Can someone recommend a how-to guide for novice?

Thank you... I appreciate the tip.

It looks like the SP2X has a built-in interface, so you should be able to plug into a USB port on your pc and play. Yes, the Pianoteq application is stand-alone too.

Your pc should have some basic audio capabilities like line out or a headphone jack. If you don't want to use headphones, you will need some sort of connection between the pc and any powered speakers. If you have a home stereo system you can use that as well.

The tricky part may be how many notes you play and and how powerful your pc is. If you hear crackling in the audio or the playing is sluggish you may have to limit the number of voices and reduce the audio buffer size (simple settings in the Pianoteq app). You should just try everything by default and go from there, and any modern pc should be fine.

Worst case scenario is that your pc is very under powered, you want better audio, etc. and you will have to look at upgrade options.

I too am a novice.  Can Pianoteq be added to Kontakt?  Or can you explain how to run Pianoteq while running Kontakt.  My understanding is that Kontakt is a sampler, so since Pianoteq is a modeled, not a sampled, library, it won't run in Kontakt. 

Last year I bought a Kawai VPC1.  Pianoteq was my first virtual library.  But when the holiday sales rolled around, I bought Kontakt and some Galaxy libraries.  But when I play the Galaxy in Kontakt, I can't get any sound out of Pianoteq unless I reboot.  This is quite a nuisance.  While I haven't found a solution, I have to believe there is one.

EvilDragon - Please excuse my ignorance, but I thought a DAW was the computer used for manipulating audio signals.  If I understand you correctly, a DAW is actually, or at least also, a piece of software.  It that is not correct, kindly explain.

If that is correct, would you mind suggesting some examples of DAW software that would allow me to run multiple virtual piano libraries without shutting down either any of the programs or the computer as a whole?  (Although this could change in the future) at present I'm not particularly interested in recording or editing, just playing.  So I expect I don't need a "pro level" DAW.  Just something easy to use that will allow me to load a variety of different instrument libraries and either switch easily from one to another or even play >1 simultaneously.

Also, to what extent, if any, will playing my piano libraries through a DAW program impact things like latency?

And do I load the piano libraries that work with Kontakt into Kontakt and then load Kontakt into the DAW, or do I load the libraries directly into the DAW?  Will other libraries that don't work with Kontakt (I'm told Garritan Abbey Road is one) work with the DAW, and get loaded directly into it?

From what you're saying I gather I can take my version of Kontakt and load it into a DAW as a plugin?  Also, you say "before."  Does that mean that libraries already loaded into Kontakt before I load it as a plugin won't work when I load it into the DAW as a plug in?  Will I have to delete them from Kontakt, then reload them after I load Kontakt into the DAW?

And just to be clear, in any DAW, I can load multiple piano libraries and swtich from one to the other, or play mulitple pianos at once, right?

Thanks again!  I haven't found this basic information anywhere.  Ever think of writing a "dummies" book?