Comments on: » Casio Px-320 Privia Digital Piano

By: Piano Man

Piano Man — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:39:00 +0000

I purchased the PX-320 in January, 2009 in Japan thinking to revive my skills having grown up playing on an upright. I was overwhelmed by the sound, feel and overall functionality of the keyboard. The onboard speakers weren’t great unless you crank up the volume but with the earphones – AMAZING!! The keyboard also included everything else I needed – pc connectivity for MIDI, learning mode, recording, accompaniment – you name it, it had it. It’s also portable with a very low footprint which was just perfect for a small apartment.

Once ordered, I probably got one of the first batch manufactured. With that in mind, I made sure to spend a little extra and get an extended warranty which was probably one of my better decisions.

Keyboard arrived, I unpacked and assembled all and started going to work. My prime goal was to exercise my fingers so I started with the Hanon exercises pretty much everyday. If you know these exercises then you’ll know that the keyboard will get used extensively!

After approximately four or five months of Hanon, the keys started giving a rattling sound like something was loose inside. With more playing, more keys got worse. The problem seemed to occur principally on E & F, followed by C keys. I called Casio and got a service engineer whom proceeded to `grease up’ the inside of the keys which reduced the problem for a short time until I started with Hanon again after which the keys went really bad. Another call and they replaced the mechanical keys component.

All was fine until E & F keys started failing again. Same problem, same symptoms and same gradual degeneration as the piano gets played more which is really sad given that Casio have worked hard on developing the sound system and the mechanical feel and they advertise this as a selling point.

Anyway, to cut a long story short I called Casio again and they now refuse – yes, REFUSE – to service the item stating that the same problem will happen again so why fix it!?! They also refuse to refund my money. It’s ok. I still have a five year guarantee. They’re under contract!

My point to this whole posting is to notify you, a possible purchaser, that I believe the manufacturing process for the mechanical parts in this keyboard is flawed and they do not test the keyboards rigorously under a strict quality control program. Otherwise, they would certainly have found the issue and fixed it. This problem will not surface under normal non-repetitive leisure playing 10 minutes a day – at least until the guarantee has well expired. The key module may also be used in other Privia models including the 700 series. Buyer beware!

By: K. Boyle

K. Boyle — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:33:05 +0000

Purchased this item for my 20 year old son. Has been playing it for 3 weeks. The sound is good and he says it is better with headphones. He uses many of the extensive number of features. This piano is full size and heavy so it needs a sturdy stand.

Very pleased.

By: P. Rhode

P. Rhode — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 01:24:46 +0000

The Casio PX-320 is the best keyboard out there under $700, bar none. I have demo’d them all, I mean all of them. The PX-320 has the best grand piano sound period, and the Rhodes EP is excellent as well. I know, you think of Casio as a major player amongst the Rolands and Yamaha’s and most snicker. STOP! The engineers at Casio really put their soul into this one. Another VERY important feature here is keyboard action. No thunk here! Keyboard action is far superior to the Yamaha CP-33 and even the Motifs. Again, the grand piano sound is excellent. My HighSierraBassPlayer top choices for Digital Piano under $1000 is indeed the Casio PX-320. It’s light, the piano sounds are perfect for jazz, classical, rock, and yes, my fave, the blues! Over $1000, definitely get the Roland RD-300GX. That, friends, is the best digital keyboard today.

By: D. K. Rone

D. K. Rone — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:05:24 +0000

I bought this keyboard about 2 months ago and I have really enjoyed it so far. The piano tones sound great and about a thrid of the other tones are very usable. The others sound decent too, I just have no use for them. The action seemed a little heavy (slower) at first but I have gotten use to it now and it doesn’t affect my playing at all. As some other reviewers mentioned, it is kind of a pain to scroll through the tones becasue you have to hold a button on the right side of the keyboard and hit ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to scroll up or down through the tones on the left side. But as they also said, the memory registers allows you to store the tones you like for very simple access. I spent a couple of days listening to each sound and storing them as I like and now I get get any sound I need with about 3 button presses. Overall I think this is a great product for this price, the only issues that I have run into so far is this: First, some of the lower bass notes become muddled if you play in the lowest 2 octives. Sometimes it’s not so bad but it can be depending on the song. Second, the included pedal is ok but not great. But this can easily be solved by just buying a better pedal. Both of these issues are probably related to the price range but the pros outway the cons by far regarding this. I have not been playing piano very long but I have had people play this keyboard that have been playing for years and they had no complaints. I would definitely suggest this product to anyone intereted in a keyboard in the $700 range, although I think Casio just released PX-330 which has a pitch bend wheel, more tones, and a different sound source – none of which really mattered to me. But maybe that just means that you can get this great keyboard even cheaper.

By: Consumer

Consumer — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:44:24 +0000

For those thinking about buying this keyboard-

There is already an update to this product. The Casio PX-330 has more sounds, better action, more realistic samples, a lettered display instead of just numbers, and is the same price.

From my experience the PX-330 is an excellent keyboard.