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If it were possible to compress the sound of a traditional acoustic and play it through wave/MP3 it would most likely highlight the flaws of the construction, and though it may sound somewhat richer tone, It would highlight the tuning issues that sub standard uprights suffer from. The CA99 would have a more clean and defined sound.

Lol, this cracked me up. You clearly have never played an acoustic before. How can you seriously say a recording of the real thing is better than the real thing. I hope you were joking. Don't get me wrong, the CA99 is a nice DP and I have actually tried it in person but you are kidding yourself if you think it's better than the real thing. It doesn't even have a real action like hybrids which are much much closer.

Uh...yeah. Definitely. As reflected in the comparative pricing...

Lol. Yes, if you're looking at Casio, the Celviano GP-510 is probably a good comparison to the CA-99.

You own and refer to what instrument?

Galuwen

Yes, and I was sooo close to buying one instead of CA99.
For that, GP-510 only needed to add a spruce sound board and also the fourth, Fazioli, piano to their Bechstein, Steinway and Bösendorfer. I couldn't have resisted that. Escapement or no escapement.

Sorry my posting was 93% adressed to ag_jazz_piano (measured on true sample size :-)).

Please refer to my "unbeatable point"

Have fun with your new CA99 (like I do).

Galuwen (Kremsegg!! Austria)

maybe my wording was not right (not native english speaker): what i meant is that it is definitely better than most average acoustic pianos.
Of course a real high quality grand piano is much better (SK, Steinway, Bosendorfer, Yamaha CX).
But what i mean is that if you can only afford an average 3-4'000 EUR acoustic upright, i believe the CA99 is better !
Hope this clarifies.

What acoustic uprights can we afford at 4000 EUR? Yamaha B1? Kawai K-200?
I'm asking just to have a rough idea of the acoustic instruments alternatives

Speaking for me (not for mwf) ... yes, it clarifies ... a little bit. But I don't agree.

Whether you refer to a 3000-4000 EUR new piano (which is low-end) or a used upright in that price range (which might have cost 8000 EUR or more when new), the acoustics outperform any digital I've ever laid hands on.

Even the Novus cannot compare. It has an unbeatable action ... and very beatable sound.

Even the best VSTs don't quite do it, though they come close.

But digitals just don't come close. Speakers are inadequate, and small sample sizes don't cut it.

yes, i mean price for a new accoustic piano.
Basically to be super clear, if you are to buy a new accoustic piano for the same price as the ca99 (i.e. around 3'500-4'000 EUR), i believe the sound and touch experience of the CA99 is much better.
Now of course if you buy a used Yamaha U1 or U3 for 4'000 EUR, depending on its state, the sound experience can be much better than any digital piano for sure.

To get the same or better quality of touch and sound as the CA99 on a real accoustic piano (new), you need to cash out at least 8'000-10'000 EUR (basically referring to Yamaha's U1, U3, YUS, etc ...). Below that price (for a new piano) i believe you're better off with the CA99.

But again, it depends on each person's objective (are you looking for the sound, the touch, the connectivity ? do you play 80% with headphones or without, etc ...).

For 8000-10000 € you can get Kawai K-500. Perhaps even K-500 Aures. Almost K-800.
With Millennium III upright action.
Of course, there is a question if with Aures it sounds as good as without Aures. The sound board is somewhat compromised by the transducers, isn't it?

Ok I'd break this comparison digital-acoustic to this:
sound behaviour is better on any acoustic for obvious reasons
sound frequency range will be better on CA9x because it's not limited by string length so you don't need concert grand piano(which costs >70000$)to get that deep nice bass sound
sound quality- worse than any acoustic because of speaker/samples limitations
action responsiveness- better on CA9x than most upright pianos but worse than good regulated grand piano(which is much more expensive than CA99)
action feeling- different than acoustic instruments but still good on it's own

@ Nordomus
This is well summarized.

@Norodomus: I agree with parts of what you said, and disagree with others. Like anyone else I have opinions, right?

@ag_jazz_piano: But is it well summarized? Or is it completely subjective?

Mostly it's a set of generalizations so broad that you could invert each statement and still call it true.

And that's largely because words like better/worse have no quantitative grounding.

And because even those words are watered down by phrases like "better than most". Just where are these "most" pianos against which you compare?

If, instead, you say that these findings apply to the set of pianos you've worked with, then it's a nice set of opinions.
But broad brush generalizations make for meaningless banter.

@ Flyingblind

Regarding your question ("I use my iPad to practice duets that are mostly midi files, not great. I had some idea I could route these files or maybe better quality through the piano. Not expecting the keys to move but for me it would be better to practice with the sound coming out of the piano. Is this possible?")

I have tried today to play some music from my iphone on the CA99 and it works. I used the App Tomplay (which allows you to play the piano with the orchestra in the background) and it allowed me to play the piano score on the CA while the orchestra was also playing on the CA.

Hope this helps.
Antoine

Still makes me laugh that these dp defenders are not mentioning the low sample sizes built into these blocks of wood and plastic. It's not rocket science, you're playing on the equivalent of a commodore 64 in today's world, when you should be at least paying and playing for a PS4 at the very least at this price.

Yeah you are obviously right about that but it's hard to list all instruments to comparison. Almost impossible to do that kind of listing without generalizations. The only true generalization I've used is about action responsiveness. When I say most upright pianos I mean most of those bellow 7000$ price point or something like that(used and new). In other points I've listed it's like comparing what is faster, bicycle or car. While you can always find example that will say that bicycle is faster than car(very good bicycle and very bad and breaking car) BUT general answer will be simple and I'm sticking by it.

ag_jazz_piano, I'm not attacking you and would actually really like to understand your rationale. You can read my thread here where i set out to get a high-end DP like CA79/CA99 but then tried an acoustic for the first time and immediately changed my mind. I played all of them in the same setting and the CA79/CA99 didn't compare to any acoustic in the show room. Not even a K200.

I'm not a pro-acoustic shun-digital guy. You can see I also have a P-515. If noise wasn't a factor and I didn't occasionally need other voices, I would probably not play the P-515. I still like digitals and actually liked the CA79/CA99 when i tried them in the store. There is a fundamental flaw in your argument, a recording of a real thing can never be better than the real thing.

Maybe you need to tell yourself this to feel better about your CA99 purchase which might be a bit odd since the CA99 is itself a nice DP without needing to compare it to an acoustic. But please, it's not better than an acoustic, not even uprights.

And that is the biggest generalization