Am I doing something wrong?

I would like add to the list of suggestions to confirm that the velocity curve of your Kawai matches with Pianoteq. You might need to create a custom curve if the presets don't work for you. Also play with the dynamics slider and the output menu. Finally, 20ms latency seems quite high to me. I have 2.3ms latency.

There are other different presets, not necessarily K2, that you may like but do not know exactly what you understand as real. However, a very good preset with a lot of "weight" and "depth" is the Steinway D wide player. This preset is the richest in enhancements. It has all the effects carefully adjusted to boost the main frequencies, equalization adjustment, plus a full microphone range with five strategically positioned microphones. The dynamics of this preset is also "deeper", allowing for a more dense response when gently touched.

I'm not sure you have a real problem.  Firstly you haven't really used Pianoteq much and just trying one preset won't tell you much.  I note you have Stage and I have to tell you that while Stage is very good (and the presets are identical to other versions), the Microphone placing system in Standard is well worth having apart from all the other tweaking features you get.  Upgrading to standard also gets you access to more FXP features - have a look at the FXP Corner.  Stage doesn't fully utilize FXP, whereas Standard does.

But even with Stage you have't really experienced all the tweaking available.  Most significant would be reverb and equalization (there are two types of equalization in Pianoteq).  Choice and tweak of reverb makes a really huge difference, as do all the adjustments possible within any given reverb type.  Equalization choices can be a big help too.  It's worth spending a lot of time working with just those two settings in my opinion to get what you want.  You'll probably very quickly end up with your own set of custom presets for these.

It's also worth remembering that from experience it's Pianoteq's responsiveness (not sampled) to touch when playing (not testing - playing !) that makes it.  I've use the K2 more under v6+ that v5 and it's improved a lot.  I've read the same thing from many users on the forum : playing it in pieces is where the difference is felt.

Hard to know if "sounds like my CN27" should be considered a criticism or a compliment.  After all, Kawai are trying to emulate their flagship grand piano's sound, so is sounding like it really a problem ?  It might be unrealistic to expect a "night and day" experience as I'd expect Kawai to do a decent job.  I originally chose Pianoteq myself because comparing it to other (huge) sampled pianos really was night and day.  Only the largest (GB+) sampled libraries came close to the same experience.  I do think they've incrementally improved it with time (and credit to them for continuing development).  But I never compared it to "real" pianos - that just isn't useful as the variables in recording and sound reproduction (e.g. monitors) are so great.

If you have the K2 then I presume you have the D as well.  And don''t forget the freebies (the KiViR set) - well worth having IMO.  Remember that Pianoteq lets you switch between a much wider range of pianos sounds.

I think with time you'll come to think that Pianoteq (any version) gives you a lot more flexibility and control than a DP.  But I think you do need to give it more time and experiment more with the software, presets and (particularly) reverb.

Also try the "Binaural" setting if you use headphones.  This isn't to everyone's taste, but I think it makes a difference sometimes.  It's a sound setting that tries to emulate the human player's perspective.

Your CPU might be the issue. You might try reducing "polyphony" significantly (under "perf"). If you describe what type of piano sound is your ideal someone might be able to point you in the right direction.

Glad to know you've seen some progress drpaul09.

There are so many specific things to check for regarding crackling and odd audio, and a few good guides I've seen over the years.. I'd suggest a web search for "setting up PC for audio" to reveal a bunch of things to consider.

Also many threads here could contain just the cure you seek.

Things to look for:

In your OS settings, set your PC to be in full power mode, no power saving setting. (you can always go low power for other tasks, but it can quite notoriously cause glitches with audio processing).

Set the OS to 'prefer background processes' rather than 'programs'. Similar to above in result.

Make sure your external unit can handle natively the settings you have in ASIO4all prefs - otherwise there may be some on-the-fly conversion taking up cycles and causing latency issues. ASIO4all remembers settings for programs, so you shouldn't have to do that each time you open Pianoteq.

If crackling seems more 'analog' compared to 'solid state' in nature (electric crunching and popping vs. flatter fuzz/buzzing), check if a physical volume knob or slider is making that noise (with some knobs or 'pots' dust is a given - so a little gentle tweaking can alleviate - there may be differing advice about lubrications in spray form or carbon powder etc.).

Something I found fixed a similar issue for me - and that was to replace the USB MIDI out cable (from keyboard to PC - available online or music shop for maybe $5 to $30-ish from sort of recent memory) with a cable like this: Old style MIDI connectors to USB in to CP. So, this takes away any glitch or sluggishness caused by whatever mystery 'bandwidth' issues caused by USB audio junk in the way of 'clean' otherwise tiny and super fast MIDI signals between dpiano keyboard to PC. I miss nothing from not having USB to USB.. so always like to offer this advice, it worked for me - as did the above over a long time-frame.

Other things to consider may include fairly generic things like, how full is the hard drive? If you have 16Gig of RAM, you may be better off to not have a 'page file' (not for everyone but works for me)..

Did you install drivers for the external unit?

Check if you have a anti-virus program running which may be aggressively scanning input signals..

Quit other apps or suites and overlays like Steam. Luckily for my main PC I don't seem to need to unload things before using audio, but on other machines I do.

Forgot to as what CPU you have - but if it's older, or not i3 or better, i5 or i7 it may need more of the above, really going to make the system lean so as to really give it a chance. But, even with recent fast CPUs, a lot of things like all the above can still matter for audio.

No matter the CPU, check what "junk" might be loading up at system startup - and with care, 'disable' things you know you don't need.

Reboot. Not every time, or every day or week even. A solid system can stay 'up' (hibernate when not being used). I feel that the stress of fully rebooting can cause some issues because for a long time after you boot up, system checks and anti-virus checks can be randomly grasping at the CPU.

If you can, find out a little more about what CPU settings your machine is capable of - you may be able to change some things in BIOS settings (pressing a key at boot up to enter 'ye olden days' type interface to change some seriously powerful settings). One such thing to look for there, is CPU scaling - which you may want to turn 'off'. The CPU 'changing frequency' to handle different power states can be a big difference. In effect, like setting the OS to full power (rather than power saving), now the CPU will try to always run at top speed (distinct from overclocking - I'd recommend avoiding that if everything works fine without that) - but setting the CPU in BIOS to run at full power can mean your fans run hotter, it's less likely you'll bother running lower power settings because Windows may now not be able to 'slow your CPU' - so in effect, this BIOS setting might mean you're going to get used to your machine using more power and running hotter - which shouldn't matter as much in this decade as it might have 20yrs ago.

Sometimes, poor and crackling audio may be caused by something in the chain of volumes. In an instance where volumes are set on the external unit, there may be two knobs (not just the one) to consider.. such as 'monitor mix' 'headphones'.. 'main level' and depending what you have plugged where, you may need to balance the signal to find an optimum signal (if one volume in a chain is too low, then turning up the following one may result in a thin sound, and vice versa). For a lot of normal external units, beginning with both physical controllers on mid range settings, push one higher to see if it's making your sound richer, and if not, try the other set higher.. somewhere there's going to be a sweet spot and unless it's a seriously uber studio appliance, you're probably going to be fine with both somewhere over 12 oclock. That's of course, if 2 volume controllers exist on your external unit. There may be more volume controls too, which may only apply to speaker outputs etc. On my device a common volume controller which handles signal for headphone and speakers is the one labelled monitor mix - and the headphones volume is just a headphone symbol, while the other control handling only speaker outs is the one labelled 'main level'.

Anyway, after a little more time (and esp. with Pianoteq Standard) I'm sure you'll be able to find all the gremlins and settings to make your sound greatly enjoyable.

In terms of inside Pianoteq, I definitely recommend the following:

Understand that, no matter how you tweak things - you can always start over from a default setting so experiment as you wish - you may find ways to change everything about your sound in time.

Don't overlook 'simple' tools like EQ - I bore myself bringing that up but it has to be said, that after more experimenting with your curve (don't stop actually tweaking it - look to the Pianoteq Keyboard velocity curves page) for some which hopefully match your keyboard. After years of using Pianoteq, I still find improvements.. just last week iirc - and again, wow, it does seem again very much like a 50% improvement in realism/playability. So don't stop - spend at least a few minutes a week if you can to see if you can improve it.

Save your own presets in custom folders - easily done within the interface - and this applies to your effects settings too, one by one, or as a rack! - name them so you remember them "70s disco" or "Bach".

Over time, you'll not only have your library of essential defaults but your own history of tweaks and attempts to revisit.. don't be afraid to save versions like "Bach 01" - you'll find it helpful to 'hear' what you were thinking way back then - and realise how you may have gone wrong haha.. I have a kind of graveyard of old settings which is amusing now - but seriously, it's a great learning curve and you'll over time find it so logical and close to reality - from tuning etc to audio output like compression.

All my best and thanks to all above who post to help so generously - hoping you find some confluence of the above lead to really positive results for you!

I imagine a K2 is secretly a Kawai!  It always seems inferred.