Casio’s Stylish New Digital Pianos

Digital pianos have become increasingly popular over recent years, but don’t they almost all look the same? Whilst many acoustic piano manufacturers have, over the years, gone to great lengths to offer instruments with differing finishes and styles, digital pianos (surprisingly) have tended to adopt a rather conservative approach.

Understandably stage pianos aren’t out to win awards for their looks – they need to sound great and be functional. But home pianos, console or otherwise, whilst delivering on sound quality, performance, and offering excellent value-for-money, have generally been pretty dull in appearance. Case options generally take the form of colour variations — black, white, brown, sometimes rosewood, and that’s it. And the case design itself is far from exciting.

True Roland released its KF-10 Kiyola which looked great. And Donner recently introduced the DDP-80. Both these digital pianos have a wooden case and designs that are somewhere between Scandanavian and Mid-Century Modern.

Now Casio has realised the potential demand for a top-quality digital piano that has a bit of style about it. Enter three new Casio Privia models: the PX-S7000, PX-S6000 and PX-S5000. But to be honest, it’s the PX-S7000 that really wins the prizes when it comes to looks.

The New Casio PX-S7000

The modern aesthetic of the new Casio PX-S7000 is more than just style over substance — it’s practical. Its appearance and design enable it to be positioned anywhere… in the middle of a room, on a table or up against a wall. By adjusting the settings of the new 32-watt 4-way Spatial Sound System the acoustic output of the instrument can be matched to its position. And the back of the piano looks unusually smart too.

The elegant stand with integral pedals (3), adds to the contemporary feel, but it is the “Harmonious Mustard” (HM) colour option for the case that really turns people’s heads. This deep yellow finish is extraordinary, and brings something special to the contemporary feel of the piano. Many years ago Wurlitzer released an electric piano with a similar colour finish, but yellow keyboard instruments are very rare beasts.

The main body can be detached from its stand for ease of transportation. And it can also be powered by batteries for a “play anywhere” option.

For the slightly more conservative pianists, the Casio PX-S7000 is also available in black (BK) and white (WE).

The sleek simple control panel centres around a touch ring that allows easy data selection and entry. Other controls include illuminated touch sensors, a colour changing pitch-bend wheel (unusual for a digital piano) all supported by a backlit led panel.

Casio’s newly developed Smart Hybrid Piano Action features here. It offers simulated ebony and ivory keytops on spruce keys.

Three concert grand piano sounds: Grand Hamburg, Grand New York, and Grand Berlin, are at the heart of the PX-S7000. These are used to generate 9 grand piano tones. Strangely there is no Grand Tokyo (/Hamamatsu).

The source is Casio’s Multi Dimensional Morphing AiR sound engine. AiR stands for Acoustic and Intelligent Resonator. It is a combination of sampling and modelling technologies. Some digital pianos trigger just one sample at different volumes for each key. Here there are several samples for each note, giving a more accurate rendition. The sound engine also features an acoustic resonance simulator that introduces sympathetic vibrations further enhancing the authenticity of the sound.

Of course, like most of today’s digital pianos. the PX-S7000 includes other instrument tones — 400 in fact.

Casio PX-S6000 and PX-S5000

The PX-S7000 is the flagship piano but Casio have also added the PX-S6000 and PX-S5000 to the Privia range. All models utilise the same keyboard however the feature count of these two is obviously trimmed back somewhat.

The PX-S6000 and PX-S5000 both include just the Grand Hamburg sample set, and fewer other tones. The PX-S5000 provides a far more basic control panel with just 6 touch buttons. A full list of each instrument’s specifications is detailed below.

Event: Casio is holding a live launch event showcasing these new instruments on Thursday, September 22nd at 1pm EST. Click for details.

These new digital pianos from Casio will start shipping in October 2022. Detailed specifications are shown below, and more information is on the Casio US and Casio UK websites.

Prices (US MSRP / UK RRP)
Privia PX-S7000HM; $2,699.00 / £2,249.00
Privia PX-S7000BK/WE; $2,499.00 / £2,099.00
Privia PX-S6000BK; $1,799.00 / £1,499.00
Privia PX-S5000; $1,199.00 / £999.00

Specifications: Casio PX-S7000 / PX-S6000 / and PX-S5000