0:00 - Introduction
0:58 - Playing Demo
1:40 - Overview
5:35 - Piano Sound
9:00 - Speakers/Onkyo
15:00 - Sound Engine Demo
22:00 - Improvements over NV5
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#NV5S #Kawai #Hybrid
Welcome to the Merriam Pianos YouTube channel. In today’s video, we’ll be looking at the brand new Kawai Novus NV5S hybrid digital piano.
The NV5S is of course the update to the NV5, which was widely regarded as one of, if not the best hybrid digital piano available upon its release.
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Opening Thoughts
The NV5 was already the most musical digital piano available according to several members of our staff here at Merriam Music. We were a bit surprised Kawai was already coming out with an upgrade after a successful and short run time for the standard NV5.
We can report that the new NV5S retains all of the musicality of the NV5, and the improvements have more to do with practicality and functionality.
The simplicity and ease of use has been improved, but core musical features like action, tone and speakers seem essentially the same, with the exception of an improvement to the touch when playing at lower volumes.
Piano Overview
For those totally unfamiliar with Kawai’s Novus series, we’ll get you up to speed here.
The Kawai Novus NV5S is a hybrid piano, meaning it combines genuine acoustic piano elements with aspects of a digital piano.
Action
The NV5S is quite unique in the industry because it incorporates a 100% genuine acoustic upright piano action, with dampers as well. It’s a complete physical reproduction of what you get with an acoustic upright piano, and uses advanced optical sensors to measure and calculate the exact pressure you play the keys with.
We would argue it’s the most accurate touch available in any digital piano, and we don’t make claims like this lightly.
Does the action feel as refined as a high end German upright piano? No, but compared to an upright piano in the same category, the touch is identical.
Speakers
Kawai partnered by Japanese Audio specialists Onkyo several years ago to help elevate the quality of their speaker and amplification systems. The NV5S is probably the most powerful example of Onkyo’s technology being brought into a Kawai product.
For starters, the analogue to digital conversion, both on the way in and way out, is nothing short of high-end - totally lossless. This is crucial due to the high fidelity of the sample sets inside the sound engine.
There’s a ton of post signal processing going on to ensure the speakers produce rich and full sound.
The NV5S also has an authentic solid spruce soundboard, driven by multiple transducers, which imitates the function of a soundboard on an acoustic piano.
After the soundboard, there’s also mid range speakers, speakers below the keys, speakers on top for the highs, and tone ports.
Sound Engine
The NV5S uses Kawai’s top sound engine - the SKEX Rendering engine, which can also be found in the NV10S, as well as the CA99 and CA79.
It’s a similar engine to what you’ll find in top VST engines, as it combines multiple samples with synthesized resonance engines.
In this specific case, the SKEX 9 foot concert grand is recorded with a plethora of microphones at a variety of dynamic levels, which is then combined with the modeled resonance engine.
We’ve sampled all of the top VST’s on this channel, and we can confidently say that the NV5S is producing sound on par with the best of the best VST’s.
There’s several different configurations of the tone available with Rendering Mode, such as Classic, Classic 2, Romantic, Rich and several more. Each has its own distinctive character, making each one suitable for different styles of music.
Improvements Over NV5
The most obvious upgrade here is the user interface. It’s the same interface you get on the CA79 99, whereas the original NV5 had the interface from the previous generation CA78 and 98.
Everything inside the interface is the same, but improvements include significantly faster loading times, improved navigation control, and easier access to EQ and speaker systems.
You can also adjust the inbound Bluetooth audio internally, and the low volume balance is much improved.
Conclusion
An absolutely exceptional instrument, The NV5S brings back everything good about the NV5, and improves on the functionality and practicality.
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