Quasar
Senior Member
I know a person who is in her 80s, enjoys playing the piano as a hobby, simple church hymns and the like, nothing intricate or advanced. She's in very good general health, but reports that the keys are getting harder to play due to age and muscle fatigue, and asked if I could help her find an "electric piano" that would be easier to play.
How would one go about choosing this? She clearly wants a lighter action, but it still has to be a hammer, piano-style action, not synth or semi-weighted. It has to look like a spinet piano, be a living room furniture piece, not a stage, Nord-like thing, and she couldn't care less about MIDI, connectivity, other instrumental voices, PB/MW, recording features or anything else that an acoustic piano doesn't do. The internal speakers would have to be powerful enough to not sound thin or tinny. How many watts does one need in an average size room to sound truly full?
...Yamaha CLP 725 or 735 are possibilities, or maybe Kawai CA49, and my thinking is that the best way to create a lighter action without giving up the hammer feel is to adjust velocity curves, but I'm not sure how far this goes in practice. I'm also not sure if higher-end wooden key action would actually be worse than plastic. Money is not a much of a barrier (quite unlike when I buy something), though I don't want to recommend something that is overkill for her needs.
I have stressed to her that no digital piano is "the same" as an acoustic piano, and she gets that, but it should be as piano-like as possible. I want it to have the sympathetic resonance, for example.
As much as I've looked at DPs in my life, I never thought about choosing one for this kind of purpose. The search necessitates a completely different sort of approach. Any thoughts or suggestions? TIA.
How would one go about choosing this? She clearly wants a lighter action, but it still has to be a hammer, piano-style action, not synth or semi-weighted. It has to look like a spinet piano, be a living room furniture piece, not a stage, Nord-like thing, and she couldn't care less about MIDI, connectivity, other instrumental voices, PB/MW, recording features or anything else that an acoustic piano doesn't do. The internal speakers would have to be powerful enough to not sound thin or tinny. How many watts does one need in an average size room to sound truly full?
...Yamaha CLP 725 or 735 are possibilities, or maybe Kawai CA49, and my thinking is that the best way to create a lighter action without giving up the hammer feel is to adjust velocity curves, but I'm not sure how far this goes in practice. I'm also not sure if higher-end wooden key action would actually be worse than plastic. Money is not a much of a barrier (quite unlike when I buy something), though I don't want to recommend something that is overkill for her needs.
I have stressed to her that no digital piano is "the same" as an acoustic piano, and she gets that, but it should be as piano-like as possible. I want it to have the sympathetic resonance, for example.
As much as I've looked at DPs in my life, I never thought about choosing one for this kind of purpose. The search necessitates a completely different sort of approach. Any thoughts or suggestions? TIA.
