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Comment by ghosty141 | Hacker News Reader

My main problem wouldn't even be the sound but the action just doesn't feel right. For me this is one of the most importants parts in a piano, the feeling of the keys.

Most digital pianos I've tried (to be fair, not so many) didn't even come close to the action of a real piano. This was even the case for upper mid range instruments (10k).

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I've got one with decent response - considering that plenty of upright pianos have unpleasant response too - but it would be good to have an actually good one, or even better a configurable one.

What I'd like was a digital piano that was as configurable in its response/action as Pianoteq is on the acoustic model parameters. How hard can it be?

Pretty hard, because there isn't enough leverage in the smaller action of digital pianos.

You're probably right, but then I think about all the variation that's been achieved with keyboard switches and I figure nobody has even bothered to try with piano keys

The Kawai MP11SE gets quite close: https://kawaius.com/technology/wooden-key-actions/

I bought a Kawai ES8, and while the sound was great, the action was unable to manage the Bach Prelude & Fugue #2 in C minor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcC4Thug-h8

Whenever your hand goes "in", there isn't enough leverage to play the black keys, leading to complete misses. On a few grand pianos, no problem.

I ended up returning the ES8 for that reason.

Couldn't you have, like, multiple tunable rubber bands at different lengths? Giving you whatever resistance curve you want? I feel like this is something that should have a mechanical solution.

Did you try a hybrid piano?

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