Kawai Hybrids vs. Acoustics with Silent or ATX4 systems

Oh, as a card-carrying Novus fan I feel I should put my view forward. I ended up getting a Novus 10s even though I started with the plan to get an acoustic baby grand (via the interim idea of a grand + atx).

Pros of the pure (novus) route
1. Takes less space - which means that there remains room, hypothetically, for a dedicated grand at some point in the future
2. I found that the price to value for pure acoustics is generally much better than ones with silent systems fitted - I felt I would have to make too many compromises/have limited options on the acoustic side
3. At the time I was worried that the soundboard-transducer system would colour the sounds that aren't coming from a built-in source (though now I appreciate room correction would have solved this)
4. Novus speakers have generally better bass performance than transducers (which go a bit thin in the bass section... not hugely but enough for me to let it be a factor
5. Novus uses the Neotex key surfaces which I vastly prefer over the Acryl/Phenol keys of the GL-10
6. I really don't rate the GL-10 highly as an instrument
7. Electronics have different lifecycles to acoustic components, and an item that is subject to both feels like the worst of both worlds, from a maintenance pov

Pros of the hybrid route
1. You get a grand piano, which is good for the soul
2. The acoustic sound production is the perfect calibration tool for volume and velocity response when dealing with virtual instruments
3. The big advantage of transducers is that their sound production is more distributed than point speakers - this means a more natural acoustic integration, with less booms and standing waves

The choice has evolved a bit since. the new NV12 uses transducers for sound production which should even out the sound a bit - but obviously the sound board is smaller than on a grand, so it may end up more gimmick than genuine benefit.

I'm very happy with my choice, so can recommend the NV10/12 route; I would advise against the GL-10 with Aures but the GX-2 with Aures is neat; although maybe a bit on the expensive side for what it is as an acoustic (by which I mean, it's a very fine instrument but you'd likely find even better options in the same price range)

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Edit: Since I buried the lead in my ramblings a bit, let me add: Ultimately, I noticed that a new GX2 without Aures is £10k cheaper than the model with an Aures, and I was able to find a novus for less than £10k, so the maths in my head was that in the end game, a Novus + a pure acoustic is the better value proposition. That said, I'd argue that the GX2 is the better option for people who (1) really like the GX2 as an acoustic instrument and would choose this as their grand piano anyway, and (2) spend a significant part of their time playing it as an acoustic (more than 40% of the time) - in contrast I saw myself as a mostly-digital user (for late-night practice).

So the way I would decide is to evaluate the GX2 on its own acoustic merits and, if it's a clear winner, go with that - but if you want to keep your options open, go with the Novus

I do route the audio back in to make use of the built-in speakers (I wanted a playing experience with the technical components hidden as well as possible). This required a fair amount of room/speaker correction: calibration with an UMIK, adding deflectors to the speakers with sightlines to spread the sound out, etc. I'm happy enough with the result because in terms of pure hardware, the built-in speakers are quite good; they are just held back by questionable crossovers and bad factory equalisation.

I think you're spot on about the soundboard: you'd have the pianoteq soundboard colouring compounded by the physical soundboard's output, so you would definitely need to do some calibration to offset this doubling up. That would be a factor in the NV12 but even more so in the hybrid options, which have larger and likely more characterful soundboards. I suspect it could be worth it, because a more spread-out sound source makes a big difference - but I don't have any first-hand experience with that so don't know how easy this would be to get to.

By the way I read somewhere that someone negotiated a custom build of an SK-2 with ATX-4 for ca £33k by ordering a factory build from japan through a local retailer, which sounds like a great endgame option... all of which is to say, don't believe the sticker prices for acoustics.