My wife and daughter recently started taking piano lessons and are enjoying it very much. My wife played instruments years ago, so she can read music and is picking up very quickly. My daughter is also doing extremely well and impressing the teacher. She is 5 years old. I think they will stick with it because they both really like it and are enjoying it. Right now, they have a casio keyboard that they practice on but it isn’t full size. I’d like to surprise them with a good quality piano or keyboard. I would like for it to be new and it has to be delivered/set up. So, I need recommendations on a piano we could be satisfied with for a very long time and that they would enjoy both as beginners and when they have more experience. I’m thinking a price range (delivered) of $3-$4000 but would go as high as $5k.
This might sound like heresy, but we bought a Yamaha YDP-121 digital piano and love it! The feel of the keys can be adjusted to your preference, the sound is outstanding, plus it has a lot of useful digital features such as a built in metronome and plugs for student and teacher headphones (probably the best feature, IMHO). It looks like a real upright piano. No, this is not an el-cheapo keyboard like you might get at Costco, it’s a very fine instrument, and for a lot less than what you are planning to spend. My daughters have both been taking lessons for ten years, and about eight years have been on the Yamaha. They perform very well at recitals, so it must be working for them. I ordered mine from Musicians’s Friend and had it drop shipped to the house, then I set it up which was pretty easy. I think we paid around $1500, but you can spend whatever you want depending on the model and features. You will need to buy a bench, but I didn’t have any problem finding one for cheap. Just my 2 cents.
I highly recommend a good quality digital piano over an upright. We got a Kawai for $3500 about 8 years ago and the feel is incredible. It has actual wooden piano keys. As for the sound…I don’t think I have ever walked into a house with a tuned piano. Pianos require a lot of maintenance. Digitals never have to be tuned, and you can always upgrade the sound modules later with software and a midi cable.
#1 why new, there are A TON of people that sell pianos for basically way less than half price (acoustic and electronic) #2 nowadays good quality electronic pianos are very very close to the real thing, for your budget you could nearly even get the pretty much state-of-the-art roland v-piano (6k new, comes out in June, amazing), but if you don’t want to spend that much other well reviewed options are the nord stage 88 (3.5k) and the yamaha cp-300 (2.2k)
if I were you, though, I’d rent a good quality electronic for 3-4 months from your local Guitar Centre (or big box music store) and after that re-evaluate, because you never know, they might find out that they aren’t as much into piano as they’d be into guitar, or bassoon, or oboe, or whatever, and if that’s the case you’d be out a couple hundred $ instead of several thousands
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For the price range that you mentioned, I would take a look at the Yamaha Studio pianos - good instruments for the price. A better instrument will give your wife and daughter the opportunity to progress better than a low end instrument. ie. the Yamaha Studio piano has a larger sound board than a spinet piano, but less than a grand. It is a nice instrument that could take a serious student to college.
FWIW, I would not hesitate to look at used instruments as it is not too hard to find a good deal on one with “low miles”. Obviously there are different opinions in this thread, but you are the one who has to live with the instrument, so just like buying a bike, etc. I would suggest that you test ride and listen to (or have your wife and daughter) several different ones on your list and that will probably end up making your decision much easier.
Hope this helps.