REVIEW - Casio PX750 Privia Digital Piano - Recommended - New Low Priced Piano

UPDATED REVIEW - March 25, 2013 - Casio Privia PX750 Digital Piano - I recommend the new 2013 Privia PX750 digital piano ($799 internet discount price) which includes the furniture stand and 3 pedals because it offers a surprisingly realistic upright piano playing experience in a very low price range for both key action movement and acoustic piano tone realism in a sleek compact furniture style cabinet (with a metal sliding key cover) available in satin black, satin oak brown, & satin white finishes.
 

Casio PX750 black

Overall, the PX750 is the same piano as the PX150 portable model as far as key action and functions except that the PX750 projects the piano sound in a much better way through upgraded speakers producing a fuller, more resonate piano tone. Also, the PX750 has a more elegant compact furniture style cabinet with a sliding metal key cover (none on the portable models) and comes with the matching stand and 3-pedal unit as opposed to it being optional. The PX750 is fairly lightweight with stand and pedals (only 71lbs), and the piano itself can be detached from the stand & pedals for easy moving. A couple of other things worth noting about this model as compared with portable digital pianos is the fact that there is room on top of the piano (because of its design) to put things on like music or other items. This is because the speakers are underneath the piano facing forward as opposed to being on top of the piano as they are in the portable models. The piano top itself is also taller than the portables which allows for front facing controls on the control panel (see pictures) which are convenient to use as opposed to the portables which are not built in that way. So really there is a lot to like about this model as opposed to any of the more basic portable pianos including the Casio PX150, Yamaha P105, and others like them.

The Casio company itself is based in Tokyo, Japan (left pic) and has been producing digital pianos and musical instruments including digital keyboards, synthesizers, pianos, guitars, and other sophisticated musical instruments for over 30 years, which is a long time in my opinion. They are obviously also well known for their keyboards, watches, digital cameras, calculators, and hundreds of other digital products so technology is not new to them. Casio is generally thought of as a company that gives you a lot of "bang for the buck" in the lower price ranges and it's certainly true for the PX750 in my opinion. By the way, all Casio digital pianos come with a long 3 year parts and labor factory warranty, and are fairly reliable based on my personal experience as well as other people I know who own Casio pianos, so there is little reason to buy extended warranties for these pianos.

PX750

I have played the PX750, as well as the portable PX150, and I like the way the PX750 plays and sounds. It has 18 instrument tones, five of which are various acoustic piano sounds which is one of the most important features to have on a digital piano. A good variety of acoustic piano tones allows you to play and reproduce different types of piano music including classical, jazz, pop, country, etc. There are a few newer digital pianos from other brands available in lower prices ranges including the Yamaha, but they typically have only two acoustic piano sounds. So having five of them is very good. Also, the piano sound is almost always better when there is more piano sound computer memory (called polyphony) and the PX750 has 128-note polyphony as opposed to 64 notes in many other digital pianos in this price range. It's generally always good to get more polyphony rather than less. Having more polyphony also helps with getting more realistic pedal sustain smoothness when sustaining multiple notes on the keys. Playing the pedals is a very important aspect of piano playing and this would include having good pedal sustain reproduction instead of just on & off sustain as is in many other digital pianos and keyboards. The better pedal sustain reproduction is also known as "half-pedaling," and this Casio PX750 has that feature which is important as your playing skill level increases. All regular acoustic pianos have a "gradual sustain" pedaling (the right pedal) so getting "half-pedal" sustain on your digital piano is a good thing.

As far as key action movement and dynamic response goes, the PX750 is surprisingly realistic (feels like a real upright piano) for its low price and I was impressed when I played it, and it takes a lot to impress me :). Key action is always the number one concern of piano teachers and those people that can play piano at higher skill levels. People always ask me "does this digital piano feel and respond like a real acoustic piano?" My answer is always that most brands and models of real acoustic pianos feel and play differently from each other including uprights & grands. There are different price ranges and qualities just like in anything you can buy, so the PX750 is not going to be replacing a Steinway grand piano anytime soon! However, for its price range it is an exceptional piano in being able to reproduce an acoustic piano playing experience with proper tonal dynamics, smooth volume response, and fairly good decay and attack times (this means what a piano sounds like when you first press the key down and then release it while holding the damper sustain pedal).

PX750 satin white

As far as the piano keys themselves go, the better digital manufacturers have come out with a new synthetic "ivory feel keytop" on many digital pianos which is a new material on top of the white keys that tries to reproduce the original real ivory keys that used to be on most acoustic pianos many years ago until it became illegal to use elephant ivory. The ivory substance provided a better playing experience for most people because it absorbed sweat your fingers would produce while playing the keys and this material also provided a smoother key surface as well. Also, the black key tops were made of ebony (have you heard the term ebony & ivory?) so the black keys also had a better playing surface. To get these new keytops instead of the regular plastic ones, you would need to spend around $1500 or more to get it on digital pianos these days. And beyond that, this new material is not the same on different piano brands because some are noticeably better than others. Casio has added a proprietary synthetic ebony and ivory to their keys that I really like and it's quite a bit better than the next nearest competitor with ivory feel keys, which is Roland. So I give Casio a lot of credit for coming out with such a nice feature at a much lower price than anyone else. Is it worth getting, that's up to you, but I think it's pretty cool:)

Beyond the piano playing experience, having some useful digital features in the piano that can help with music education and/or playing skills, etc, is always welcome as far as I'm concerned. As a piano teacher & musician I enjoy having these things on my digital pianos and like to see students and recreational piano players get them too. The PX750 allows for layering two sounds together like acoustic piano and string violins etc, electronically splitting the keyboard into 2 equal parts for duet play for teaching and learning, or to put a different sound on the left hand and a different sound on the right hand which is lots of fun. The PX750 also has a USB MIDI connection to computer or iPad device which is very useful for interactive play and learning and there are super cool iPad/tablet apps out there to take advantage of this new technology as well as great piano music programs for laptop computers so that you can have a fun interactive time in learning, composing, on screen notation & music creation.

PX750 with key cover closed

Overall for the money, the Casio PX750 looks like it is by far one of the best new digital pianos out there under $1000) in an attractive contemporary furniture style cabinet that reproduces the piano playing experience in a way that makes it seem real...and that's what it's all about. It this piano a concert grand...no...not even close. Is it surprisingly realistic for its price and better than any other digital piano brand or model in or around its price range?...absolutely yes. It also sounds and looks better than the new portable Casio PX150 (with its optional  stand & pedals) and is only a slight bit more money too. So the PX750 would be my pick for someone who wants to be in the lower price range under $1000 and also wants the piano to look a bit more traditional (furniture style) with realistic acoustic piano sound, key action & key feel, and useful on-board digital features. Although the PX750 piano is lightweight and although the top can come off the stand, it is not meant to be portable so if you want to take it places, then you should look at the portable PX150 in the new Casio line-up.

Casio PX780

There is also a new Casio piano that just came out in a slightly higher price range with more educational digital technology to help with "learning and playing fun" and has some very cool features on it along with the same piano key action & piano realism of the Casio PX750. That model is called the PX780 (above left pic) and it has an internet discount price of $999. You can read about that one on my PX780 blog review to read more about this model: Casio PX780 Review

The only other brand out there in this price range with a furniture style cabinet I would recommend is Yamaha, but as of right now their lowest price cabinet piano is the YDP135R ($999 internet price) and it doesn't come close to the new Casio PX750. When you add up its 128-note polyphony, upright key graduated hammer key action, synthetic ivory & ebony key tops, "half-pedal" sustain feature, and front facing panel controls, as well as USB to iPad/computer output, you get a lot for a little price in my opinion. However, once you get above the $1000 price range there are certainly more options out there but the first Yamaha digital piano that would come close to PX750 with regard to key action and piano sound in a nicer furniture style cabinet would be the new Yamaha YDP162 and it has a significantly higher internet price of $1499. The Yamaha YDP162 does have a more powerful built-in speaker system and is a very nice instrument, but it should be considering its much higher price. For now, the Privia PX750 or PX780 would be my choice for contemporary cabinet pianos in the lower price range, but for slightly more money the new top of the line Casio Privia PX850 at $1099 internet discount price is also an impressive instrument and a big upgrade over the PX750. Go here for the PX850 review: Casio PX850 Review

Finally, if you think the Casio PX750 sounds like a good choice to you, Casio has also just come out with a more "traditional" furniture cabinet version of the PX750 called the AP250 ($999 internet price) which comes in a medium brown oak color.  This new model also includes a matching bench and all of the features of the PX750 but in a different and slightly upgraded cabinet design. This may be a good option for people who like the minimalistic features of the PX750 but in a more traditional brown cabinet for slightly more money. Go to the following link for my review on the Casio AP250: Casio AP250 review

Don't make a purchase anywhere for any digital piano without talking to me first because I will help you make the right decision and help get you a lower price. 

If you want more info on these and other pianos and lower prices than internet or store discounts, please email me at tim@azpianowholesale.com or call me direct at 602-571-1864 

 

REVIEW - Suzuki SD10 Digital Piano at Costco - Not Bad, Not Good

UPDATED REVIEW - April 20, 2013 - Suzuki SD10 Digital Piano - READ THIS BEFORE YOU BUY - I have never liked Suzuki digital pianos in the past because they were always pretty bad in reproducing a decent acoustic piano tone and key action with proper dynamics and response, and I have played and reviewed many of them. Although the name Suzuki is somewhat famous with regard to music education (violin, piano) & vehicles (cars, motorcycles, etc), the Suzuki "piano company" is a completely separate entity and has no connection with the original Suzuki company other than being able to use the name. The Suzuki piano company is actually an importer of digital & acoustic pianos from third party Chinese manufacturers for the main purpose of selling lesser quality, lower priced pianos to Costco in the US for resale to the public. Suzuki has little to do with the production and design of the pianos under that name unlike the better names who actually design, produce, and manufacture their own digital pianos such as Kawai, Roland, Casio, and Yamaha. 

The Suzuki SD10 ($799 internet discount price) is an inexpensive model sold primarily through Costco as I just mentioned. Suzuki also calls the SD10 an 'upright piano' but that is just a marketing term and in reality it is far from being an "upright piano"...but it's a cute name nevertheless. A real acoustic upright piano stands about 48" tall. The Suzuki SD10 stands at about 30" tall...a big difference! Costco has offered many different Suzuki digital pianos in the past which were, in my opinion, all undesirable instruments in a variety of ways except they generally looked attractive. However, the SD10 is a surprisingly big improvement over those past models in both key action, piano sounds, & features, but they are still lacking in some important ways which I will talk about further down in this review. I would recommend the SD10 piano if there were no other better digital piano brands & models available in the lower price range, but there are others including the new Yamaha P105 ($599), Casio PX750 ($799) and Casio PX780 ($999) which I consider a "best buy." I would recommend those pianos over the SD10 as far as what else you should consider.

The SD10 is in a fairly attractive, functional furniture type compact case with a slow closing key cover top which folds flat (left pic) which is pretty cool, and I happen to like that. But other than it having a flat fold over lid with music rack attached, the piano itself is physically not much different than the Yamaha's and Casio's when they are connected to their furniture stands and 3 pedal units. The Suzuki SD10 comes with the stand and 3-pedal unit along with a small matching bench, so everything is included at the $799 price. The other brands are better, but the stands, pedals, and benches are sometimes optional and add to the price. The control panel on the SD10 is easy to use, fairly intuitive and their are a number of features such as sound layering, sound splitting, duet play, 2 track MIDI recording, reverb, a handy adjustable digital metronome for timing, an EQ control panel knob for changing the sound from mellow to brighter (not usable when listening through headphones), and a nice backlit LCD user display screen to show what's going on in the piano when you select different buttons and functions. So all and all it's a pretty nice instrument when it comes to features.

The piano has 8 panel instrument sound buttons with a variation button which makes for a total of 16 instrument sounds that light up and are easily accessed from the control panel, plus you can  get many more instrument sounds when you go into the digital menu. The SD10 also has a General MIDI playback song function when songs are loaded into the piano via a USB flashdrive. In this way you can play along with songs in the General MIDI format to better learn to play them. I have written some blog reviews on General MIDI and why it can be an fun advantage to have that feature.

The SD10 has a fairly powerful stereo speaker system for its size with 30 watts of total power and the two 5" speakers it has are not on the top but instead underneath the piano facing forward (left pic). This is OK but having the speakers on top of the piano and then additional speakers facing down or out would have been better because that's the way acoustic pianos work having the sound project upward (on grands) and/or nearer to your ears instead of just away from you below your waste. The pedals seem to work fine in duplicating the basic function of piano pedals, although it does not duplicate the graduated half pedal function (such as what the Yamaha & Casio digital pianos have) which allows for more gradual pedal sustain you would get on traditional acoustic pianos. But at $799 for an instrument like this, that's not surprising. The piano has 2 headphone jacks for private playing, an audio input jack, audio output jack, a USB MIDI output connection to computer or iPad which is a very cool thing to have to interface with those external devices, and also separate MIDI connections for other uses.

So from the looks of it, this Suzuki SD10 seems to be a good buy, but the piano key action and piano sound is what's most important and that is where this model has some trouble, in my opinion. Although both the piano sound reproduction and key action are improved from past models, they still fall quite short of where they need to be and where the competition is. When you play an actual acoustic piano, there are many things that need to happen to make the piano play and sound right. The piano sound needs to be balanced and consistent in volume and tone when playing one key to the next, the piano sound dynamics need to be smooth and not jumpy, and the piano needs to obviously 'sound' like a piano which is a complex process and requires a lot of dedicated computer memory and high quality piano sample recordings used in digital pianos.

In the SD10, the main 'grand piano sound' does not sound like a grand or even any real acoustic piano of any size. The sound is quite muffled and has a synthesizer-like tone to it, especially when you play in the upper octave keys of the piano. It just doesn't sound right and there is little you can do to change it. There is a second acoustic piano sound called 'bright piano.' It is a much better acoustic piano reproduction than the first 'grand piano' tone but it is somewhat bright in its tone (hence the name bright). You can use the brightness tone control knob on the panel to mellow it out a little bit but the piano sound is not very rich or full and still has a thinner sound. Also, the control tone knob does not have an effect on the sound when using headphones so there is no way to do any changes at that point. Even though the pianos sounds on this model are actually better than past models, they still have a ways to go to catch up to Yamaha & Casio.

As for the key action, Suzuki says it has "an authentic grand piano feel." That is one of the most ridiculous statements I have ever heard a digital piano manufacturer make before, especially on this kind of a low priced instrument...and I've heard a lot of exaggerated statements before:) Oh well, maybe they think most piano shoppers are gullible? But for the unsuspecting shopper, you may think just because they say it somehow it must be true. Take my word for it, it is definitely not a grand piano key action or even an upright piano key action for that matter. However the feel of the key movement itself is actually pretty good and balanced for a lower price digital piano, although when when you apply harder pressure to the keys when trying to get more dynamic range, when the keys themselves hit the bottom of the 'keybed,' they  make quite a bit of knocking noise like two pieces of wood hitting each other. The keys are also somewhat noisy when coming back up to their resting position after being pressed down, especially when playing quick staccato notes. This is distracting when playing your music, especially when using headphones because then you can really hear that noise throughout the room or house when someone else is playing it, and its kind of annoying. There are other digital pianos that have similar problems including the newer Roland RP301 & F120 digital pianos which I have also reviewed. If you play the keys softly you don't have that issue, but when you play more forcefully which is required on many songs, then you do.

The Suzuki SD10 does have a few different key sensitivity changes you can select from and this can help with making the piano playing sound a bit smoother, but it does not drastically improve dynamic range or volume smoothness in this piano and there is definitely noticeable unevenness from one note to the next on various octaves when playing the piano sounds. Although this model only has 64 notes of polyphony memory, it still does a pretty good job with tone decay time and overall playability, but 128 notes (like its competitors) would have been better. More polyphony memory is useful and needed if the student or player wants to be or is at medium to higher skill levels where the music starts becoming a bit more complex. Also, more polyphony memory helps with getting a more realistic pedaling experience as well as allows for better MIDI song playback and sound layering. So the more polyphony you get in the piano, the better. It's like computer or hard drive memory, the more, the better.  But in the beginning stages, 64 notes of polyphony memory is usually sufficient although as the student progresses they will grow out of that piano.

Suzuki SD10 connected to iPad

The Suzuki SD10 is at a low price and has a nice closing key cover along with a stronger internal sound system than others. However in trying to reproduce a real acoustic piano, it is still far behind the new Casio & Yamaha digital piano available now.  The Yamaha & Casio pianos do cost slightly more money with bench, but in the long run I believe it's absolutely worth the difference if your goal is to play piano correctly and really enjoy it with out having to compensate and compromise your music...and no one really wants to do that if they can help it. 

Casio PX750

The four new pianos I do recommend in the lower price range are the portable Yamaha P105 ($599 internet price), the portable Casio PX150 ($599 internet price), the portable Casio PX350 ($799 internet price), and the full size PX750 ($799) and the Casio PX780 ($999) which I consider the best buy of all and well worth the extra money. They are by far the most superior models and have the realistic key action and piano sound that people (and piano teachers like me) want and need along with many new, and very cool digital features not found on most portable or compact digital pianos under $1000. Also, like the Suzuki, both the Yamaha & Casio are USB midi compliant and can connect to an iPad or laptop computer for interactive playing and learning (which has become more common to do) now that the iPad has especially become such an integral part of music education, playing, and learning for younger children and adults alike. Here are the links to my reviews of these new piano models:

Yamaha P105 Review
Casio PX150/350 Review
Casio PX750 Review
Casio PX780 Review

So before you purchase one of these Suzuki's at Costco or any of the other brands including Adagio and the higher priced Roland digital pianos, please read my blog reviews on these models to get more info which will help you make a more educated decision. If you think you like the Suzuki SD10 and it's in the right price range for you, then you should buy it. But if you don't know much about pianos, then I would encourage you to read about the new Casio's & Yamaha's which are not only noticeably better as I mentioned earlier, but also will have a higher resale value and be something you can grow into and keep for a longer period of time. At the end of the day, what people really want is a good, durable instrument that will duplicate the best acoustic piano sound & key action possible in the price range you want to be in along with a few other useful digital features. Please let me know if you have any questions.

If you want more info on these and other pianos and lower prices than internet or store discounts, please email me at tim@azpianowholesale.com or call me direct at 602-571-1864