Kawai ES-120 vs Roland FP-30X

I have watched it all and many other videos. I'm just looking to hear from first hand experience from people who have tried theirs as Midi Keyboards with Pianoteq or who might know more about how 2 sensors vs 3 sensors can affect playing.

Comparable tiers of action tend to be pretty subjective. I really like the action in my FP30, it's as good as anything I could find under ~$1000 USD. The default velocity curve works great with Pianoteq, it sends note-off, the 3 pedals are all continuous (nice for celeste pedal, pinch harmonics, etc), there's escapement if you care about that. For the $500 I spent on it including stand, triple pedal, and bench, it was a great investment for our family, and made an excellent Pianoteq controller until I upgraded last year.

I just kept an eye on Craigslist and Facebook marketplace for a while and didn't buy anything I couldn't thoroughly test first. Reverb "local pickup only" listings are another place I see really good deals sometimes. Another perk about buying used is you can often resell without taking a loss, so you're not stuck with it.

That being said, on paper, the FP30X is what I'd go with also, but won't skew the vote as I don't have experience with both.

Thank you Key Fumbler and mindbullets for the replies!

That was very kind of you but totally not necessary! Someone else reading the thread may not have seen the video you embedded so don't be afraid to leave your input there.

I think either purchase will be a good purchase as they're neck and neck at the moment.
And thanks for linking me to the pianoworld forums, since a lot of people seem  to have issues a year after owning the studiologic SL88 that rules one more keyboard out!

Former FP-30X owner here. It's not a bad piano, but the stories of the action are true. I grew to really hate it, it feels like running in the shallow end of a swimming pool. For many things the action is quite nice and I had convinced myself I liked it at first, but if you want to play anything fast with trills, just forget it. The Piano Forever review hits the nail completely on the head and I wish I'd seen it before I purchased.

In the end I sold it and bought a Kawaii KDP120 and couldn't be happier. Kawaii's action is much better for me, it might be inferior from a midi standpoint but who cares about triple sensor if it feels horrible to play? I do love Roland's PHA-50 action seen in the FP90X et al. Pianos with it are markedly more expensive but they are the only Roland's I would even consider.

It's all rather subjective but that's my experience!

I had PF-30X and (very briefly) ES-110 (very similar action to ES-120). I did not like the action of ES-110 at all. It was very noisy (especially when the keys were coming up). I just could not use it because the noise of the action was distracting me.

PHA-4 of FP-30X is not bad but it may develop a clicking noise after 3-4 months.

One important advantage of PF-30X over (any) Kawai digital piano is that it has Digital Audio Interface that would allow you to use only one USB cable between your computer and FP-30X to send MIDI signal in one direction and Pianoteq digital audio signal back to the digital piano. This way you can use the amplification and speakers of the digital piano to play Pianoteq sound. This feature is very important to me. Remember to use Local Control in FP-30X.

I now have Yamaha P-515 (had Roland FP-90X before it).

Michael

Thanks a lot for the replies everyone and sorry for the delay in replying.
I went ahead and ordered the Kawai ES-120 and it should be here next week.

After I ordered a deal popped up on the mydealz app for the FP-30X from a German Retailer I can't remember the name of and it was reduced to 550 euro. It sold out by time I saw the deal and went back up to 700 euro.

I think I'll be happy with the ES-120 though and can't wait to get it.

It's a great digital piano just a tad on the light side action wise. The in built sounds are very high quality and the speakers can go pretty loud.
The most annoying thing is that the default piano sound has reverb on it and I don't think you can have it load up a favourite / custom sound as the default sound with the Bluetooth app.
I tried a Korg digital piano in college recently with the RH-3 keybed and really liked the heavier action but the sounds weren't as high quality. I think it's an older LP model.
I guess my advice is try as many digital pianos out in a store as possible, before making a decision.
Over all I'm happy with the KS-120.