The Williams Digital Grand Piano has got to be the best kept secret in digital musical instruments. When I first saw it on Amazon.com, I thought it must be to good to be true -- a very reasonable price that you would usually pay for just a keyboard, but in a robust and beautiful piano frame that I wouldn't be embarrassed to showcase in my living room? With so little information online, I was skeptical, to say the least. But I finally did enough digging (Amazon, you need more details, and Williams, you need to update your 3-year-old website -- this piano isn't even listed in your product pages) to convince myself that it was worth the risk.
I continued to be skeptical when I saw that this piano came with free shipping for Amazon Prime customers. I figured it must be really light-weight and/or plastic to be able to qualify for free shipping. In fact, there was a bug on Amazon.com saying it weighed only 27 pounds (when in fact, I believe it's around 227 pounds!). But once I finally overcame my risk aversion and ordered this via Amazon Prime, I got a call from FedEx National about 48 hours later asking to arrange a delivery window since it was so big and needed special handling. And it came as scheduled on the day/time promised! Since my living room is on the second floor, I had to hire a couple of guys to help me move it upstairs -- otherwise it was just too hard to move.
But I have to say, my experience from the outset was of amazement and satisfaction. First, the packaging was very nice. It was quite easy to remove it from the packaging, everything was well packed and protected, there were no problems whatsoever with the quality of the unit upon initial inspection.
Set-up was a breeze as well (aside from the physical weight, since I had to move it upstairs). It didn't take long at all before I had the whole thing up and running. You just have to turn it on its side (don't let your hired help leave just yet) and attach the legs, pedals, etc. and you're good to go. You just plug it into a standard 110V AC outlet.
Finally, on to the actual product review:
This is an astounding product in terms of quality, innovation, design, and brilliance on the part of the folks at Williams. I'd honestly never heard of them before, but it's clear they are an incredibly bright group of folks on a mission to make excellent musical products.
The keyboard action is VERY good -- it really truly feels like an acoustic piano. The key action feels as if there is a hammer hitting a string, and of course it sounds that way as well. The speakers are housed within the resonance chamber just like the strings would be in an acoustic piano -- pure genius. (Though, note that the resonance chamber is way smaller than on an acoustic baby grand, but that's just fine by me! It still looks very nice -- just like a baby grand though taking up a little less space.) In fact, the speakers point down -- 80W of power in the sound system reflects off the floor and sounds great at the right volume and settings. The backs of the speakers go into the resonance chamber which, when you open the back, gives even more full sound (just like an acoustic piano). Again, genius. You can't see it in any of the product photos, but if you open the back and prop it up with the stick (which by the way is quite nice quality as well), you just see a black material lining along the top of the resonance chamber, so it's neither attractive nor ugly but still gives the look and feel of an actual piano from across the room.
The keyboard is full sized and feels just like the real deal. They even went to the detail of having red felt along the top back edge of the keys just like on an acoustic piano.
The pedals are another bit of genius -- instead of typical digital keyboard pedals, these pedals are actual mechanical levers that operate much like those of an acoustic piano! The travel on the pedals is independently adjustable so that you can fine-tune exactly how far you want to have to press each pedal to perform its action. They ultimately go up into the bottom of the unit to depress the electronic switches that actually perform the actions (and of course they're not just binary actions, the pedal buttons have velocity sensors as well and emulate how pedals work on an acoustic piano). And since the pedals are actually secured to the body of the piano and anchored to the floor with nice screw-out floor connectors, this thing plays exactly like an acoustic baby grand or upright piano. With my old Kurzweil keyboard, the pedals would always "walk" along the floor as I pushed on them, and I'd constantly feel off my game while playing because I had to keep thinking about the pedals. Not on this amazing Williams piano! It is so realistic and comfortable to play that I truly feel as if I just bought a $5000 baby grand acoustic for a fraction of the cost.
In fact, I can't see how they can sell this piano for so little money. Yes, there are many, many other features, but I'm just impressed with the way Williams made this piano feel just like a "real" piano that would cost a LOT more.
If you're looking for a very functional piano that also serves as beautiful furniture for your great room that will impress your guests and give you hours of endless pleasure -- and awesome sound and all those wonderful digital features (MIDI, dual headphone jacks, multiple voices, selectable keyboard velocity, adjustable volume and brightness, a transpose feature, digital fine-tuning (to adjust the actual frequency offset), etc., etc., etc. -- this is the absolute best buy and will NOT disappoint you.
I am sure there are people who can't be pleased by something that either isn't acoustic, or that doesn't have the high-end digital synthesis of your well-known brands of digital keyboards. But buying this piano is not settling in the least -- despite the low-low price, the quality is astounding and you will absolutely not be disappointed. If you can't tell, I strongly recommend this product and I am in complete bliss after almost a full week of ownership. My love of piano has returned full-force with this brilliant bit of engineering on the part of Williams. I hope they read this and (aside from updating their website) know that I think they are doing absolutely awesome work!Get more detail about Williams Digital Grand Piano, black.
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