Korg B2 88-Key Digital Piano (Black) Expired

Alright, so to clarify "Hammer Gradation" for the newbies.

In a normal piano you have a hammer, but in between you have several more levers to activate other contraptions that make the piano work.

On the bass strings, the hammers are larger, on the treble strings, the hammers are smaller. This is where the gradation comes from. But this is an artifact of acoustic pianos, it's NOT a desirable trait or has any useful purpose. When a professional regulates the key action their goal is to make ALL the keys feel as EVEN and close in weight as possible, if they COULD make every key weigh the same, they would, because that would provide the most predictable and equal feedback.

On digital they use this minor feature as an upsell, it's not exactly a right or wrong situation, but there's absolutely NO NEED to have gradation. All the way up to $3000, the gradation is only 4 zones. Which means you have 4 sets of weights only. They are not individually graded until $3000+. So with respect to all the pianos below that range, it's a GIMMICK. On a well regulated Grand piano, the gradation difference is also really small and inconsequential somewhere between 70g on the bass to ~55-60 on the treble

In actual performance, the GOAL is to have as predictable an action as possible, This is why digital pianos are already the IDEALIZED version of the action. because it's much more uniform and consistent performing. That may detract from the simulation if that is what you're after, but the simplified digital action is overall the better action in terms of input control. If you want a good sim, you want to look at hybrid pianos like the Casio GP510, Novus 10, N1X, N2,N3

Hammer action just refers to a counterweight system, instead of a Spring Only system. This is uniform and like I mentioned before MOST $300 pianos are equipped with this feature, you can check reviews to make sure, but it's not terribly special.

LETOFF / Escapement simulation. what is it.

On an acoustic piano the letoff is when the jack disengages from the hammer so the hammer swings free of the action. It's a very minute tactile sensation at the end of the keystroke about 7-8mm down out of ~10.5mm total. It feels like a little notch/bump. That's all it is. On an acoustic piano this HAS to occur to release the hammer, otherwise the hammer will bounce back and bobble on the string. On a digital piano, it's again A GIMMICK and completely unnecessary.

For example, Nord stage pianos, these are $2000-5000 kits, they use kawai's RH3 action, but they modify it by REMOVING the letoff.

WHY, because the letoff doesn't do anything at all on a digital piano, and it actually makes the action HARDER to control, and less consistent.

Some enthusiats who buy digital pianos with letoff sims actually go in and cut them off to remove the letoff. This makes the travel more consistent/smoother and more predictable.


I hope you guys enjoyed this talk on actions.

Pianodreamers is a copy writer site, It's basically useless except for very general information, it's like those 10 best shavers articles except for piano.

DO NOT base any purchase decisions on the review of that site.

It's not like Rtings where they actually use professional measurement tools to derive real evidence based comparisons, Piano dreamers just regurgitates the numbers written on brochures, very superficial.

Hammer action just means it has a moving counterweight instead of springs only, Most pianos in the $300 range actually have this. The graded thing is a gimmick as well, it makes virtually no difference to the playing. On real acoustic pianos, the gradation is done to make every key as CLOSE in weight as possible. It's impossible to do given larger and smaller hammers, but that's where the idea of graded comes from, it's NOT a desirable feature in the general operation of the keys.

Bluetooth is a convenience feature for people who don't want to run cables, but I assure you it's often very laggy and unsuitable for piano apps. Almost all piano apps allow the use of otg/usb/lightning midi connection to device for lag free input..


The B2 is the bread and butter @ slickdeals for entry lvl, best value anywhere at $360.

Though we'd like to see it hit $300 at some point.


PHA4 roland is a heavy action, it's a bit harder to tame for fast passages and high repetition. The roland engine often drops fast trills, not an issue for beginners, but down the line there are some oddities that you'll have to work around playing their system.

Pha4 is not a bad action, but know its limitations, it's on the sluggish side vs Kawai's RHC / RHC2 / RH3 actions in, models Es110/520/920

I think the kawai models, and the NW in this B2 along with yamaha's GHS in p45/125 dgx670 are more suitable for beginners.

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Reps appreciated if you find this helpful