REVIEW - New Casio GP500, GP400, GP300 Celviano Grand Hybird Digital Pianos - Recommended - I try to play every new digital piano that comes out on the market regardless of whether I already like that brand or not. There are some brands known for poorly designed digital pianos, others are known for cheap price digital pianos, and still other brands are known for being pro quality instruments that top pianists, music teachers, and other advanced players (like me) enjoy playing. So when it came to trying out and playing the new Casio Grand Hybrid GP500 with a retail price of $5999US (the BP stands for polished ebony), I was very skeptical that it could be a good piano and in reality I thought there was no way this new Casio digital piano could be taken seriously, especially at its $5999US price. Casio? $5999? I figured there is just no way those two things (the name Casio with a reputation for producing low priced but high quality consumer digital pianos as opposed to the much higher price for the new Grand Hybrid pro series pianos) could possibly work...especially given the huge competition in quality digital pianos from big well known names like Kawai, Roland, and Yamaha. I like all of the consumer Casio piano product and have done many reviews on their models under $2000 and they are quite nice for the money and a leader in that price range. But a Casio well over $3000?...and upwards to $6000?...there is just no way...but WOW, was I ever wrong!
The new Grand Hybrid GP500 (I will be talking about the lower price GP300 & GP400 later in this review) is called "Hybrid" for mainly one reason...the key action. Theses days it seems as if all the major digital pianos companies want to do whatever it takes to get as close as possible to reproducing a real acoustic piano. So this new hybrid key action is Casio's way of doing this and trying to replicate the touch action of a real grand piano. The question is...did they do it? Actually, I believe they did but it was not Casio who designed and built this key action, it was the C Bechstein grand piano company in Berlin, Germany working in cooperation with Casio. The C. Bechstein piano factory was founded on in October of 1853 by Carl Bechstein in Berlin, Germany. Carl set out to manufacture a piano able to withstand the great demands put on the instrument by the virtuoso of the time, such as Franz Liszt. List was a phenomenal pianist and was very hard on pianos when it came to key action. In 1857, Hans von Bülow (Liszt's son-in-law) gave the first public performance on a Bechstein grand piano by performing Liszt's Piano Sonata in B minor in Berlin. By 1870, with endorsements from Franz Liszt and Hans von Bülow, Bechstein pianos had become the norm in many concert halls and private mansions.
By that time three piano makers, all of which were founded in 1853, became established as the industry leaders across the world and they were Bechstein, Blüthner and Steinway & Sons. So the Bechstein brand was in very good company:). In 1881 Bechstein began supplying pianos to Queen Victoria and a gilded art-case piano was delivered to Buckingham Palace followed by several more Bechstein pianos to Windsor Castle and other royal residences. By January 1886 they were among the piano manufacturers holding was was called "a Royal Warrant" as a supplier to the Queen. Several British embassies across the world acquired Bechstein pianos and they are still popular across the world today and used by professional pianists in concert, but that brand is not as well known in America as they are in Europe and other parts of the world.
What this all means is that the wood key action movement in the Casio GP500 grand hybrid is directly from the Bechstein piano company and built for the new Casio GP500 piano and the keys themselves are authentic full size grand piano key made from real sprucewood from individual spruce trees in Austria. From what I have learned, the natural wood is precision cut and aged slowly over the time so that the keys in the key action can remain solid, aligned, and playable over years of practice and performance. Attached to the wood key action inside the GP500 is a moving hammer mechanism designed to imitate real hammers in an acoustic grand piano. This moving hammer mechanism is made from resin and synthetic compounds, etc that can withstand weather and humidity changes so that the hammers will last almost indefinitely without the need for adjustment or maintenance as you would otherwise have in a real acoustic piano. When the hammers move as you are pressing a key, you can actually feel the weight and direct connection of the hammer mechanism to the keys which gives the player a feeling of natural expression and being directly connected to the music in a way that digital pianos without moving full length hammers cannot really do.
When I played the GP500 for long periods of time, it was like I was actually playing a real full size European grand piano and the feeling was amazing, at least it was to me:). The weight of the keys are also unique in that they are like no other top name brand digital piano that I have ever played in this price range in the way the keys move and feel under your fingers. Although the key action is a bit firmer when pressing the keys than the other brands, the touch-weight (amount of finger pressure/force your fingers need to push the keys) is still relatively smooth, easy, and quick so that the overall experience playing the keys is more like playing a natural grand piano in my opinion than any of the other digital piano brands in this price range. The white key-tops are made from the latest technology in plastics and are identical to the keytops of the Bechstein European concert grand pianos. Many of the new name brand digital pianos are using synthetic ivory feel white key tops with the purpose of trying to recreate the feel of older grand pianos from the 1960's and earlier years when real ivory was the material used to create the key tops. However, for many years now, real acoustic grand pianos have not had real or synthetic ivory on their keys so the key feel of the new Casio GP500 is identical to what current day acoustic grand pianos feel like. In this way you can transition from a real acoustic grand or upright piano to a Casio/Bechstein Celviano Hybrid GP500 digital piano with no differences at all with the key feel in movement or in the materials used on the keys. The black keys are a natural satin finish made of phenol so that feel will be the same as well.
As a reference and comparison, the only other top name pianos with actual moving piano hammers in a digital piano is the Yamaha Avant Grand series of digital pianos including the NU1, N1, N2, and N3. However, these pianos all use wood hammers, hammer shanks and connective parts which are very good and just like an acoustic piano but will likely require more maintenance over time. The Yamaha NU1 (left pic - see-through front is for display purposes only) upright style piano sells for approximately $5000US at local store discount price and it has an upright console hammer key action but not a grand piano key action, and there is a very big difference between the two types. Beyond that, the NU1 has very few sounds and very few digital options and features so it's very, very basic as a digital piano, although the cabinet is attractive in its polished ebony finish. The higher priced Yamaha N1 has a grand piano style action with all wood parts but requiring maintenance over time. This is an exceptionally nice digital piano, but even at discount price it sells for approx $8000US in Yamaha piano stores and the functionality and features are also very basic, The N2 and N3 go up in price quite a bit from the N1 and all have the same key actions as the N1 and pretty much the same basic features. So when it comes to a key action mechanism in a digital piano, this new Casio Celviano Grand Hybrid GP500 (above left pic) is my opinion is years ahead of the lower priced Yamaha NU1 and very competitive to the higher priced Yamaha Avant Grand N1, N2, and N3 pianos, especially when it comes to all of the additional digital features and user display screen.
As far as piano sound authenticity goes, all of the major digital piano companies would claim to have the best piano sound in their digital pianos and certainly Casio is no exception along with this model has the industry standard 256-note polyphony processing power. Casio wants you to believe they have the best piano sound in these new hybrid digital pianos and overall I believe they have done a very good job and I was impressed. Casio has developed a new proprietary piano sound chip and electronics key sensing system not found in the lower price Casio digital pianos and I thought these new acoustic piano sound samples to be very impressive in the GP series, especially the GP500. All of the digital piano companies use fancy words and phrases to describe how they get their piano sound along with the natural organic nuances they try to capture from real acoustic grand pianos to enhance the piano sound of their digital pianos. I won't bore you with all the terminology except to say that Casio records/samples 3 distinct well known European acoustic grand pianos which includes the Bechstein (Berlin) German Concert Grand, the Steinway (Hamburg) German Concert Grand, and the Bosendorfer (Vienna) Viennese Concert Grand. These three famous piano brands are the standard by which all other acoustic and digital piano companies try to emulate. Since the Casio GP500 is designed in cooperation with the Bechstein piano company of Germany, it is easy to understand why the three main piano sounds in the GP500 are so good. I found each piano sound sample to be unique with there own qualities of tone and dynamic range, but yet they were all enjoyable to play. What did impress me most about the piano sounds were their dynamic range of tone and the ability to really express yourself across all tonal ranges depending on your touch and finger movement. The Viennese Bosendorfer sound was impressive to me and much more natural and realistic than the Bosendorfer sound offered on the new Yamaha Clavinova CLP models. With 256 note polyphony processing power, even with advanced classical music that polyphony power should be more than enough to handle any type of playing as well as layering two instrument sounds together.
Pedaling is always important to the piano playing experience and the GP500 will likely not disappoint you since it is done the traditional way with damper pedal including adjustable half-damper control, sostenuto pedal, and soft pedal. The pedals seem to move naturally and has a type of grand feel movement to the pedals unlike some other digital pianos I have played with lightweight movement or no half-pedal control. Casio also added pedal resonance and damper noise to simulate what real acoustic pianos do when using the damper pedal for sustaining the piano tones. So the pedaling portion of this model is convincing, at least it is to me and I played it quite a bit.
As far as the operating system goes, Casio incorporated a side panel control unit with LCD display which is very similar to what Kawai and Yamaha are currently using in their digital pianos. Although this is a simple and elegant design created to reduce the "digital look" of the buttons and controls of the piano and make it more minimalistic, I would much prefer an attached lid or cover on that panel so you wouldn't see it at all when the piano is not in use or you don't want to change controls. Kawai offers this design on its top of the line digital piano, but that model retails for more than $8000. However, the Samick piano company offers a beautiful upright style digital piano called the NEO with a side control panel with attached cover that closes up, and that piano is less than $4500 retail price. Regardless, I found that using the GP500 controls were fairly easy (although there is still a small learning curve) and the display screen was, overall, easy to read and buttons were easy to use. However, in additional to the LCD control panel, I would also like an iPad/Android app to connect wirelessly or with Bluetooth to the piano which could display all internal controls and features on an app so that you could access all functions that way. There still is no top name digital piano that can do that yet although some of them are trying and do have a few features accessible with an app for iPad/Android use, but it is all still quite basic yet. The GP500 is designed primarily for a person to play piano with a few other extra features added along with some basic but good instrument sounds, MIDI & audio recording, and some editing features, so the display screen & navigation is generally satisfactory for those purposes.
The feature set and sound library in the GP500 piano include 35 instrument sounds which include acoustic pianos, strings, choirs, organs, harpsichords, etc. Theses sounds can be layered 2 at a time, split with 2 different instruments one on the left side and one on the right side, duet piano mode for 2-person play, registration preset "scene" mode for saving your own setups or using preset factory setups for instant play, lots of different hall/reverb settings which does add to the realism of the piano sound along with adjustable touch sensitivity, brilliance, and DSP which helps the user/player create a customizable piano sound and action response. There are a number of specific organic piano sound elements which Casio/Bechstein incorporates into the GP500 and allows the piano sounds to be even more natural and organic. This feature is called the "Acoustic Simulator." This would include things like adjustable Hammer Response, Damper Resonance, String Resonance, Aliquot Resonance (this feature is found in fine grand pianos and adds to the harmonic richness of the piano sound), Open String Resonance, Lid Simulator, Key Off Simulator, Damper Noise, Key On Action Noise, and Key Off Action Noise all of which are adjustable so that you can micro -customize the piano tones the way it would sound best to you. The GP500 also has a variety of tuning temperaments as well as a variety of piano stretch tunings including being able to shut off the stretch tuning depending on what sounds best to you. But for many people the factory default preset acoustic piano sounds may likely be enough to give you an outstanding piano playing experience.
When it comes to adding some "fun" to this model, Casio has a new feature called "Concert Play" which means that you can select from up to 15 songs that are full orchestral CD quality renditions of famous Classical Music that you can listen to and play along with. You can slow down the concert song while you try to learn it as well as rewind, fast forward, and loop a set of measures together for repeat play. You can even download new Concert Play songs from a Casio internet site, save them on a USB flashdrive, and then play them on the GP500 piano. The Concert Play songs sound absolutely authentic just like listening to a full orchestra right in your home coming through the internal piano speakers. You can also play MIDI piano performances along with education piano song lessons by downloading those files on the internet and saving them to a USB flashdrive for playback on the piano.
Speaking of speakers, the internal speaker system is unique in that the top of the piano has a movable lid which can be propped up to allow more sound to come out towards the player which gives you the feeling of a grand piano sound experience with the lid open. You can even see the hammers move by looking through the inside top of the piano while you or someone else is playing. The only other digital piano that has a lid that opens in this general price range is the Roland LX17 but that piano retails for $1000 more at $6999 and has no moving hammers like the GP500. The GP500 has 6 speakers, 4 amplifiers, and 100 watts of power but pulls only 38 watts of power, so the amplifiers are fairly energy efficient. The 2 main, larger speakers of the piano are housed in separate acoustic boxes mounted underneath the piano with the speakers facing downward rather than forward as on some other digital pianos, so that the GP500 piano sound is coming both towards the player on the top and the bigger speakers towards the floor like a grand piano soundboard would do. In my opinion this makes for a more natural piano sound experience and I did like it very much.
The piano also has 2 headphone jacks for private play along with USB output to device for iPad and computer connectivity and USB flashdrive input for song play and recording, and also two regular MIDI connectors for those people who have MIDI music gear that they want to connect to the piano. Casio included 1/4" input and output audio jacks for connecting external devices to enhance the piano sound even further through external speakers or use the internal speaker system to amplify other sound devices such as computers, tablets, MP3 players, etc.
There are other functions and features on the GP500 but those are secondary things as compared with what I believe it this digital piano's primary purpose and goal...to offer an impressive grand piano playing experience in a beautiful polished ebony cabinet with folding key cover, full size music rack, opening lid and matching bench along with a complete 5 year factory warranty on manufacturer defects if they should ever occur. The GP500 is only available in polished ebony finish so if you want some other color other than polished ebony then this model is probably not for you although the top of the line Kawai & Roland pianos are only available in a polished finish as well. Based on what I have seen for many years on all of the other digital pianos that Casio has produced and the overall quality and "bang for the buck" they have brought to the table, I believe Casio has a great future in this premium category for higher priced digital pianos with the advent of their new Grand Hybrid series in cooperation with the Bechstein Piano Company. For some people the Casio name has a negative connotation because over the years people have wrongly equated the Casio name with low price, low quality, and low expectations simply because Casio has focused on the lower price range with many of its products. But nothing could really be further from the truth as in reality all that means is that they offer a lot of product and features for less money than you would otherwise expect and the same seems to be true for the GP300, GP400, and GP500 pianos.
Casio has not in the past had the prestige or gravitas of a digital piano name like Yamaha, Kawai, or Roland. I know that, they know that, and many shoppers know that. But a name means less these days considering how much great technology is being developed by companies who have not well known before with higher priced technology products. There are many examples of these kinds of companies in the computer, cell phone, and TV industry and even though Casio is well known in the digital piano keyboard world, they are definitely not known for having digital pianos which compete with the highest price Kawai, Yamaha, or Roland digital pianos...but now they do. With the help of the Bechstein acoustic piano company along with new piano sound technology developed by Casio, I believe this just the beginning of their successful partnership and they should be able to continue to develop even more impressive digital pianos in the future. But for now in my opinion the GP500 certainly is up there with the best digital pianos that Yamaha, Kawai, and Roland have to offer in this price range and in fact are even more realistic in a few different ways as I have already talked about, such as its special all-sprucewood European hammer action key movement.
As for other Casio-Bechstein models, Casio has a lower priced Grand Hybrid model called the GP300 ($3999US retail price) which is available now in satin black but does not sound as realistic as the GP500 although it is still very competitive with other digital pianos in its price range. In addition to this, Casio is just coming out with a new GP400 which has the features of the GP500 but with a new cabinet design available in a lower priced satin black woodgrain finish priced at $4999US retail. After putting the GP500 through its paces I agree that this model would make an excellent addition to anyone's home, church, school, or studio as long as they understand that the Grand Hybrid pianos are primarily designed to be piano replacements and are not heavy on additional features such as wireless, Bluetooth, lots of extra instrument sounds, has no drum patterns, no automatic interactive chords, no General MIDI recording or playback, no multitrack sequencer, and no proprietary iPad apps like some other digital pianos do. However, with USB to device connectivity you can plug in a USB cable and use many MIDI iPad apps with full interaction from the GP500 to the iPad including using Bluetooth audio connectivity with a 3rd party Bluetooth adapter so that music from your iPad/Android device can stream directly through the GP500 speaker system. It has been my experience that direct connectivity using a USB cable is more stable than with internal Bluetooth or WiFi connectivity.
As far as I am concerned, at 170 lbs in weight with cabinet dimensions of approximately 56" x 19"x 38", the very attractive polished ebony GP500 is a piano I would definitely own if I wanted to focus squarely on the best possible grand piano playing experience that Casio-Bechstein has to offer along with being a more minimalistic looking instrument which adds to the overall elegance of this piano. The Bechstein key action hammer system is not available in any brand of digital piano and you won't get a moving hammer mechanism until you get to the Yamaha Avantgrand NI which has a retail price of $9999US. The appearance of the GP500 is also impressive in that when you prop open the lid of the piano to let the sound come out more, you see a velvety red material covering the inside piano top and you can actually see the moving piano hammers through two long rectangular windows in the top of the piano while you are playing the keys. It's an attractive visual experience along with having a beautiful piece of furniture.
There is one thing I find to be very odd when it comes to the GP500 and that is the height adjustable black bench included with the piano does not match the high gloss black piano finish. The bench is a single size satin black (non-gloss) finish and even though an adjustable height bench is very nice to have, I am a bit baffled by the lack of a matching high gloss finish on the bench. Is this an oversight on the part of Casio or what? I just don't understand the reason for this but it's something which can be easily corrected if Casio chooses to do that which I recommend that they do. The satin black bench is fine for their satin black pianos, but not for the polished ebony finishes in my opinion. It's also important to note that some very nice high gloss polished ebony benches are available on-line at Amazon.com for low prices anywhere from about $50-$75, and some of those benches look to be as nice or nicer than the Casio bench included with the GP500. So the bench is a solvable problem and the extra cost for a polished ebony bench is a small price to pay, but it still should not be the responsibility of the owner to do that in my opinion. The bench issue is definitely not a deal breaker and is a very small thing as compared with all of the great things this piano can do.
Based on my personal experience I am pretty sure that the $6000US retail price of the GP500 will be discounted a bit in US piano stores that carry this model as most stores do discount their piano prices. The GP500 cannot be purchased on-line from a US shopping cart piano dealer and the Hybrid Grand models are not yet available everywhere in the US at local dealers, so you may have a difficult time finding one at this point. However it is definitely worth the effort and if you want more info on where these models are located or what their competitive pricing would be, please email me and I can give you more info and advice. This is Casio's first attempt to enter this premium digital piano category and I am sure we will see even more models come out in the future having their continued partnership with Bechstein piano company of Germany. As for the the lower priced satin black GP300 and GP400 models, if the GP500 seems to be out of your price range and/or you want a satin black finish, then you should consider those lower priced Grand Hybrid pianos instead of the GP500. But for me, I would spend the extra money and get a GP400 (available in July or August 2016) in the satin finish or the GP500 available now in limited supplies in the polished ebony finish which is quite elegant, because they just sound even more authentic than the GP300. You can still be quite happy with the GP300 and it stacks up extremely well against its competition. But when I buy something like a piano I intend to keep it for a very long time so I figure the extra investment it well worth it if you can possibly afford to do that. Below is a comparison chart of the 3 models so that you can visually see and know the primary differences among them. I will be reviewing the GP300 & new GP400 in more detail in a separate review but you can look at the chart and know the differences among them now.
Features
GP300
GP400
GP500
Polyphony
256
256
256
Total sounds
26 incl strings, organs, harpsichord, etc
35 incl strings, organs, harpsichord, etc
35 incl strings, organs, harpsichord, etc
Main piano sounds
Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna
Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna
Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna
Total grand pianos
12
14
14
Grand hammer action
Yes – individual keys
Yes – individual keys
Yes – individual keys
Full length grand keys
Acoustic grand keys
Acoustic grand keys
Acoustic grand keys
Graded-weighted keys
Yes, medium firm
Yes, medium firm
Yes, medium firm
Austrian wooden keys
Aged organic spruce
Aged organic Spruce
Aged organic Spruce
Grand fulcrum point
<div align="center" class="MsoN