The hands down winner is a properly outfitted Electronic Keyboard with unweighted keys. Properly outfitted being a decent set of headphones, a good quality sustain pedal, along with a plug-in power supply if the chosen Electronic can also run on batteries.
When it comes to the most powerful bang for your invested buck no acoustic or weighted-key digital piano can match the 'lowly', so often maligned Electronic. Even a free acoustic upright piano can't beat the price of a used Electronic because an acoustic requires an initial tuning, then twice a year tuning for it's lifetime.
Current Electonic examples available at Guitar Center or some other outlet are the 61-key Yamaha PSR-E363 and its more-keys sibling the 76-key Yamaha PSR-EW300. Noting that the power pack deal at Guitar Center is a con game where they charge you 30 bucks for an 11 dollar, PA130 plug-in power supply and then toss in the "free" outdated software learn-piano package that's a rip-off at a buck.
For both beginners and many pros there are huge advantages to the Electronic.
Beginners don't need to work on building finger strength with an unweighted-key Electronic. And stealth when learning any piece of music is of monumental importance for novices. Nobody wants to listen to you screw up as you learn piano and you don't want them to hear you. Headphones provide that stealth technology that no acoustic has. While the digital piano can also provide stealth the clunking of its weighted keys for anyone within in earshot is a deal breaker. It's akin to the sound differences between typing on an old manual typewriter when compared to a computer keyboard.
There's
a snob effect in the appeal of acoustic pianos which hides their inconvenient
truth. Any mechanical action of the piano keys that relies on gravity puts a
speed limit on the return of the keys to their resting position. Similarly the
player’s downward key strike on any gravity dependent keyboard system is slowed
down by the need to fight gravity in the lifting of the weight involved.
Meaning that unweighted key actions can be quicker on both keystrike and the
return because there’s a different, higher speed limit in their spring
controlled design.
Another
problem with digital piano weighted-key actions is their durability. The
mechanical strain on the inner workings of the weighted systems is intense. So
those inner workings are, in general, nowhere near as durable as the acoustic
piano actions they are trying to imitate. Where acoustics direct their
keystrike’s percussion action of the felted hammer at the choirs of strings,
weighted digital actions direct their percussion actions at the mechanism
itself.
Every
keystrike on a weighted digital key action hammering on itself. Pounding and
pounding on its own inner parts until the weakest part fails. Facts that can
easily confirmed by an online search for repairing the particular brand and
model of the weighted action. Spring-controlled actions also deteriorate but,
in general, at a far slower rate.
There’s
also bottom line cost issues involved with weighted actions. For they increase
the total cost of the keyboard without improving the quality of the sound or
the available features.
All
of the above meaning that in any given price range, an unweighted action
Electronic Keyboard has an easier, quicker keystrike response, better sound and
better features with greater durability. Tossing in its stealth and portability
seals the deal.
