I have been playing on an acoustic piano for most of my life, but for a while now I have felt the need for a more quiet solution. The priority in my search for a digital piano was mostly to get the action right, and after some digging around I stumbled upon this one and basically heard only praises about it. I did not have the chance to try out the keyboard beforehand, but I had tried the Kawai ES8 and from what I remembered the action was pretty good on that one. So, I went ahead and ordered it, and so far I am extremely satisfied with it.
The first thing you will realize is that the piano is very well built; even the pedal system feels sturdy even though it is made of plastic. The action is probably as close as you can come to a real grand piano in a stage piano; it feels very natural and the wooden keys with ivory touch really make it feel authentic. I was also quite surprised by the sounds: The pianos do sound a bit bland out of the box, but with a few tweaks you can make them sound better than some VSTs out there. The E. Pianos are also phenomenal and the SUB section has some good samples as well. I also like what Kawai has done with the layout and interface of the keyboard; it is very easy to understand the gist of it and make small adjustments, but you can also dig deep if you want to.
The only downsides I can find are that the piano is quite heavy and large (deeper than most stage pianos) and that there are not any inbuilt speakers. However, since I am mostly practicing with headphones, the absence of inbuilt speakers does not bother me that much.
Pros:
+ Great action
+ Surprisingly good samples
+ User-friendly but also very sophisticated
+ Sturdy
Cons:
- Large and heavy
- No inbuilt speakers
