With technology advancing at a truly rapid rate, there are more digital piano options on the market now than ever before. Navigating the digital piano market for the first time can be quite intimidating and confusing given all of the options.
This article; Cheap vs Expensive Digital Pianos and its companion video are for all you pianos shoppers out there, whether you’re a parent buying a piano for your kid, or someone looking to make a first-time purchase for themselves if you’re looking for some clarification and direction.
Given the various price ranges you’ll encounter, the main point we’ll be addressing in this piece is whether or not it’s worth it to stay at a baseline price, or invest in a high-end digital piano, based on your own unique needs.
This isn’t an article that’s going to make proclamations about the best digital piano.
Cheap vs Expensive Digital Pianos – General Overview
When a parent, who is not a musician, wades into the digital piano industry, oftentimes they are either going to make a fairly quick decision based on a recommendation by a piano teacher, salesperson or friend, or they’re going to into pretty serious research mode, dissecting the ins and outs of the piano industry and viewing a ton of digital piano reviews.
Despite which camp you happen to be in, one question you’ll undoubtedly be asking yourself is whether or not it’s worth it to spend more money on a digital piano versus going with an inexpensive option.
Like most things, there’s not a simple, one size fits all answer to this question. Are you simply trying to gauge your child’s interest in music and piano lessons? Are you making a purchase for multiple piano players in the family? Are you confident that an upright piano or grand piano is on the horizon eventually? Is a baby grand really what you want, and if so, did you know that there’s such as thing as digital piano baby grands?
The instrument you should go with largely depends on your long-term view with these above questions in mind.
Digital Piano Price Ranges
At this point, you might be wondering exactly what a digital piano costs these days. This isn’t an exact science, but when you see the term digital piano, odds are you’ll be looking at a piano keyboard with 88 weighted keys. If the instrument has less than 88 keys, usually that instrument will be called a keyboard, or perhaps a digital keyboard.
For the purposes of this article, we’ll only be looking at 88-key weighted action digital pianos and won’t be focusing on synthesizers, arranger keyboards, stage pianos or MIDI controllers.
$500 Price Range
The lowest price you’ll come across for an 88-key weighted hammer action these days is about $500 USD. At this price point, you won’t have any options from the major manufacturers like Yamaha or Roland, but you will see entry-level models from smaller companies like Donner and Alesis.
While the piano sound can be decent at this price point, the key actions generally won’t be able to offer a realistic enough playing experience for real progression through piano lessons. That said, starting here to gauge interest won’t hold a student back until they’re ready for an upgrade, and there are a few of these options available on Amazon.
$700 Price Range
Jumping up to around the $700 range, and here you can get a demonstrably better-manufactured product from one of the big digital piano manufacturers like Yamaha, Kawai, Roland, Casio and Korg. The well-regarded Roland FP series has a model in this range, as does the Casio CDP series, while the super popular Yamaha P-45 comes in under $700, and the equally popular Yamaha P-125 goes for just over $700.
The $200 jump to get into this price range comes with a huge added benefit, namely, that you can get into an instrument with a very solid key action. When it comes to real pianos, we recommend emphasizing sound quality, whereas, with digital pianos, we generally recommend prioritizing touch over the sound engine.
This is because a good quality, touch-sensitive key action is far more important for developing the necessary skills required to transition over to an acoustic piano when the time comes. While a high-quality sound system may be a nice luxury, it’s not as essential for advancement.
One last note on this; a better action will hold up better for longer and will be less prone to clicking keys and misfiring down the road.
$1,000-$1,500 Price Range
The next category jump brings us to about the $1,000 price point, up until about $1,500 or so. With this category, you’ll find options that combine a reliable key action boasting great playability with solid sound samples driven by a powerful speaker/amp configuration.
We’d say having a solid set of onboard speakers here is probably more crucial than the tone engine itself because odds are the majority of folks in this category will be playing without headphones.
For us, this category serves as a sweet spot for the majority of first-time digital piano buyers, with a really solid combination of tone and touch that a beginner will be able to grow with for at least a few years, as well as perks like Bluetooth connectivity. You’ll also find plenty of options here with integrated stands and triple pedals that come in the box at no extra cost.
Popular models in this category include the Kawai KDP-120, Casio Privia PX-870 and Yamaha YDP-144 – all very good digital pianos.
$2,000-$2,500 Price Range
The next threshold is around the $2,000 price point. This is obviously a pretty substantial investment at this point, especially for a beginner player, but there are a couple of scenarios where it would make sense to go with a musical instrument from this category.
One scenario would be that you have multiple players in the household who will be spending time with the piano you choose. The overall build quality is a real step up in this category, meaning the piano will be better equipped to handle more intensive use.
The second scenario would be that your intent is to have your piano be a more long-term instrument. At this price point, there are options with very solid actions that will be able to accommodate most players up until about a Grade 8 conservatory level with pretty convincing authenticity.
The speaker systems here are generally capable of delivering a full spectrum of tone, and the sound engines are generally going to be quite sophisticated with high-quality electric piano patches and strong polyphony. While a beginner isn’t going to have the ears to really discern great sound, a piano from the category offers something a player will be able to grow into.
Popular models include the Kawai CN series, Yamaha Clavinova series, and there are of course popular portable models professionals use for gigs such as Nord synths, but that falls outside the scope of this article.
$3,000 and Above
Once you’re hitting about the $3,000 threshold you’re now firmly into the higher-end digital piano tier. These instruments tend to offer far more complex tone generators, multi-speaker stereo systems, and in many cases, hybrid actions with materials and design geometry that really starts to mimic acoustic piano actions.
These pianos are almost exclusively geared towards people who already know how to play and can step into a music store showroom to compare several models side-by-side to narrow in on one that they resonate with. For people who have never played before, this will be a tricky range to discern preferences.
Now, this range is massive as digital pianos of course go all the way up to $20,000. That said, most people aren’t going to be introduced to models that exceed anything much beyond that $3,000 or $4,000 mark when just starting out.
Some models in that price range include the Kawai CA series, upper-end Yamaha Clavinova series, and upper-end Roland HP series.
Of course, if you’ve got the economic freedom and are focused on quality, there are some wonderful, cutting-edge instruments out there from several of the top companies. In the very high end, the Kawai NOVUS NV series, the Yamaha Avant-Grand series and the Roland LX series all cater to this part of the market.
Closing Thoughts
We hope this article has been helpful in understanding the landscape of cheap vs expensive digital pianos and whether or not it’s worth it for you based on your individual needs to invest in an expensive digital piano.
