deal [adorama.com]
$1899 + free s/h (price drops in cart)
Key Features- Motherboard developed in partnership with Onkyo for improved tonal clarity
- Updated control panel layout with modern OLED graphic display
- Chopin Walzer (1-19) lesson book
- Tone Control setting with 8 selectable tone presets
- Low Volume Balance function for improved touch consistency at reduce volume
- Modern cabinet design modelled after larger Concert Artist instruments
- Improved Shigeru Kawai grand piano sounds
- Enhanced 'Light' Touch Curve setting for young children
What's in the box:- CA49 88-Key Grand Feel Compact Digital Piano (Premium Rosewood)
- Stand (with Assembly Hardware)
- Matching Bench
- AC Power Adapter
- Kawai 5 Year Limited Warranty
Leave a Comment
19 Comments
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
So, you're not really saving $1000 as you SlickDeals are making you believe. The real savings is only $400 or only 18% off. This is also the entry level CA series with entry level (lowest) grade keys in the line up. The models line up like this:
CA49
CA59
CA79
CA99
Since it's the lowest model, Kawai had to differentiate and really skimped out on connectivity. You will get much better connectivity options with Yamaha and Roland for the same price. It doesn't even have Bluetooth Audio, which is an insult to the consumer at this price. Make no mistake, this is very basic. This is the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 5G model of digital pianos in the $2K+ price group, a product designed so basic to get people to buy the Galaxy Note 20 5G Ultra.
The deal breaker for me is that this doesn't even have basic line out jack. This is like buying a BMW just for the name but having less features than a cheaper Toyota. Go for Yamaha or Roland.
Powell also signaled that the Fed are going to cause pain to households and businesses to tame inflation [marketwatch.com]. We may see even steeper price drops in 6-9 months.
Plus, Black Friday is 2 months away. Retailers are really going to have to sweeten deals because peoples' disposable incomes are going to be razor tight.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank xtp
The kawai wooden actions are not very precise/accurate, this doesn't matter for piano playing, it's only a problem if you use the keybed as a controller for music creation/ work. The reason they have poor repeatability is down to the fact that wood and felt is extremely sensitive to humidity and temperature. This causes the calibration of the action to drift over time.
Acoustic pianos, we accept whatever happens, because we have very little control over them even with proper action regulation by technicians.
With digital systems, what is essentially happening is you're triggering the WRONG samples, as those samples are correlated in a fixed table to certain strike velocities. These full wooden keysticks can easily push +/- 10-20 midi values.
https://forum.modartt.c
So, overall, you probably won't notice the unevenness that develops over time if you're an amateur, and even seasoned players might NOT CARE, even if they can obviously tell it's drifting.
There is a calibration software, but it can not account for the nonlinear drift in the multiple components of the action mechanism.
Again, this information is provided for anyone who might attempt to use this action for Work/Serious recordings. Wood based actions with drifted midi outputs are an impediment to music creation workflows where you're trying very hard to control instrument dynamics accurately.
This does not matter much for simple piano playing. In that context, this action is fine.
Plastic based actions, such as roland's pha50 and yamaha nwx only use wood for decoration, the stick's internal spine is all plastic. These are virtually immune to humidity/ temp changes, and will not drift over time.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank xtp
Line out is really really important, because the on_board speakers are a joke.
AT THE VERY LEAST, you should have line out for a Subwoofer, because built in speakers can barely go below 90hz..
Between key A0 note and F2, is from 27hz to 87hz. That's a whole 21 keys being Very poorly represented sonically.
I will add that, if you're crafty, you CAN splice the output wire which goes to the Left/Right speakers to an external subwoofer, but this voids the warranty, and it doesn't work with all woofers this way, some woofers really don't like it when you do this, it's also not very clean you can get weird harmonics this way. . Which is why we're back to, Line out is important.
So, you're not really saving $1000 as you SlickDeals are making you believe. The real savings is only $400 or only 18% off. This is also the entry level CA series with entry level (lowest) grade keys in the line up. The models line up like this:
CA49
CA59
CA79
CA99
Since it's the lowest model, Kawai had to differentiate and really skimped out on connectivity. You will get much better connectivity options with Yamaha and Roland for the same price. It doesn't even have Bluetooth Audio, which is an insult to the consumer at this price. Make no mistake, this is very basic. This is the Samsung Galaxy Note 20 5G model of digital pianos in the $2K+ price group, a product designed so basic to get people to buy the Galaxy Note 20 5G Ultra.
The deal breaker for me is that this doesn't even have basic line out jack. This is like buying a BMW just for the name but having less features than a cheaper Toyota. Go for Yamaha or Roland.
Powell also signaled that the Fed are going to cause pain to households and businesses to tame inflation [marketwatch.com]. We may see even steeper price drops in 6-9 months.
Plus, Black Friday is 2 months away. Retailers are really going to have to sweeten deals because peoples' disposable incomes are going to be razor tight.
(Arguably anyone spends $2000 is not a serious musician yet -- this does not provide features good enough for music production, and lacks the touch and dynamic range of an acoustic piano for jazz/classic.)
Edit: obviously people who don't even remotely understand what I am talking about are coming here to downvote this comment. LOL
(Arguably anyone spends $2000 is not a serious musician yet -- this does not provide features good enough for music production, and lacks the touch and dynamic range of an acoustic piano for jazz/classic.)
The kawai wooden actions are not very precise/accurate, this doesn't matter for piano playing, it's only a problem if you use the keybed as a controller for music creation/ work. The reason they have poor repeatability is down to the fact that wood and felt is extremely sensitive to humidity and temperature. This causes the calibration of the action to drift over time.
Acoustic pianos, we accept whatever happens, because we have very little control over them even with proper action regulation by technicians.
With digital systems, what is essentially happening is you're triggering the WRONG samples, as those samples are correlated in a fixed table to certain strike velocities. These full wooden keysticks can easily push +/- 10-20 midi values.
https://forum.modartt.c
So, overall, you probably won't notice the unevenness that develops over time if you're an amateur, and even seasoned players might NOT CARE, even if they can obviously tell it's drifting.
There is a calibration software, but it can not account for the nonlinear drift in the multiple components of the action mechanism.
Again, this information is provided for anyone who might attempt to use this action for Work/Serious recordings. Wood based actions with drifted midi outputs are an impediment to music creation workflows where you're trying very hard to control instrument dynamics accurately.
This does not matter much for simple piano playing. In that context, this action is fine.
Plastic based actions, such as roland's pha50 and yamaha nwx only use wood for decoration, the stick's internal spine is all plastic. These are virtually immune to humidity/ temp changes, and will not drift over time.
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank xtp
Would you consider an acoustic action High End ? Heck no, it's unstable as heck and was invented 100 years ago. Don't be fooled by "MARKETING"
Think payless shoes, vs boutique, no real quality/functional difference, very different prices.
Kawai's wooden actions are extremely bad in terms of accuracy and precision input, but people like them for "their own reasons" "real or imagined".
Kawai's cheaper plastic actions are not "low end", they are among the BEST in the industry in terms of FUNCTION. Kawai's design differs from yama and rolan in that they opted for a very low touch weight similar to the steinway tradition. IN FACT, Kawai pretty much ripped off steinway's scale/ plate design as soon as their patent ran out.
Steinway as a company today has become Steinwas, their quality is trash tier, where Kawai/Yamaha make significantly better pianos.
I'm not anti kawai, but the full wooden keystick is a gimmick they use to differentiate / upsell their pianos, it functions poorly as an interface.. Their plastic actions are great, very smooth / responsive, tight control.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank xtp
(Arguably anyone spends $2000 is not a serious musician yet -- this does not provide features good enough for music production, and lacks the touch and dynamic range of an acoustic piano for jazz/classic.)
And everyone wants to just play for leisure now and then using said bluetooth headsets... except for serious musicians. 😂
https://azpianonews.blo
https://azpianonews.blogspot.com/...price.html [blogspot.com]
And honestly, that guys comes off as a fan boy of the wooden key actions. Which is the only thing he mostly talks about this model has going for it. That's paying a lot for a one trick pony.
Wood warps and deforms over time depending on temperature and humidity, just look at old acoustic pianos for evidence. So, yeah, it might be great for a few years but long term is going to be a crapshoot. That's why the warranty is only good for 5 years. Kawai knows this. Planned obsolescence built into a $2K+ product every 5 years is a good product cycle.
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank xtp
https://azpianonews.blo
Sign up for a Slickdeals account to remove this ad.
And honestly, that guys comes off as a fan boy of the wooden key actions. Which is the only thing he mostly talks about this model has going for it. That's paying a lot for a one trick pony.
Wood warps and deforms over time depending on temperature and humidity, just look at old acoustic pianos for evidence. So, yeah, it might be great for a few years but long term is going to be a crapshoot. That's why the warranty is only good for 5 years. Kawai knows this. Planned obsolescence built into a $2K+ product every 5 years is a good product cycle.
Wood is not a uniform material, wooden keys can have different density front to back, this adds to the irregularity in translating the Intended Motion into sound.
Kawai actually had an all carbon fiber prototype for their acoustic action but their market research shut that down when they found out people are just too stupid to realize wood is flat out NOT a good material for piano actions. Acoustic piano actions are extremely unstable. This is why acoustic action hybrids always sound and plays a bit unevenly.
Steinway galleries around the world continue to spread misinformation that kawai's carbon fiber actions are -cheap inferior plastic-. All the while, STEINWAS today makes the worst most unstable pianos on the market with the highest unit variances. The Renner piano actions that they use are junk.
In fact, advanced materials can replace the entirety of piano components. They already use carbon fiber soundboards for pianos sold in locales of High humidity fluctuation.
Leave a Comment