I will preface this review by saying that the piano itself is superb as a substitute to a real acoustic / grand piano. The action is excellent, and it feels very pleasant to play. However, what makes the action so good also makes it fallible and thus feels like purchasing a long-term problem.
My own MP11SE displayed early issues only 18 months after purchasing it, and the support I received both from Kawai and Thomann was very disappointing.
After reaching out to Thomann about my piano’s issues, they arranged for a technician to come see the piano.
He replaced all the slip tapes in my piano and he was very pleasant. However, his visit fixed one problem and left several more.
Two keys now have friction against each other (caused by the wood they are built with having splinters), and it is quite distracting to hear it each time I play a piece which involves those keys.
I let the technician know immediately while he was at my house and he told me that "slight noises are part of the normal operation of a piano" and while I agree somewhat, the noise wasn't there before.
Furthermore, after practicing a section marked "pianissimo" I noticed a high D was significantly heavier to press than the other keys. This prompted a more thorough inspection, and I found that in total three keys were affected. Their action is evidently deteriorated, and they are hard to press and slow to return to their original position. This is extremely concerning and incompatible with proper expression of dynamics in certain pieces.
I reached out to Kawai, who conveniently referred me back to my dealer (Thomann).
I reached out to Thomann, who told me that they wouldn’t be able to have a solution before I was due to relocate. Bear in mind that between the original outreach for the piano’s issues and today, almost three months have passed. Three months in which my piano significantly deteriorated due to the actions taken by the official channels, only 18 months after purchasing the piano.
In summary, the piano is excellent but it comes with a fair amount of headaches that owners will have to be prepared to deal with. Naturally, no one who spends this amount of money on proper equipment wants to have these problems, so buyers beware.
