Reflexions

Thanks for all your good work with delving into the inner workings of the PX350 and showing us what's there. (-Especially appreciate the photos.) Most digital keyboards are not real quiet to begin with, but I think the general perception among manufacturers is that this isn't going bother a whole lot of people, because most users usually have their amps turned up or their headphones on. With the Privia, however, entering the "pro" digital piano arena, Casio is catering to a whole new set of ears, -ones that can be quite sensitive to noisy keys, (-and also users who don't always use headphones, -or turn the volume way up. -And who know how to play softly as well as loud.). Also, you are correct about the felt/foam compressing rather quickly and rapidly becoming noisy, -and that this problem is not just limited to Casio keyboards. As both an acoustic and digital piano service technician, I have worked on a number of digital keyboards, as well as "acoustic" -and they all have their liabilities, and they pretty much all get noisy with time and usage. -Even those made by Kurzweil (Fatar) or Yamaha. (Even Steinways ultimately get noisy, given enough time!) The foam/felt noise/shock absorbing strips that are installed in most all digital keyboards do compress quite rapidly under moderately heavy (-or even medium-) usage, and usually have to be replaced quite regularly if the keyboard is to stay even relatively quiet. (The keys on my Kurzweil K2600XS will actually stick, in the up position, if the keyboard hasn't been played for a few weeks or months. The felt/foam strips in that keyboard actually get sticky with time! You have to run a few scales up and down all 88 keys before you can really play it.) In digital keyboards with the "hammer-action" the key itself is usually not the part of the action making all the noise, but the "hammer-action" mechanism, which must be stopped, somehow, quietly, at the end of both the up-, AND downstroke, as you noted. (This is a tall order, by the way.) If you have ever disassembled a Clavinova CVP-series keyboard you may be aware that the felt and foam bumpers on those keyboards are twice as thick - 4 layers of alternating felt and foam, at the top of the hammer stroke, -which is where the brunt of the force is delivered-, and 3 layers of foam/felt on the bottom for when the hammer falls back down. And even those felt/foam strips pack down and get noisy with just a moderate amount of playing over time. (This is likely not acoustic piano-grade backrail or hammer rail felt, by the way, -which would probably be a substantial improvement, and not compress so quickly. But as a rule, because of intended price strata, digital piano designers frequently cannot afford to use those same types of materials that are used in "real" pianos.) (Would you be willing to pay three or four times as much for your PX350? ) The problem with adding more felt or foam on top of what's already there, of course, as you hinted, is that you are going to reduce the hammers' travel and change the feel of the action, and possibly even reduce the aftertouch to the point where the mechanism can't complete its full cycle. So yes, you do have to watch that. On the aforementioned CVP-series Clavinova, the solution (for me) for addressing the clacky keys was simply to order new felt/foam strips from the manufacturer (Yamaha), -which were not at all expensive. This reduced the noise to "brand new" levels (-not noiseless, mind you, but acceptably quiet-) -at least until the felt packs down again! There are also other design considerations to keep in mind - making sure that whatever you put in there is somewhat fire-retardant, for one thing, in there next to all those electronics. The weight of the strip is also a consideration, if you are trying to keep the weight of the keyboard down. And cost of the materials as well - if you are trying to keep the price under $1000. One even needs to be careful that the type of adhesive used is non-flammable. So I'm sure those engineers had to deal with a lot of design compromises, -and make a lot of design decisions. Nevertheless, notwithstanding a few rough spots (like the clacky keys) I think the Casio designers and engineers really have something here - I bought one! (PX350M). As far as being one of the first really capable and good-sounding full size (88-note) keyboards, that weighs only 25 lbs, and has a realistic-feeling action, I personally feel these latest Privia-series keyboards are really sort of a design tour-de-force. (I do wish there were some way to either turn off, or at least modify, that artificial string resonance they added when you press the sustain pedal. It's just not quite what one expects.) (Hopefully the engineers are listening and will take some of these suggestions to heart, in making future improvements.) Anyway, thanks so much, again, for all the time you took writing this all up, and figuring this all out, and posting, for the rest of us. We need more folks like you! ~Reflexions.