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After years of playing my Yamaha DGX-500, I tried to update the plan on something Graded Hammer Action, which look nice in my living room, which seemed as close as possible to the acoustic piano. I also wanted to spend thousands of dollars. Casio AP420, seemed to fit the bill, and having played in other Casio digital pianos at my local music store (PX800, PX330, AP200), I was sure to make a purchase at Amazon, with their eyes closed. The box arrived damaged in less than a week, looking like fallen from the truck or were used for target practice. I was almost afraid to look inside. Fortunately, the engineers who designed the packaging did a good job. Each item was removed from the field in perfect condition. The Assembly was not difficult piano, took less than an hour, and do not really need two people.
AP420 cabinet is quite attractive. I like the keyboard, mobile, and front legs fake piano, that seems less like a keyboard, and a true piece of furniture. The pedal is pretty solid, and the action is the company brass pedals. The position of it is built like a tank. I am a guy old enough, and easily supports the weight bench. The bench is adjustable in height, which is nice, but you can not store music inside. The bottom (back piano), but covers the entire hole "with a diameter of 1 inch high. The difference is visible only when viewed from behind the piano, or bend over and look at the keyboard.Having no visible defects on the rear panel, where you can see from the piano, helps create the illusion that the piano is deeper than what it is, which is really more like a closet. The downside of the music stand is not articulated. On the contrary, there are two pins that are included in the hole at the top of the piano. The stand of the music feels pretty good, but how is it worth to be very cheap.
Activities at PA-420 is very nice. The main surfaces (texture) in ivory they feel, instead of cheap plastic feel like most other digital pianos (including some that are much more expensive). The action is constant, the keys do not work, and the general feeling is so close, acoustic piano, as I have done in the digital environment. It 's the sound of a light blow, "when the keys are inserted (which seems to be a feature of the Casio DP), even when the keys are played with a moderate force. It' s a bit annoying, but not very noticeable when wearing helmet, or when the volume increases.
The sound quality of the piano samples is probably my chief complaint. The 2x20W built in speakers/amplifier provide ample sound, which is clear, and undistorted. But the piano samples sound slightly muffled to me. This could be because the speakers point downward out of the keyboard sending sound waves directly into my carpeting. There are some attractive fabric-covered 'ports' on the left and right sides above the keyboard that I assume are there to allow some passive speaker sound emanate from the top side of the keyboard. But from what I can hear, 95 percent of the sound comes from the bottom. When playing through headphones, the piano samples sound quite a bit better. The brightness/timbre of the tones is adjustable, but the piano samples seem to take on a 'tinny' sound if adjusted from their default setting. Overall, the piano sounds are not bad; they're just not quite as good as I was hoping for.
Another nitpicky thing: not only seven buttons to control all aspects of the piano. For most of the options, hold down the function key, and then find the appropriate key piano keyboard on the set / change the option. Some options are slightly marked above the keys. Others (such as reverb, chorus, tuning) are marked, and you have to look in the manual to know which buttons to push. Fortunately, after setting up the piano as you like (pitch, reverb, touch, light), you can save the settings, so remember that next time. (Unfortunately, "write" is not labeled, so you'll have to look at the manual.)
Some other nifty things I like:
- SD card slot for saving midi recordings, or loading midi files.
- Adjustable reverb
- Three level adjustable touch response
- USB port (note that this piano does not have an actual MIDI port. If you need to interface with a MIDI device, you'll need to get a USB to MIDI adapter.)
- Layering of sounds (play strings and piano at the same time)
- Split keyboard (i.e. play string bass with left hand, vibra-phone with right.)
- Duet Mode (splits the keyboard into two equal pitch ranges for playing duets that might otherwise require two pianos.)
- The pedals support 'half-pedaling'
- It has a true sostenuto pedal (only dampens notes that are pressed prior to pressing the sos. pedal.)
- Two 1/4" stereo headphone jacks.
- Two 1/4" mono right/left line out jacks
I noticed that the fraction of 5 stars are not allowed. My personal assessment is more than 4.5 stars, so I just rounded. When we examine the characteristics and qualities, I do not think anything else on the market in this price range that comes close to him. I hope you enjoy, like me, like me.
By R. Miller (Hudson, OH)
Read more reviews Casio AP420 Celviano Digital Piano with Bench