Casio AP-700

This is an 88-key weighted-key velocity-sensitive keyboard. It comes built into a decent faux-wood case/stand, and is obviously intended as a replacement for an upright home piano. There is no onboard display, just a handful of LEDs. The keyboard uses an AC adapter for power. The stand includes three metal foot pedals which work as advertised.

The main speakers on the AP-200 are underneath the keyboard, so it seems as though the sound is resonating from the whole instrument rather than obviously from the speakers on top as with many other keyboards. The piano voice itself sounded good to me both through the speakers and through headphones, although it was generally more mellow and resonant (some might call it muddy) than the much-praised Yamaha sound. You can hear some slightly digital artifacts and repetition of the sample in the decay of the sound as you hold down a key (which I didn't notice with the Yamaha P-85), but it is not enough to detract from the overall sound. The other voices (upright and slap bass, electric pianos, strings, organs) sounded OK, but since I intend to use the keyboard almost exclusively as a piano I didn't really listen to them closely.

The stand/case is laminated plywood and looks good from a distance. It really gives you the impression you're looking at a real (compact) upright, though up close the wood grain is obviously fake. The veneer seems to be plastic or vinyl, not just contact paper as in some cheap office furniture, so it doesn't scratch or tear easily. The keyboard easily separates from the base, although it is still quite heavy and you need two people to lift and move it. The base is easy to assemble and disassemble: just a dozen screws in pre-drilled holes. Still, if you are looking for something portable this is not it; even to move it between rooms in the same house would be awkward.

The physical controls are rudimentary: there is a volume knob and a few buttons. Most settings are changed by holding down a button and pressing a keyboard key (which is not suitable for quick setting changes during a performance), and some of the less-frequently-accessed settings (like transposition) are not even labeled; you need to look up which keys to use in the manual. Still, this is what you expect for a digital piano.

There are two headphone jacks and standard MIDI connectors. There is no USB/PC connector (but you can buy a MIDI-USB adapter for around $30). There is no line-out (but for typical home usage this isn't a problem, since the built-in speakers sound just fine).

The velocity sensitivity, voice brightness, reverb, chorus, transposition, and tuning (to within a cent) are all adjustable. Other nice features include split keyboard mode with independent transposition (for duets), two-track recording, a metronome, and a library of pre-recorded songs (recorded in two tracks so you can isolate the left and right hands for practice). All the features are easy enough to access, although you may need to consult the manual to remember how to use them.

When shopping for a home practice piano, I compared several sub-$1000 models and reduced my options to the affordable, portable Yamaha P-85, the slightly-less-portable Casio PX-800, and this (the Casio AP-200). Of the three, the Casio AP-200 was the most expensive and least portable, but it also had the best key action, the best speaker sound, and the most attractive stand. Overall, it was the closest thing to a real piano I could find for under $1000. For a home practice piano it's about perfect, although if I started to get into MIDI/synth/computer composition I would probably switch to something more portable.

I really liked the key action, especially compared to the similarly-priced Yamaha P-85 I tried while considering the AP-200. The keys feel solid, and there is a nice "thump" when a key hits bottom. (One bad side effect is that the thumping of the keys is audible to bystanders when you're playing with headphones.) Key feel is subjective so you should really try keyboards out in person if you can; at least I can tell you that you will notice a difference between the Casio and Yamaha actions.

The first AP-200 that I bought had a defect: there was an artificial-sounding ringing or echo (like a really crappy reverb filter) during the decay, most noticeable in the high notes with the volume turned all the way up. It was subtle but very annoying once I started listening for it. I exchanged that model, and the new one did not have this problem.