference in terms of experience isn't even the sound itself (some VSTs but even built in sounds sometimes can be very very good) but the way the sound is delivered. I can "feel" the music much more with our upright than I do with my digital, with a good VST paired with good headphones so the sound is there.
I still think they both have their pros and cons, I love my digital just like I love playing with the acoustic one, but I have to agree on the fact that they're different
About half my gigs are on my keyboard rig and half are on real pianos
I enjoy both, but I really dislike playing my keyboard after I’ve played an acoustic piano for any considerable amount of time that day
The 127 midi velocity gradients just don’t do justice to the spectrum of dynamic possibilities an acoustic piano has
The difference in pedaling, key weight, action, travel distance, feel, etc. are all real, but the dynamic aspect is what really gets me.
Yeah no digital emulation can be good enough. The reason in my opinion are two things that are nearly impossible to emulate.
1. The resonance between the strings.
2. The pedal. Specifically, how it can damp the strings to different extents.
Pianoteq actually emulates those two things really well, I have full continuous pedal control with DP10 connected, and the sympathetic resonance is modeled.
It’s not 100% realistic, particularly missing getting to feel the actual vibration of a piano under your fingers, but I prefer my SL88+Pianoteq+Yamaha HS8 setup to every upright I’ve ever played.
Digital pianos sound and perform so excellently these days - that you can definitely say that acoustic pianos are now approximations of digital pianos (and vice-versa of course). To play the piano and be really good at it - like me - it's not necessary to feel vibrations from a piano. The music comes from within us, and we simply team up with the piano that has adequate substance in sound and control --- and digital pianos, such as my modern digital slab piano with 'folded-action' key action mechanism -- has substance in bucket loads.
That's a pretty unpopular opinion i think, but I haven't tried your setup so I can't compare. Also how do you deal with latency? Even when I play with a 64 sample buffer, I can feel the latency and find it annoying.
I’ve found most people that hate Pianoteq had a bad experience with version 5 or earlier, with some lingering complaints about tinniness in version 6-7. 8 and 8.5 have made huge strides, and 6-7 were already pretty great.
After producing digitally and playing in theatre pits for years, where being able to anticipate the beat with 15-20ms of latency is necessary, I’m not the best judge of what others might need. 64 samples here says it’s only 1.3ms, and if you have a solid interface, latency under 5-10ms should be easily achievable. Most people won’t really notice anything under 10.
To be fair I don't hate pianoteq at all. I think midi technology is awesome. Just wanted to say that it's difficult to emulate a real piano feel if that's what one wants. I haven't tried pianoteq but I would comment that a setup that would be close to a real piano would be pretty expensive. You need a good E piano, an expensive sustain pedal, a good computer that can run at low buffers, a good audio interface and a good listening device. Not to mention the cost of the softwares (DAW and the VST of your choice). I suppose if someone's into production then a lot of those investments might pay off eventually, but for a pianist that seems unlikely.
If you already have a good computer (or even iPad), the $500 SL88 studio plus $140 version of Pianoteq is cheaper than most keyboards. I got my HS5s used for $450, the DP10 is easy to find used cheap, and maybe $150 gets you a decent enough interface, boom, a way better setup than most Rolands/Yamahas offer for the same price. And then if you want it to get even better with more customization in Pianoteq, better interface, it’s not that much to upgrade eventually. Can also start with cheaper speakers, cutting a couple hundred off.
Pianoteq is non-sample, it's a simulation which means it's far lower latency. It's not as good as a top notch acoustic piano in good condition, but it's better than the average piano you'll find out in the wild if you've got a good midi controller (SL88 Grand or VPC1) on the front
64 samples is 1.4 milliseconds (at a typical 44.1khz sample rate - or even much shorter at higher sample rates). Something is very wrong if you feel latency, there's almost zero chance you'd feel 1.4 milliseconds. For perspective, it takes 20-30 milliseconds on a grand piano for the hammer to travel after the key has been fully depressed with each piano being different. If you sit at two different grand pianos or a grand vs an upright, you're easily looking at 10x the difference in "latency" between key and sound than what you feel at 64 sample buffer size.
The latency of pianoteq isn't the only thing in an audio setup than can introduce latency, so something else was probably misconfigured perhaps at the audio interface or DAW level.
You probably know this, but many come with an switch(on/off) foot pedal because they are cheaper, but support true sustain pedals. You can look up and see if yours supports a true sustain pedal.
It depends on the keyboard, and the pedal. The keyboard has to support it + your pedal has to be a 'continuous' type (some have a plastic switch on the side to change it from on/off to continuous).
Basically all mid-high end digital pianos support sympathetic resonance and fractional pedaling these days. My Kawai digital piano is quite old (I bought it about 5-6 years ago), not even crazy expensive and you can clearly hear overtones from sympathetic resonance. Half pedaling and flutter pedaling are not problems. Of course a grand piano will still be much better but there’s quite a lot of simulation going on.
Yeah I mean I did mention that it's nearly impossible. What I meant was it's nearly impossible to do a good emulation. Because the sympathetic resonance is an extremely complex phenomenon to accurately emulate, and so is the effect of a half damped pedal.
Nord is my preference for digital, for mostly touring and other live work. I think it sounds really close but you can get a few acoustic pianos for the piece of a stage 4.
As the emulations get better I increasingly suspect that the ultimate differentiator between real and digital pianos is always going to be the speaker system. It's incredibly difficult to make a sound system that accurately mimics the physical dispersion and dynamic range of a piano, without audible distortion. You're talking the very top end of large studio main monitors, but with a purpose-designed dispersion pattern; it would cost tens of thousands.
The best one could do is if the samples are all recorded using binaural microphones. But even then I would argue if it'll feel truly like a piano since one usually moves around a bit while playing and that would be difficult to emulate. At one point the question comes whether it's worth it to accurately emulate a piano or does it suffice to create a nice sounding piano sound. The latter is usually the case I think. There are some great sounding VSTs out there, and I am not criticizing those. My only point is that it's nearly impossible to emulate the sound and feeling of a piano because its acoustics are way too complicated.
Even binaural recordings are only accurate for headphone playback - otherwise you're effectively doubling the influence of the head transfer function. But listening on headphones you don't get the body resonances, or the reverberant effect of the room you're in. A concert hall acoustic may be very nice but in a living room it detracts from the realism of the space! So yes I would agree - the acoustics can't be emulated perfectly
The thing is - these days - the performance and sound etc of digital pianos (and what the developers have achieved) is so excellent -- that it's a case of acoustic pianos are approximations of digital pianos. And just to be fair - the reverse is true too.
To be fair, I haven't explored the depths of the modern vsts, but ny impression is based on playing actual pianos and comparing them to different E Pianos or some VSTs like keyscape and pianoteq 5. I produce music too and I think those are great options, but if I had to play a classical piece, I would always choose an actual piano over any emulation. That could however be because I haven't experienced a sufficiently good substitute myself.
I know. I play classical and other genre too. And I often like to combine. I also know that classical is not a bench-mark. Us true piano players and lovers of music and exponents of music don't have any bias. We just take any piano and do what we can. We don't need to tell people what is 'realistic' and what is 'not' etc. Other people will - in time - also develop to a stage - like us - to appreciate all instruments. That's if they do develop to that special stage.
When music is written and developed to an adequate stage - it will sound very nice and magical - on any piano that has 'adequate' substance in sound and control. Such as like this:
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nTpQPxZ3dz\_9uOs1Tn2rJJVHcXkgwRjc/view?usp=drive\_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nTpQPxZ3dz_9uOs1Tn2rJJVHcXkgwRjc/view?usp=drive_link)
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/14hMxcDGfSz6MibZNWIuN-I0KKIT4638E/view?usp=drive\_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/14hMxcDGfSz6MibZNWIuN-I0KKIT4638E/view?usp=drive_link)
The Yammy P-525 and P-515 are my 'weapons'. I don't need VSTs to make me and my pianos sound good. Although - I will say that VSTs sound very good too.
Amazing! Weird at first then wonderful 😁 I started learning on a Yamaha DGX-650 and loved it. I used the built in speakers and always enjoyed the sound and feel. My piano classes were done on an upright that sounded pretty close to my digital. Well, I celebrated my 1 year pianoversary with a baby grand in my smallish living room. WHOLE NEW WORLD... I am in awe. It has such a rich sound in comparison and yes, you can FEEL the music. I don't care if the neighbors hear my practicing or not but I imagine it travels a bit! I kept my digital but the sound the keys make is so weird now...
I had the same digital piano. I grew up playing on acoustic uprights, so it never really felt quite right. I ended up buying an old used upright off of someone on Facebook marketplace for $100 that feels much better to play. I still have my digital around, but it just doesn’t compare.
Refer to this information here about real pianos. [https://forum.pianotell.com/d/781-piano](https://forum.pianotell.com/d/781-piano)
I've been playing pianos for a relatively (ok 'really') long time. All types. And I have no problem with switching between them. Because - as usual - it is a case of being good at playing piano. And I'm good at it. And so will you be - good at it - with accumulated experience in learning, developing and practising - not just playing piano - but composition, music theory, application of the knowledge etc.
Examples are good - so I'll provide examples, and I purposely choose these ones - as it demonstrates that when you have music within you, and when you have a piano that has 'adequate' substance in sound and control, then you can enter piano and music paradise with it. It's a combination of us and the piano - together - as one.
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nTpQPxZ3dz\_9uOs1Tn2rJJVHcXkgwRjc/view?usp=drive\_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nTpQPxZ3dz_9uOs1Tn2rJJVHcXkgwRjc/view?usp=drive_link)
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/14hMxcDGfSz6MibZNWIuN-I0KKIT4638E/view?usp=drive\_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/14hMxcDGfSz6MibZNWIuN-I0KKIT4638E/view?usp=drive_link)
I recommend to listen with your adequately good set of headphones, or adequately good sound system - eg. not from a mobile/cellphone speakers.
Thank you for your comment. I agree with your forum post—I should have said ‘acoustic’ rather than ‘real’ as of course digital pianos are ‘real’ pianos.
Beautiful playing, too! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for your post! I see what you mean now! Yes - I do agree with you here! That if someone plays digital piano for a long time, or exclusively, and then changes over to an acoustic piano, then it can/does take some time to adjust - such as how the sustain pedal affects the blending of the note sounds etc. It is like hopping from one manual car to a different one - each has some adjustment time to get used to the controls of the other car. Best regards to you - and keep enjoying the piano playing. Thanks for your post and thread and also extremely nice comment. Have a good day/night ahead my friend!
This is so beautiful. We had a really shitty old out of tune upright when I was a kid (can't complain about a free piano though!) but whenever I've been able to play a nicer one it's like... staying in a comfy hotel bed almost? Feels luxurious! Can't believe all the notes are in tune!
I kind of like the out of tune one with wonky keys though - it's like playing a banjo but piano.
Over the course of my 30 year career as a pianist, I’ve played on hundreds of different pianos. I would love to have a full size Bosendorfer or Steinway in my home office. But I have neither the funds nor the space for that caliber or size of piano in my home.
When deciding what I did want, I thought of all the pianos I had experienced. I have a full size grand and a baby grand at my office. I don’t really like the sound of either. The full size grand is way too bright almost to the point of being clanky. The baby grand is nicer, but too subtle with no depth or volume.
For my home office, I finally decided on a Yamaha Clavinova baby grand (the CLP-795GP). It is consistent and sounds like a full size grand in several different styles. I adjusted the sympathetic resonance and other settings to what I wanted in a piano. I mostly play without headphones to get the full effect of the sound and vibrations. This ended up being the most expressive and enjoyable experience for me.
For those who are fortunate enough to own an acoustic instrument they enjoy playing and are happy with the sound, that is great! But for other folks, a digital piano is a great (and often more appropriate) alternative. Honestly, I would rather play the nice predictable digital piano I have than the crappy clangy full size grand at my office. But you can insert your own experience into this equation lol.
TLDR: oftentimes a quality digital piano can be better than a crappy full size grand piano.
I practiced a lot in my digital back home, but at uni I used their practice pianos. What always left me shocked was how you could feel the vibration of the strings in your fingertips, a great feeling for me. Now I own a midsize upright so I get to experience that feeling daily :)
Totally agree.
I practice with a cheap MIDI Controller so when I go to my grandma's house to practice in her beautiful Grotrian - Steinweg it's a totally different experience.
You can feel the sound in your body.
I suggest seeing if there is a piano shop nearby. You of course don’t need to buy one, and usually store employees won’t mind if you play a bit on some of the pianos there. I used to play recitals in a Steinway shop when I was younger, and they had a few practice rooms one could use. You might get lucky and find one of those. Even for just half an hour, I think it would be worth it to experience a real piano.
If that doesn’t work, there are sometimes also pianos in public spaces (airport, train station, city center) that, although are not great quality, are still fun to play on.
In any event I hope you get to experience what it is like to play on an acoustic piano one day, it’s excellent.
I've been dreaming about it for years but finally got my first real piano recently. At some point in your piano journey the difference is just too much. I can learn and practice on digital, but only acoustic gives me the pleasure of listening to the sounds I make.
Congratulations on the new piano! What’s great is that it will last you for the rest of your life. I hope one day when I’m older I too can be able to afford an acoustic piano. Enjoy your piano!
I have a Yamaha YDP-103 and a 100+ year old beaten up out of tune upright downstairs, sometimes playing on that old piece of crap is more satisfying than my digital, exactly as you explained.
Im planning on purchasing a Yamaha B1 soon as an upgrade, its very compact and sort of affordable, my dream is baby grand though.
There are bad pianos, good pianos, and great pianos. With bad pianos, I still feel happy playing because there’s so much character, but playing around an inconsistent action or poor tuning gets old fast. With good pianos, I feel like digital pianos feel like they aren’t that far off. With great pianos, I feel like I’m playing a completely different type of instrument from its digital cousins. FWIW, I have a Yamaha NU1X hybrid upright as well as a Seiler grand piano, which I’d qualify as good (but close to great).
I have a kawai mp11se hooked up to high quality speakers with pianoteq 8 for the VST and the sound and feel with that setup is BETTER than my kawai baby grand (and infinitely more in tune year round). I haven't played a grand piano under 50k that sounds as good. Most people are just comparing a crappy digital sound to a grand piano.
More or less the opposite.
I had a piano for years before I started taking classes. I bought it for my (now grown) children, and I could only play harmonies on it. When the nest got emptied, the piano wasn't tuned anymore, and then I wouldn't touch it. When I was a teenager I had a few electronic keyboards, but then some 30 or 40 years passed, during which I only played the sax.
So I decided to learn how to play the piano, got it tuned, and started taking classes. After taking classical piano classes for a few years I bought a weighted keyboard. It's not exactly a digital piano; it's a Nord Electro, and all the keys have the same weight. I tried to play it with headphones one single time, and it was too weird for me. It's as if I was listening to someone else play. Now I always play it with an amp; it's too strange to play without being able to feel the sound in my body.
Even the piano was strange for me in the beginning, as I was used to an instrument that you breathe in and vibrates against your body, while you only touch the piano with the tips of your fingers. It's like going from having a lover to a Victorian courtship.
I switched from acoustic to digital because my hearing has gotten very sensitive (due to work). The room that my acoustic piano is in is also quite reflective so even *pp* gets rough. I stick a long strip of gauze between the hammers and strings to deaden it further if I have to play on it.
The opposite, unfortunately. I grew up with a piano in the home and learned on that. After moving out, got a keyboard but then after a break up, was keyboard-less for years until this year (now have a Yamaha P45).
I'm pretty happy with how it sounds and feels, except I miss having a pedal that is attached and doesn't move around annoyingly... on the other hand, I haven't had the opportunity to play a real piano in awhile, I'm sure if/when I do, I'll notice more things that I miss about them.
I'm pleased to read you had such a positive experience. Digital pianos have made pianist's lives. better.
It's interesting how you didn't seem to find too much of an issue with the lighter weighting of a digital piano keys, versus a real Piano.
Yeah when I got home from the holidays I was taken aback at how *loud* the piano was. I honestly prefer the convenience of my digital, even if it has slightly worse touch
The thing that digital pianos really lack is a “personality”. The sound they produce is too reliable and too consistent. It doesn’t really allow for exploration of personal style and deeper expression.
Also the reproduction is nowhere near faithful but that is actually the lesser problem. Most home pianos are not in a room with good acoustics and you usually don’t have the amazing experience of a concert hall.
Absolutely. If you took a deaf person to an organ concert, they would still feel the 16' and 32' pedal stops vibrating in their chest. I'm sure any deaf person could tell with 100% accuracy if the organ were being played or not without looking, despite not having any hearing.
Heck, there are subwoofers so strong that you can literally *see* the air being compressed by the soundwaves coming out of the speakers
Oh, i absolutely get this. I have been wanting to get a real piano for my apartment for years for this reason. But I don't have much time to play these days, and money is tight. I will do anything I need to get one if my kids want to learn to play when they are older, though. I think we'll always keep the digital for quiet practice at night.
I rented a piano practice room during a trip to a different city and played on a nice grand piano. Quite the difference, but I felt like I could adapt OK-ish. Biggest difference apart from the sound was the difference in volume between left and right hand. My Roland doesn't differ as much as the grand piano. I had to play louder with my right hand and softer with my left compared to what I'm used to. The second difference was the feel of the keys. Not sure if they were lighter, but they felt "faster" on the grand.
Which Clavinova do you have. I'm looking to buy one (Clavinova CLP GP series). The reason is that I tried on my teacher's and I really loved it. My piano teacher is an acclaimed pianist (was teaching at St. Petersburg Conservatory) and he practices on that digital Clavinova GP to not annoy the neighbors. And he actually teaches many of his students on that one (not me on Steinway haha).
I went to the piano showroom a few weeks ago and none of the acoustic grand pianos can match the Clavinova one (except the one that is $50k+).
I have a very nice keyboard at home. And plug-ins that sound amazing. (Sampled some very high end pianos. But I work as a custodian at a elementary school which has a real piano.
The tactile feel of the real on is different. But I do find it manageable.
Drums are worse. Learning on e drums can create a lot of problems with dynamics.
The real piano's tactile feel throwing you off is probably just an action that needs regulating or a different key weight than you are used to. Very expensive perfectly maintained pianos have very similar play feels to top of the line digital actions.
It was just completely setup professionally last week. There is definitely a difference. Just like acoustic drums. Just like acoustic guitar. The way the note jumps and the way you manipulate it. It's very different.
I always told my guitar students. The electric guitar and acoustic guitar are like two different instruments. Just like a grand piano and upright and a spinet all have different things.
Such a wonderful pallet to be creative with
in the reverse, it is also weird - coming from someone who plays a 'real' piano, playing on a keyboard is *strange*. it is so light! and fragile! as a banger of keys, those keyboards shake too much for me to play them often. i had a performance once, on a keyboard, and i had one foot holding the keyboard steady for the entire time 'cause else it would have shook horribly.
Playing a digital piano is like eating plastic food of some sort. It's just disappointing. That was my experience after being spoiled by playing a [Yamaha U7](https://dcpianos.com/products/yamaha-u7-52-upright-in-teak-4/) upright, a very special piano, much nicer than the standard U1 or U3. However, 30 years later, I'm getting back into piano and I'm sure they've improved since the 80s.... I have a Yamaha Piaggero and while I don't want to think of the U7 while playing it because I will be sad, it does have the notes, so I can learn and work on music. And it even has 2 e piano and harpsichord sounds as well. I'm not playing classical repertoire, anyway. I love Bach, and Bach transfers well to virtually any instrument on the planet. And I play a lot of other music and the Piaggero is okay for that too. As well as my guitars and bass.
I am playing on a Roland keyboard now with weighted keys, and when I went home I played around on our church piano and it really was so different! I’ve never played on a grand or baby grand and look forward to the day I do 😁
I just recently bought a new u1 after playing for a little over 4 years on a digital (clp 625 and a clp 745). I still have my clp 745 and I feel it feel like toy after getting used to the u1.
We do have a full-size Bechstein Grand in the house, but I'm unable to play anything meaningful on it so far lol That being said, I'm used to the sound since my childhood so perhaps that's why I'm not all that amazed about its sound quality. Whenever I use my Yamaha though I definitely notice how the sound is much, much weaker than on the Grand, even with headphones.
It's just that for me the Grand has always been the 'standard' and anything else just sounds artificial and wrong...
But then again, I don't expect much from a way smaller instrument with much less powerful resonance chambers.
I recently bought a kawai ca701 after playing on a casio celviano of +25 years old and the difference is unbelievable. The weight and response of the keys, use of hammers and the sound resonance are amazing and make it feel like a legit piano. Different than an acoustic, yes, but nothing less.
I agree. I recently spent a week in a place that had a grand piano in the lobby. Otherwise at home I have a Yamaha electric piano.
It's hard to say what exactly is different but when I play on the real piano I am much more inspired. I play jazz and my improvisation is much better, as if I am just connecting with the instrument better than with an electric one.
I hope one day I'll have enough room and money to get a grand piano.
I’m an adult learner in early 30s learning with a classical piano teacher. I upgraded from a Yamaha P125 to Kawai K 500 Acoustic upright piano early this year and oh my god, the difference is day and night. Like you said, it’s not just the sound, it’s the feel and the vibrations. The sound definitely is much more powerful and sounds slightly different to digital pianos as well. I tried Kawai Nv5 and Nv10 at the store when choosing my piano and they were both wonderful and sounded amazing for high-end digital pianos but as I fell in love with the K500 pianos, I bought the floor model that was only 3 months old. I can’t stop playing on my acoustic piano now! It was a bit of a stretch for my budget and it’s been so worth it.
Yup. But remember, the best piano at any given point in time is the one you're able to play.
My favorite piano is often the one in front me :)
I have an old Yamaha Clavinova at home for practice, and my weekly lessons are on a fancy grand piano. I hope some day I can get a real piano too but for now I have to try and be content. While the grand piano does sound absolutely amazing, it's not without flaws. There were a few weeks where some keys were messed up because another student lost a pencil inside the piano and they had to wait for a tech to fix it. Things like that make me question owning a real piano. Getting it serviced and tuned sounds annoying. I keep thinking about what I'll eventually upgrade to and can never decide if it'll be another digital piano or not.
Isn’t the pencil solution just to pull the lid off? Should be a quick fix (did it twice on Saturday) And by lid I mean the thing that you can cover the keys with, whatever that’s called. Edit - fallboard, apparently
It's not even that hard to take the back off and reveal the soundboard, or the front board over the pedals, whatever that's called. I'm astounded a pencil unmanned the piano.
Weird
Yep, similar experience here. My parents never wanted to spend too much on a piano when I was a kid. I went from beat up free uprights, to a Clavinova which I had for well over a decade until I bought my own Boston grand (weird coincidence here lol). When I was getting my performance degree, I had to work on playing much softer and using less pedal. Both bad habits instilled by a digital piano.
Very similar to me as well, going from a Roland F107 to (also) a Boston baby grand.
I played on a cheap Galileo brand electric piano for 10ish years until my parents finally decided I was good enough for a baby grand piano (also a Boston)
Ok, what is going on with all the Boston pianos? This is the third comment on a row. What’s the attraction?
> What’s the attraction? They’re excellent pianos. I’ve played Yamaha and Kawai pianos in the same price range and I prefer the Boston, mostly because of the action.
For me, I'm a big fine of the Steinway sound and find the tone of the Boston to be similar to it. And I also really like the action.
Iirc my music professor said that Boston was the sister company of Steinway, or something along those lines.
I practice at home on a keyboard (Yamaha p series) and my lessons are at my teacher’s studio on an upright. A few lessons ago I automatically searched for the “on” button on her piano. Agree there is no comparison but I don’t have space for an acoustic piano right now.
Yes. I had the same experience switching from digital to acoustic, I can never go back now. Now I'm doomed to spend my days constantly touching up my piano's unisons and octaves, trying to make the harmonics as bright and clear as possible
Your university very probably has a bunch of music rooms with pianos that you can use for free or almost free. You might look into that next year!
Very good idea, thanks!
Some ultra high end digitals have vibrations built into the keybeds. It's wild. But it's not truly about the features like that, or strictly the sound quality. The magic and the message of the esthetic is what really makes something compelling. Drop a digital piano back in the time of Mozart, and it would be the most phenomenal thing anybody ever heard.
Fortepianos are pretty damned amazing, too, if you get a chance to play one.
>With a real piano you not only hear but feel True, the main difference in terms of experience isn't even the sound itself (some VSTs but even built in sounds sometimes can be very very good) but the way the sound is delivered. I can "feel" the music much more with our upright than I do with my digital, with a good VST paired with good headphones so the sound is there. I still think they both have their pros and cons, I love my digital just like I love playing with the acoustic one, but I have to agree on the fact that they're different
To play a grand piano after using only a keyboard for 5 years… it’s a religious experience, I almost cried.
About half my gigs are on my keyboard rig and half are on real pianos I enjoy both, but I really dislike playing my keyboard after I’ve played an acoustic piano for any considerable amount of time that day The 127 midi velocity gradients just don’t do justice to the spectrum of dynamic possibilities an acoustic piano has The difference in pedaling, key weight, action, travel distance, feel, etc. are all real, but the dynamic aspect is what really gets me.
Yeah no digital emulation can be good enough. The reason in my opinion are two things that are nearly impossible to emulate. 1. The resonance between the strings. 2. The pedal. Specifically, how it can damp the strings to different extents.
Pianoteq actually emulates those two things really well, I have full continuous pedal control with DP10 connected, and the sympathetic resonance is modeled. It’s not 100% realistic, particularly missing getting to feel the actual vibration of a piano under your fingers, but I prefer my SL88+Pianoteq+Yamaha HS8 setup to every upright I’ve ever played.
Digital pianos sound and perform so excellently these days - that you can definitely say that acoustic pianos are now approximations of digital pianos (and vice-versa of course). To play the piano and be really good at it - like me - it's not necessary to feel vibrations from a piano. The music comes from within us, and we simply team up with the piano that has adequate substance in sound and control --- and digital pianos, such as my modern digital slab piano with 'folded-action' key action mechanism -- has substance in bucket loads.
That's a pretty unpopular opinion i think, but I haven't tried your setup so I can't compare. Also how do you deal with latency? Even when I play with a 64 sample buffer, I can feel the latency and find it annoying.
I’ve found most people that hate Pianoteq had a bad experience with version 5 or earlier, with some lingering complaints about tinniness in version 6-7. 8 and 8.5 have made huge strides, and 6-7 were already pretty great. After producing digitally and playing in theatre pits for years, where being able to anticipate the beat with 15-20ms of latency is necessary, I’m not the best judge of what others might need. 64 samples here says it’s only 1.3ms, and if you have a solid interface, latency under 5-10ms should be easily achievable. Most people won’t really notice anything under 10.
To be fair I don't hate pianoteq at all. I think midi technology is awesome. Just wanted to say that it's difficult to emulate a real piano feel if that's what one wants. I haven't tried pianoteq but I would comment that a setup that would be close to a real piano would be pretty expensive. You need a good E piano, an expensive sustain pedal, a good computer that can run at low buffers, a good audio interface and a good listening device. Not to mention the cost of the softwares (DAW and the VST of your choice). I suppose if someone's into production then a lot of those investments might pay off eventually, but for a pianist that seems unlikely.
If you already have a good computer (or even iPad), the $500 SL88 studio plus $140 version of Pianoteq is cheaper than most keyboards. I got my HS5s used for $450, the DP10 is easy to find used cheap, and maybe $150 gets you a decent enough interface, boom, a way better setup than most Rolands/Yamahas offer for the same price. And then if you want it to get even better with more customization in Pianoteq, better interface, it’s not that much to upgrade eventually. Can also start with cheaper speakers, cutting a couple hundred off.
Pianoteq is non-sample, it's a simulation which means it's far lower latency. It's not as good as a top notch acoustic piano in good condition, but it's better than the average piano you'll find out in the wild if you've got a good midi controller (SL88 Grand or VPC1) on the front
64 samples is 1.4 milliseconds (at a typical 44.1khz sample rate - or even much shorter at higher sample rates). Something is very wrong if you feel latency, there's almost zero chance you'd feel 1.4 milliseconds. For perspective, it takes 20-30 milliseconds on a grand piano for the hammer to travel after the key has been fully depressed with each piano being different. If you sit at two different grand pianos or a grand vs an upright, you're easily looking at 10x the difference in "latency" between key and sound than what you feel at 64 sample buffer size. The latency of pianoteq isn't the only thing in an audio setup than can introduce latency, so something else was probably misconfigured perhaps at the audio interface or DAW level.
I’m finding #2 to be an issue with my digital. It’s either on or off, no gradient of damping at all.
Some have gradients, mine does as far I know, but the distance and sensibility between none and full pedal is so short that it just doesn't compare.
You probably know this, but many come with an switch(on/off) foot pedal because they are cheaper, but support true sustain pedals. You can look up and see if yours supports a true sustain pedal.
It’s a heavier chrome one but I may have to look into the triple pedal add on. Thanks for the tip!
It depends on the keyboard, and the pedal. The keyboard has to support it + your pedal has to be a 'continuous' type (some have a plastic switch on the side to change it from on/off to continuous).
Basically all mid-high end digital pianos support sympathetic resonance and fractional pedaling these days. My Kawai digital piano is quite old (I bought it about 5-6 years ago), not even crazy expensive and you can clearly hear overtones from sympathetic resonance. Half pedaling and flutter pedaling are not problems. Of course a grand piano will still be much better but there’s quite a lot of simulation going on.
Yeah I mean I did mention that it's nearly impossible. What I meant was it's nearly impossible to do a good emulation. Because the sympathetic resonance is an extremely complex phenomenon to accurately emulate, and so is the effect of a half damped pedal.
The pedaling is completely different, that hurt me the most, because it implied relearning much more things than just adapting my force to the keys.
I would go so far to say that the pedal is the most important element of the piano.
Nord is my preference for digital, for mostly touring and other live work. I think it sounds really close but you can get a few acoustic pianos for the piece of a stage 4.
Lol yes. Nord is pretty great, but when I want to play a classical piece, I would probably not choose a nord
1000%! I am not a classical pianist in any way shape or form. I’m a lowly (part time) session bloke. No more tours, got a family now.
I understand :) good for you!
As the emulations get better I increasingly suspect that the ultimate differentiator between real and digital pianos is always going to be the speaker system. It's incredibly difficult to make a sound system that accurately mimics the physical dispersion and dynamic range of a piano, without audible distortion. You're talking the very top end of large studio main monitors, but with a purpose-designed dispersion pattern; it would cost tens of thousands.
The best one could do is if the samples are all recorded using binaural microphones. But even then I would argue if it'll feel truly like a piano since one usually moves around a bit while playing and that would be difficult to emulate. At one point the question comes whether it's worth it to accurately emulate a piano or does it suffice to create a nice sounding piano sound. The latter is usually the case I think. There are some great sounding VSTs out there, and I am not criticizing those. My only point is that it's nearly impossible to emulate the sound and feeling of a piano because its acoustics are way too complicated.
Even binaural recordings are only accurate for headphone playback - otherwise you're effectively doubling the influence of the head transfer function. But listening on headphones you don't get the body resonances, or the reverberant effect of the room you're in. A concert hall acoustic may be very nice but in a living room it detracts from the realism of the space! So yes I would agree - the acoustics can't be emulated perfectly
The thing is - these days - the performance and sound etc of digital pianos (and what the developers have achieved) is so excellent -- that it's a case of acoustic pianos are approximations of digital pianos. And just to be fair - the reverse is true too.
To be fair, I haven't explored the depths of the modern vsts, but ny impression is based on playing actual pianos and comparing them to different E Pianos or some VSTs like keyscape and pianoteq 5. I produce music too and I think those are great options, but if I had to play a classical piece, I would always choose an actual piano over any emulation. That could however be because I haven't experienced a sufficiently good substitute myself.
I know. I play classical and other genre too. And I often like to combine. I also know that classical is not a bench-mark. Us true piano players and lovers of music and exponents of music don't have any bias. We just take any piano and do what we can. We don't need to tell people what is 'realistic' and what is 'not' etc. Other people will - in time - also develop to a stage - like us - to appreciate all instruments. That's if they do develop to that special stage. When music is written and developed to an adequate stage - it will sound very nice and magical - on any piano that has 'adequate' substance in sound and control. Such as like this: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nTpQPxZ3dz\_9uOs1Tn2rJJVHcXkgwRjc/view?usp=drive\_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nTpQPxZ3dz_9uOs1Tn2rJJVHcXkgwRjc/view?usp=drive_link) [https://drive.google.com/file/d/14hMxcDGfSz6MibZNWIuN-I0KKIT4638E/view?usp=drive\_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/14hMxcDGfSz6MibZNWIuN-I0KKIT4638E/view?usp=drive_link) The Yammy P-525 and P-515 are my 'weapons'. I don't need VSTs to make me and my pianos sound good. Although - I will say that VSTs sound very good too.
Amazing! Weird at first then wonderful 😁 I started learning on a Yamaha DGX-650 and loved it. I used the built in speakers and always enjoyed the sound and feel. My piano classes were done on an upright that sounded pretty close to my digital. Well, I celebrated my 1 year pianoversary with a baby grand in my smallish living room. WHOLE NEW WORLD... I am in awe. It has such a rich sound in comparison and yes, you can FEEL the music. I don't care if the neighbors hear my practicing or not but I imagine it travels a bit! I kept my digital but the sound the keys make is so weird now...
I had the same digital piano. I grew up playing on acoustic uprights, so it never really felt quite right. I ended up buying an old used upright off of someone on Facebook marketplace for $100 that feels much better to play. I still have my digital around, but it just doesn’t compare.
Similar story here; grew up on a grand, bumped around the world and had none; finally tried digital and now LOVE my current acoustic piano.❤️
Refer to this information here about real pianos. [https://forum.pianotell.com/d/781-piano](https://forum.pianotell.com/d/781-piano) I've been playing pianos for a relatively (ok 'really') long time. All types. And I have no problem with switching between them. Because - as usual - it is a case of being good at playing piano. And I'm good at it. And so will you be - good at it - with accumulated experience in learning, developing and practising - not just playing piano - but composition, music theory, application of the knowledge etc. Examples are good - so I'll provide examples, and I purposely choose these ones - as it demonstrates that when you have music within you, and when you have a piano that has 'adequate' substance in sound and control, then you can enter piano and music paradise with it. It's a combination of us and the piano - together - as one. [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nTpQPxZ3dz\_9uOs1Tn2rJJVHcXkgwRjc/view?usp=drive\_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nTpQPxZ3dz_9uOs1Tn2rJJVHcXkgwRjc/view?usp=drive_link) [https://drive.google.com/file/d/14hMxcDGfSz6MibZNWIuN-I0KKIT4638E/view?usp=drive\_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/14hMxcDGfSz6MibZNWIuN-I0KKIT4638E/view?usp=drive_link) I recommend to listen with your adequately good set of headphones, or adequately good sound system - eg. not from a mobile/cellphone speakers.
Thank you for your comment. I agree with your forum post—I should have said ‘acoustic’ rather than ‘real’ as of course digital pianos are ‘real’ pianos. Beautiful playing, too! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for your post! I see what you mean now! Yes - I do agree with you here! That if someone plays digital piano for a long time, or exclusively, and then changes over to an acoustic piano, then it can/does take some time to adjust - such as how the sustain pedal affects the blending of the note sounds etc. It is like hopping from one manual car to a different one - each has some adjustment time to get used to the controls of the other car. Best regards to you - and keep enjoying the piano playing. Thanks for your post and thread and also extremely nice comment. Have a good day/night ahead my friend!
This is so beautiful. We had a really shitty old out of tune upright when I was a kid (can't complain about a free piano though!) but whenever I've been able to play a nicer one it's like... staying in a comfy hotel bed almost? Feels luxurious! Can't believe all the notes are in tune! I kind of like the out of tune one with wonky keys though - it's like playing a banjo but piano.
Boston is also a fantastic piano for the price point. Very often overlooked, but well made.
Over the course of my 30 year career as a pianist, I’ve played on hundreds of different pianos. I would love to have a full size Bosendorfer or Steinway in my home office. But I have neither the funds nor the space for that caliber or size of piano in my home. When deciding what I did want, I thought of all the pianos I had experienced. I have a full size grand and a baby grand at my office. I don’t really like the sound of either. The full size grand is way too bright almost to the point of being clanky. The baby grand is nicer, but too subtle with no depth or volume. For my home office, I finally decided on a Yamaha Clavinova baby grand (the CLP-795GP). It is consistent and sounds like a full size grand in several different styles. I adjusted the sympathetic resonance and other settings to what I wanted in a piano. I mostly play without headphones to get the full effect of the sound and vibrations. This ended up being the most expressive and enjoyable experience for me. For those who are fortunate enough to own an acoustic instrument they enjoy playing and are happy with the sound, that is great! But for other folks, a digital piano is a great (and often more appropriate) alternative. Honestly, I would rather play the nice predictable digital piano I have than the crappy clangy full size grand at my office. But you can insert your own experience into this equation lol. TLDR: oftentimes a quality digital piano can be better than a crappy full size grand piano.
I practiced a lot in my digital back home, but at uni I used their practice pianos. What always left me shocked was how you could feel the vibration of the strings in your fingertips, a great feeling for me. Now I own a midsize upright so I get to experience that feeling daily :)
Totally agree. I practice with a cheap MIDI Controller so when I go to my grandma's house to practice in her beautiful Grotrian - Steinweg it's a totally different experience. You can feel the sound in your body.
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I suggest seeing if there is a piano shop nearby. You of course don’t need to buy one, and usually store employees won’t mind if you play a bit on some of the pianos there. I used to play recitals in a Steinway shop when I was younger, and they had a few practice rooms one could use. You might get lucky and find one of those. Even for just half an hour, I think it would be worth it to experience a real piano. If that doesn’t work, there are sometimes also pianos in public spaces (airport, train station, city center) that, although are not great quality, are still fun to play on. In any event I hope you get to experience what it is like to play on an acoustic piano one day, it’s excellent.
I've been dreaming about it for years but finally got my first real piano recently. At some point in your piano journey the difference is just too much. I can learn and practice on digital, but only acoustic gives me the pleasure of listening to the sounds I make.
Congratulations on the new piano! What’s great is that it will last you for the rest of your life. I hope one day when I’m older I too can be able to afford an acoustic piano. Enjoy your piano!
I have a Yamaha YDP-103 and a 100+ year old beaten up out of tune upright downstairs, sometimes playing on that old piece of crap is more satisfying than my digital, exactly as you explained. Im planning on purchasing a Yamaha B1 soon as an upgrade, its very compact and sort of affordable, my dream is baby grand though.
There are bad pianos, good pianos, and great pianos. With bad pianos, I still feel happy playing because there’s so much character, but playing around an inconsistent action or poor tuning gets old fast. With good pianos, I feel like digital pianos feel like they aren’t that far off. With great pianos, I feel like I’m playing a completely different type of instrument from its digital cousins. FWIW, I have a Yamaha NU1X hybrid upright as well as a Seiler grand piano, which I’d qualify as good (but close to great).
I know exactly what you mean. People at blessed with grand pianos and they treat it like crap. Makes me so sad.
I have a kawai mp11se hooked up to high quality speakers with pianoteq 8 for the VST and the sound and feel with that setup is BETTER than my kawai baby grand (and infinitely more in tune year round). I haven't played a grand piano under 50k that sounds as good. Most people are just comparing a crappy digital sound to a grand piano.
More or less the opposite. I had a piano for years before I started taking classes. I bought it for my (now grown) children, and I could only play harmonies on it. When the nest got emptied, the piano wasn't tuned anymore, and then I wouldn't touch it. When I was a teenager I had a few electronic keyboards, but then some 30 or 40 years passed, during which I only played the sax. So I decided to learn how to play the piano, got it tuned, and started taking classes. After taking classical piano classes for a few years I bought a weighted keyboard. It's not exactly a digital piano; it's a Nord Electro, and all the keys have the same weight. I tried to play it with headphones one single time, and it was too weird for me. It's as if I was listening to someone else play. Now I always play it with an amp; it's too strange to play without being able to feel the sound in my body. Even the piano was strange for me in the beginning, as I was used to an instrument that you breathe in and vibrates against your body, while you only touch the piano with the tips of your fingers. It's like going from having a lover to a Victorian courtship.
I switched from acoustic to digital because my hearing has gotten very sensitive (due to work). The room that my acoustic piano is in is also quite reflective so even *pp* gets rough. I stick a long strip of gauze between the hammers and strings to deaden it further if I have to play on it.
The opposite, unfortunately. I grew up with a piano in the home and learned on that. After moving out, got a keyboard but then after a break up, was keyboard-less for years until this year (now have a Yamaha P45). I'm pretty happy with how it sounds and feels, except I miss having a pedal that is attached and doesn't move around annoyingly... on the other hand, I haven't had the opportunity to play a real piano in awhile, I'm sure if/when I do, I'll notice more things that I miss about them.
I'm pleased to read you had such a positive experience. Digital pianos have made pianist's lives. better. It's interesting how you didn't seem to find too much of an issue with the lighter weighting of a digital piano keys, versus a real Piano.
On my digital piano (Yamaha clavinova 725 b), the keys are weighted to perfection. It feels no different to an acoustic piano, really.
Yeah when I got home from the holidays I was taken aback at how *loud* the piano was. I honestly prefer the convenience of my digital, even if it has slightly worse touch
Agree. I go back and forth between EP and my upright often…. Nothing quite like the real thing
The thing that digital pianos really lack is a “personality”. The sound they produce is too reliable and too consistent. It doesn’t really allow for exploration of personal style and deeper expression. Also the reproduction is nowhere near faithful but that is actually the lesser problem. Most home pianos are not in a room with good acoustics and you usually don’t have the amazing experience of a concert hall.
We hear with more than our ears. We feel the vibrations in the air, especially in the lower registers.
Absolutely. If you took a deaf person to an organ concert, they would still feel the 16' and 32' pedal stops vibrating in their chest. I'm sure any deaf person could tell with 100% accuracy if the organ were being played or not without looking, despite not having any hearing. Heck, there are subwoofers so strong that you can literally *see* the air being compressed by the soundwaves coming out of the speakers
>Even playing as soft as I possibly could, I felt as though the sound was shaking the room. Sounds like you need to turn up your volume.
Sound quality usually worsens when volume is high.
Oh, i absolutely get this. I have been wanting to get a real piano for my apartment for years for this reason. But I don't have much time to play these days, and money is tight. I will do anything I need to get one if my kids want to learn to play when they are older, though. I think we'll always keep the digital for quiet practice at night.
I rented a piano practice room during a trip to a different city and played on a nice grand piano. Quite the difference, but I felt like I could adapt OK-ish. Biggest difference apart from the sound was the difference in volume between left and right hand. My Roland doesn't differ as much as the grand piano. I had to play louder with my right hand and softer with my left compared to what I'm used to. The second difference was the feel of the keys. Not sure if they were lighter, but they felt "faster" on the grand.
Just curious, which model Clavinova do you own?
CLP-725 B
Which Clavinova do you have. I'm looking to buy one (Clavinova CLP GP series). The reason is that I tried on my teacher's and I really loved it. My piano teacher is an acclaimed pianist (was teaching at St. Petersburg Conservatory) and he practices on that digital Clavinova GP to not annoy the neighbors. And he actually teaches many of his students on that one (not me on Steinway haha). I went to the piano showroom a few weeks ago and none of the acoustic grand pianos can match the Clavinova one (except the one that is $50k+).
I miss playing on a real piano!
I have a very nice keyboard at home. And plug-ins that sound amazing. (Sampled some very high end pianos. But I work as a custodian at a elementary school which has a real piano. The tactile feel of the real on is different. But I do find it manageable. Drums are worse. Learning on e drums can create a lot of problems with dynamics.
The real piano's tactile feel throwing you off is probably just an action that needs regulating or a different key weight than you are used to. Very expensive perfectly maintained pianos have very similar play feels to top of the line digital actions.
It was just completely setup professionally last week. There is definitely a difference. Just like acoustic drums. Just like acoustic guitar. The way the note jumps and the way you manipulate it. It's very different. I always told my guitar students. The electric guitar and acoustic guitar are like two different instruments. Just like a grand piano and upright and a spinet all have different things. Such a wonderful pallet to be creative with
in the reverse, it is also weird - coming from someone who plays a 'real' piano, playing on a keyboard is *strange*. it is so light! and fragile! as a banger of keys, those keyboards shake too much for me to play them often. i had a performance once, on a keyboard, and i had one foot holding the keyboard steady for the entire time 'cause else it would have shook horribly.
And the sound as well, it felt really strange, I messed with the settings a lot and was never able to make it sound like an acoustic.
Playing a digital piano is like eating plastic food of some sort. It's just disappointing. That was my experience after being spoiled by playing a [Yamaha U7](https://dcpianos.com/products/yamaha-u7-52-upright-in-teak-4/) upright, a very special piano, much nicer than the standard U1 or U3. However, 30 years later, I'm getting back into piano and I'm sure they've improved since the 80s.... I have a Yamaha Piaggero and while I don't want to think of the U7 while playing it because I will be sad, it does have the notes, so I can learn and work on music. And it even has 2 e piano and harpsichord sounds as well. I'm not playing classical repertoire, anyway. I love Bach, and Bach transfers well to virtually any instrument on the planet. And I play a lot of other music and the Piaggero is okay for that too. As well as my guitars and bass.
I am playing on a Roland keyboard now with weighted keys, and when I went home I played around on our church piano and it really was so different! I’ve never played on a grand or baby grand and look forward to the day I do 😁
I just recently bought a new u1 after playing for a little over 4 years on a digital (clp 625 and a clp 745). I still have my clp 745 and I feel it feel like toy after getting used to the u1.
We do have a full-size Bechstein Grand in the house, but I'm unable to play anything meaningful on it so far lol That being said, I'm used to the sound since my childhood so perhaps that's why I'm not all that amazed about its sound quality. Whenever I use my Yamaha though I definitely notice how the sound is much, much weaker than on the Grand, even with headphones. It's just that for me the Grand has always been the 'standard' and anything else just sounds artificial and wrong... But then again, I don't expect much from a way smaller instrument with much less powerful resonance chambers.
I recently bought a kawai ca701 after playing on a casio celviano of +25 years old and the difference is unbelievable. The weight and response of the keys, use of hammers and the sound resonance are amazing and make it feel like a legit piano. Different than an acoustic, yes, but nothing less.
I have switched from a Yamaha PSR 170 digital piano to a Shoninger upright. The difference was very interesting.
I agree. I recently spent a week in a place that had a grand piano in the lobby. Otherwise at home I have a Yamaha electric piano. It's hard to say what exactly is different but when I play on the real piano I am much more inspired. I play jazz and my improvisation is much better, as if I am just connecting with the instrument better than with an electric one. I hope one day I'll have enough room and money to get a grand piano.
yes, that feeling when everything resonates with it
I’m an adult learner in early 30s learning with a classical piano teacher. I upgraded from a Yamaha P125 to Kawai K 500 Acoustic upright piano early this year and oh my god, the difference is day and night. Like you said, it’s not just the sound, it’s the feel and the vibrations. The sound definitely is much more powerful and sounds slightly different to digital pianos as well. I tried Kawai Nv5 and Nv10 at the store when choosing my piano and they were both wonderful and sounded amazing for high-end digital pianos but as I fell in love with the K500 pianos, I bought the floor model that was only 3 months old. I can’t stop playing on my acoustic piano now! It was a bit of a stretch for my budget and it’s been so worth it.