Since its inception in its early 1920s, Kawai has taken the piano industry a notch higher by using state-of-the-art materials to produce an array of grand pianos, upright pianos, electronic synthesizers as well as electronic keyboards. One of its latest releases is Kawai ES110, the digital piano which we’ll be focusing on in this review. Here, you are going to see the features, pros and cons of this piano.
Features
- Keys: 88 fully-weighted
- Polyphony: 192
- Dimensions: 51.6” x 11.2” x 5.8”
- Weight: 26.5 pounds
Pros and Cons
Pros
Weighing just 26 lbs (12kg) and with a size measuring 51.6” x 11.2” x 5.8”, Kawai ES110 is very portable piano and so, suitable for gigging. When it comes to performance, the piano has very powerful speakers, which together with the high-quality samples of the piano, deliver very clear and rich sound.
The keys are 88-full set and fully-weighted. As a result, the keys feel like those of an acoustic piano. ES110 has many other awesome features as we are going to see here later on.
Cons
The body feels slightly plasticky; you might underestimate its performance from the feel. Also, this piano doesn’t have a display which if present, would improve users’ interaction with the piano.
Sound Quality of Kawai ES110
With 192-note polyphony, this piano is suitable for practicing the most complex chords and expressions. Besides, the feature allows you to layer numerous sounds without notes cutting off.
The sound settings of this piano gives you a whopping seven options including brilliance, damper resonance, temperament, fall-back noise and damper noise to make your performance as enjoyable as possible.
As if that’s not enough, Kawai ES110 has 2 x 12cm speakers for super-decent sound production across the entire frequency spectrum.
Key Action and Realism of Kawai ES110
ES110 has a comprehensive set of 88 fully-weighted keys and features responsive hammer compact key action mechanism. The mechanism uses spring-less 2-sensor technology, whereby the real little hammers come in handy for the simulation of the acoustic piano action’s mechanical movement. The low-register keys on the keyboard of this piano are the heaviest while those on the highest end are the lightest. The lower the position of a key, the heavy the key and vice versa. In as such, playing the keys feels and has an almost similar impact as to when using a traditional piano
Other features of Kawai ES110
Many people underestimate Kawai ES110 because of its look which resembles that of an ordinary electronic keyboard. But the fact is that two are two worlds apart when their respective performances are compared. Kawai’s performance is incredible.
Kawai ES110 offers very responsive hammer compact action, courtesy of its 88 hammer weighted keys. It offers you 19 sounds to choose from, 8 of which are unique piano sounds. On the other hand, the piano’s pedal allows you to improve the expressiveness of your play.
Besides, this piano comes with 3 built-in songbooks with a total of more than 100 songs. Practicing with this piano is an awesome experience, not only because of the wide song selection but also as a result of the Lesson Function which allows you to practice each part of your hand separately.
When it comes to connectivity with other devices, ES110 offers the versatility you need through MIDI Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, 2 headphone jacks, sustain jack or line out (R, L/Mon).
Kawai ES110 Review- Final Thoughts
Although it might not be absolutely appealing, Kawai ES110 feels very lovely to play. Besides, its sound quality is top-notch across the entire frequency spectrum. You can’t go wrong with this in case you are looking for a portable, simple and easy-to-use piano for high-quality gig performances.