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New Kawai Digital Pianos ... with Spruce Sound Board?


jook

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Whilst taking a looksie at the new MP8 mkII, I found a bunch of new digital pianos that Kawai have added to their website.

 

Most interestingly, the CA-91 which features a real wooden spruce sound board!

http://www.kawai.de/grafik/ca91r_back.jpg

 

The first thing that come to mind is of course... what the point would be, and why one would want this over a real acoustic upright piano. Although 87 kg is still less than half the weight of a real piano, it's hardly what one would consider portable. Then again, maybe for venues where they prefer the look of an acoustic but would not be caring to maintain tuning or setting up decent mic'ing as talked about in this thread, maybe that might benefit in this hybrid of digital and acoustic.

 

And of course, there's also the DP1 Digital Grand:

http://www.kawai.de/grafik/dp1_back.jpg

http://www.kawai.de/grafik/dp1_musicrack_off.jpg

 

Seems silly but some interesting ideas are implemented:

 

... the DP1 features an innovative Key Vibration System, allowing the musician to feel delicate responses from each note. The intensity of key vibration can be adjusted and stored for every sound, providing a uniquely authentic playing experience.

 

Sounds like they've been listening to some of the posts on this forum regarding the unintentional speaker/sympathetic vibration on the CP300... or it just shows they're as observant as the most picky forumites here. Interesting nonetheless that this much detail has gone into it!

 

And then the sound:

The DP1 employs a revolutionary sound generation system: samples without loops, string resonance samples, key-release samples, hammer striking samples and countless other audio subtleties combine to provide a richly authentic tone.

...

Adopting a 5.1 surround sound system, the 10 loudspeakers integrated within the DP1 provide an unsurpassed level of acoustic reproduction, allowing adjustments to ambience, reverberation and position for a simply breathtaking experience.

 

Not sure what sort of market there is for such products, but I applaud Kawai for innovating and taking the risk in developing these boards. It would be great to see this technology trickle down to their more portable/stage products.

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Most interestingly, the CA-91 which features a real wooden spruce sound board

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This will probably be the best sounding hybrid piano on the market. Spruce is what most of the best pianos were made from "in the old days"...now spruce is hard to get and expensive.

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