You may wonder how to choose the best digital piano for classical pianists. Sure, you could purchase an acoustic piano, but they can be pretty pricey. Besides, there are advantages to using a digital piano when taking online piano lessons. For example, my online piano school uses software to connect the student’s and teachers’ instruments through the internet, so each can hear the other play without losing audio quality. This obviously isn’t possible with an acoustic piano.

There are numerous manufacturers of digital pianos and hundreds of models to choose from. A digital piano not only offers the basic features of an acoustic piano – keys and sound – but also electronic features that may include many additional sounds, a metronome, a recorder function so you can listen back to your playing, the ability to fine-tune EQ and reverb to get precisely the sound you want, and the ability to connect to your computer and/or other electronic instruments.

It sounds very complicated, but when purchasing a digital instrument, classical pianists have it easier than others. While you may want to get certain features only found on digitals (for example, a metronome), the most important features of a digital piano are the same as the most essential features of an acoustic piano. These are its sounds (i.e. the quality of its digital samples of acoustic pianos) and its action (the “feel” of the keyboard as you play it). Does it sound like a real piano? Does it feel like a real piano? These should be the most important considerations for any classical player.

What shouldn’t be one’s primary considerations is the instrument’s appearance or the quality of its non-piano sounds (e.g. electric piano, organ etc.).

A great first step is to view the Ted’s List of the 24 Best Weighted 88 Key Digital Pianos.  It’ll kick you off in the right direction, giving you a brilliant low-down of what instrument excels in what field.

As someone who has played piano for 50 years, and who has worked as a professional musician and music teacher for most of my life, I’d like to think that I have good sense and taste when it comes to choosing an instrument. Indeed, I’m actually quite picky! When I purchased my first acoustic piano as a young adult, I visited every piano store I could find in Los Angeles and played at least 50 different instruments before choosing one I couldn’t justifiably afford, but that nevertheless proved to be an excellent purchase for a serious classical musician: a Steinway upright.

Not long ago I did something similar for digital pianos: I went to numerous stores and tried dozens of models from the major manufacturers.

While digital pianos range in price from 200 to 20,000 or more, most people aren’t going to spend more than a few thousand dollars on one. And there’s really no need to.

In my opinion, the best digital piano for a classical pianist in a reasonable price range (costing no more than a few thousand dollars) is the Kawai MP11SE. (While I don’t own this instrument, I do own its little brother, the original MP7.)