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Kawai ES920 vs. Yamaha P-515


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Review of Kawai ES920 vs. Yamaha P-515

 

I am hoping that I can add some comments of interest to those looking at these two keyboards. I"ve had the pleasure of owning both of these for a couple of months now, going back and forth, side to side, and am about to keep the K and sell the Y. I"ll share why that is.

 

First, let me say that if I had no contact with the Kawai and only had the Yamaha I would be very happy with it. It"s a great keyboard. But here are some differences that were pertinent to me:

 

On the plus side for the Yamaha, it definitely has a better build quality than the Kawai. The idea that the K is 'lighter and more portable' is simply a consolation prize. Even the music rest (though they look similar) is beefier with the Y. I don"t expect the K to fall apart, but it definitely seems like a cheaper build quality. (But it is lighter.)

 

Sound: here, a mixed bag. Both have great samples, but⦠The Y has a much stronger bottom end than the K, which seems kind of wimpy at the bottom. When you bang a note at the bottom of the Y, you have some real muscle behind it. That"s true for both internal speakers and headphones, and it"s a shame because that"s pretty important to me. I"ve kind of solved it by adding an external subwoofer to the K. But except for the bottom end the Yamaha, to me, sounds very trebly overall and 'too busy" with the samples. The basic piano is what in most keyboards might be described as 'Bright Piano", and they have an even brighter one on top of that! In fact, all of the Yamaha sounds seem too trebly and bright to me. The organs, in particular, might even be described as 'shrill". (Except the great church organs).

 

 

The Yamaha seems to have better speakers, but it"s hard to tell because beefier low end may just make it seem that way. The K to me sounds a bit more synthetic through the speakers. Both are certainly adequate for playing at home. But again, the K has a weaker low end.

 

The Kawai, on the other hand, (other than the wimpy lower end) has a sound that might be described as understated, simpler, and yet accurate and even perhaps elegant. I find it very pleasing and suitable for a wide variety of music. James has spoken about the stellar top end. Overall it"s more straightforward, clear, and less 'busy" in the samples, more workman-like in a good way.

 

The action. One of the biggest sources of controversy. As everyone points out, it"s personal preference. First, let me say that IMHO the wood keys of the Y and the 'escapement" mechanism of the K are both basically gimmicks to get people interested. What really counts is how things feel when you play. The Y IS 'heavier", although I wouldn"t really call it stiff as some keyboards are (other Yamahas!). It"s hard to describe. Perhaps classically trained pianists might prefer it. Other people have pointed out that a heavier action might help 'train" or exercise the hand so that 'real" pianos might be easier to play. Maybe that"s a selling point, I don"t know.

 

The K"s action is described by some as 'liquid-like," and another review somewhere else described it as being 'like butter." It"s lighter and faster, but perhaps more compatible with the modern world of keyboards rather than just pianos. That is, many people today describe themselves as keyboard players rather than pianists, and this acknowledges the wide variety of keyboards out there, and the wide varieties of their actions. You have pianos, synthesizers, Eps, clavs, harpsichords, organs, etc, etc all with someone"s view of how the keyboard should feel. The K feels to me like it"s friendly with those people who play any of these, except organ of course. I play very little classical, but mostly rock, blues, jazz, etc. and the keyboard to me feels 'like butter." It"s fast and flowing. I don"t know. Perhaps my fingers will lose muscle tone. But it"s very similar to my gigging keyboards, which I won"t name to avoid confusing things further. It"s a pleasure to play. The key noise to me is not an issue. Pianos themselves are often a bit noisy, and for electronics⦠if you want to hear key noise go play a Fatar action (Nord,etc). They make the Kawai look like a cotton swab playing on a mattress.

 

Extra sounds: The Yamaha shines on its church organs and on a wonderful pad called 'Dark Pad." Other than that, I prefer the Kawai for almost every other extra sound. That is important to me, because I keep my gigging keyboard in a case ready to go, and use my home keyboard to practice songs which feature various types of keyboards. I really can"t even play the Yamaha organs because they seem so shrill they hurt my ears. The Y does, on the other hand, have an accessible full GM set of sounds, but the vast majority are of a quality that most people wouldn"t be interested in playing.

 

The Kawai rhythm section is definitely better and more fun than the Yamaha, with a lot of really cool funky things to play along to.

 

Two other points for the Kawai: the Kawai features a well-designed 4-band EQ right on the board, which I immediately found helpful. The sounds come out different live vs. headphones, and these sliders help me adjust for that. They might also help anyone with hearing spectrum issues, etc. I think that this is a very important addition, and found myself wishing for it in the Yamaha when confronted with what I perceived as an overly bright sound in general (except the excellent Bosendorfer, but that has limited applications.)

 

The other thing is, both keyboards allow you to tweak all sorts of parameters of the piano sound, but only one allows you to save your work for future reference on the board. That"s Kawai, which has 28 Registration slots that can be crafted and saved to be immediately called up. Amazingly, the Yamaha has no provision for this, and with a couple of minor exceptions, you pretty much have to start over each time you want to work on the piano sound and then lose it when you turn the piano off. I find that pretty incredible.

 

But the main reason that I chose the Kawai is this: after going back and forth for a couple of months, I found that I just felt more creative on the K. I like to improvise, and I felt that the K 'had my back" more as I took chances experimenting. Kind of a subtle, intuitive thing. That was partly because of the lighter, quicker action, but also because of the simpler and cleaner samples that didn"t get in the way of each other as I experimented. Each note stood clearly on its own, in a humble but attractive way. I found myself just wanting to play and improvise more with the Kawai.

 

But they"re both great keyboards, I don"t want to 'dis" the Yamaha because I enjoyed it as well (especially the lower end), and again, it comes down to personal preference. There are PLENTY of people who prefer the Yamaha. You can"t go wrong with either.

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Wow, cool review! As a fairly new owner of an ES920 you have my attention.

 

Would be interested to hear your comparisons for the following:

- I love that you get 10 slots, 100,000 notes?, for MIDI sequencing recording. It's dead simple, and even 2 track. I assume the Y has something similar?

- Easily record keyboard + aux input to USB stick?

- More info on the arranger: with the K you can choose drums, drums + bass, drums + bass + accompaniment. You also get a standard pattern and a variation of that pattern easily controlled by the optional 3 pedal pedal. All dead simple to use.

 

 

That's inconceivable to me that there's no patch storage!!! What? I'm sure the Y can do splits and layers, that would be a hassle to do every time. The built-in audio interface though is not present on the K, it's a no-brainer how important that feature is nowadays.

 

I agree about Yamaha sound in general (not the p515), the pianos are on the 'brighter' side. Even on the Kawai, I choose the 'Warm Grand' over the EX Concert Grand. Am disappointed with the organ sounds on the K, and the leslie, which can also be controlled with the 3-pedal pedal, is poor to my ears.

 

The ES920 is the successor of the ES8, sells for roughly the same and apparently has the same action with small modifications. I would have never bought the ES8 simply because of its weight. For some that is not a concern, for lots of us the weight constitutes a buying decision. So far its plastic build quality hasn't been an issue I've heard about. At 11 pounds heavier, I'd never consider the P515.

 

Am confused about the bass you say is lacking on the K, it sounds thunderous to me using my headphones or adding a speaker to augment the built-ins (QSC K8.2). I agree that the K's speakers lack real bass, I didn't know how much I was missing until I hooked up the K8.2. You did say you listened to the built-in speakers as well as the headphones, but from your descriptions is sounds mostly like using the built-in speakers, of which the Y has the better sound apparently? Specs wise, they look very similar, relatively small woofers and 40 watt stereo systems, though the Y adds tweeters. I think the Ks onboard speakers sound pretty good, but it really does need a speaker with a larger woofer and more power. I hear this even more clearly when I hook the tv up to the aux inputs! What sub did you add? The K8.2 and my other small 2-way, the JBL Eon One Compact, either one make the built-in speakers sound great.

 

I'm glad to see this post here at Keyboard Forum. I used to be here all the time but spend most of it now at Piano World forum. I realized I'm mostly a piano player and didn't need workstations, arrangers, etc., but a solid stage piano. There are two dedicated threads there for the ES520/920, and overall its a very piano-centric forum.

 

Reviews and comparisons over at piano world describe the action of the P515 as having an unusually stiff first press, but when you get past that it's as smooth as can be. Which means it'd be more challenging to play pppp. To me the ES920 feels like the better grand pianos I've played. An even lighter action, the ES110, suits me even more, it's very fluid and expressive.

 

Thanks again for the comparison review! That's pretty sweet, taking several months to comparison review them. Personally, I can rarely tell much of anything until I get a keyboard home, and then it'll take weeks to sort out what I like/don't like/overall feeling.

Numa Piano X73 /// Kawai ES920 /// Casio CT-X5000 /// Yamaha EW425

Yamaha Melodica and Alto Recorder

QSC K8.2 // JBL Eon One Compact // Soundcore Motion Boom Plus 

Win10 laptop i7 8GB // iPad Pro 9.7" 32GB

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I agree on pretty much all your points about the P-515. I'm not fond of the action because of the odd resistance it has. And the organs are dreadful, as are the EP's. I haven't played this Kawai model, only the ES8, so I can't say much about the ES920.

Yamaha: Motif XF8, MODX7, YS200, CVP-305, CLP-130, YPG-235, PSR-295, PSS-470 | Roland: Fantom 7, JV-1000

Kurzweil: PC3-76, PC4 (88) | Hammond: SK Pro 73 | Korg: Triton LE 76, N1R, X5DR | Emu: Proteus/1 | Casio: CT-370 | Novation: Launchkey 37 MK3 | Technics: WSA1R

Former: Emu Proformance Plus & Mo'Phatt, Korg Krome 61, Roland Fantom XR & JV-1010, Yamaha MX61, Behringer CAT

Assorted electric & acoustic guitars and electric basses | Roland TD-17 KVX | Alesis SamplePad Pro | Assorted organs, accordions, other instruments

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I wonder if downloading the Nashville C3 for the P515 would even things out a bit. Or can you do that with the P515?

 

I've played Yamaha DP's for so long I find myself wanting a change of pace sometimes. I've been intrigued by the sound of my little Kawai ES110, especially the resonance, which I much prefer to Yamaha's take. But it's too light an action for my purposes, I control and play some pieces (like Rhapsody In Blue or Katchaturian 's Toccata) more sure-handedly on my Yamaha CP300, even though the more "tabletop" aspect of that action is starting to bug me. I see an ES8 or ES920 in my future, how soon for the latter depending on when it hits the used market.

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RandyFF: I did listen to both keyboards extensively with both speakers and headphones. It's hard to describe the lower end difference, because the K sounds OK in the lower end through headphones, although a little muddy. But if you have the two side by side and play the lower end on each with headphones, then it becomes very apparent. The Y is just stronger and more dynamic, more clarity and presence at the lower end. However, now that the Y is gone, I can't compare them anymore, and the K sounds just fine to me. Funny how that works!

 

I haven't really messed with the connectivity and recording, etc, so I can't really comment on those features. I pretty much just use it to practice and play music. I LOVE the 4 band equalizer. I also like the Warm Grand patch the best, but when I go to EPs, for example, I have to EQ them quite differently than the piano. I'm already spoiled - I can't imagine NOT having that instant tweekability anymore!

 

I actually run the outputs (while keeping the onboard speakers active) to a 2 speaker + subwoofer inexpensive computer speaker system. It's a Klipsch that I bought at Cosco, and the Klipsch name excited me, but it's turned out to be fairly crappy for sound quality. But, I keep the 2 speakers fairly low volume (they do add a bit of warmth to the onboard speakers) and mainly use it to provide some bottom oomph through the subwoofer, which sits unobtrusively in front of my left foot. That works quite well, and when I bang on the lower end now, it finally answers back.

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