Kawai K-300 Upright Piano

The K-300, Kawai’s latest 48″ piano, follows up where the K3 left off – leading Japanese design and quality into the 21st Century. The K3 was awarded the ‘Acoustic Piano of the Year’ award for 4 consecutive years, and so the K-300 had massive shoes to fill, and it delivered!!

The 48″ has always been the size and category where Yamaha and Kawai have ‘duked’ it out for decades, selling millions of pianos worldwide. And in the early 2000s, the champion of that battle was undisputedly the Kawai K3. Coming in at a slightly lower price point than the Yamaha U1, but still offering up all the same quality control benefits as any high-end Japanese piano. Plus, it offered longer bass strings and Kawai’s much-touted Millennium III action.

The K-300 was released in April/May of 2014 and started appearing in showrooms around North America throughout the summer. And it didn’t take long for the differences to show themselves. For one, the double-felted Mahogany hammers gave an instant complexity and warmth to the attack. And the cabinet looks as though it’s come straight from a high-end Germany design catalog. But perhaps the most interesting update to the K-300 is its key-action. All the keys have been lengthened to better simulate the feel and resistance of a grand.

The keys aren’t heavier, but they do feel like there’s more substance, and the control is noticeably improved. (This is not to say the K3 didn’t have great control already…it’s just gotten even better).

Action

The Kawai K300 upright piano features the incredible and award-winning Millennium III Upright Action with ABS-Carbon. Musically speaking, this action is far more fluid and consistent than actions generally found in Japanese pianos. They’ve also extended the key-sticks for greater control than most other 48″ uprights.

The exclusive Millennium III Upright Action is probably the single most important feature that draws people to the K-300, and for good reason, as this action has been universally acclaimed by pianists of all stripes.

Kawai’s use of abs-carbon composites in piano actions is among their greatest contributions to the piano industry. The Millenium III Carbon Fibre Action is found in the whole new K-Series line, and puts musicians in total control of their Kawai upright pianos.

Tone

The Kawai K-300 builds on the famous K-3 tone and adds a bit more warmth, colour, and complexity to what was already a celebrated piano sound around the world. This is achieved with: extended bass strings (more fundamental tone to work with), high-quality solid spruce soundboards (which get strategically tapered for optimal response and resonance), premium mahogany double felted hammers (for clear articulation) as well as Kawai’s approach to tension/scale design which inherently lends itself to warmer/darker tone quality. The tone of the K300 is beautifully expressive and rich and provides a perfect platform for musical expression

Hammers

Kawai is one of 3 piano manufacturers today to still produce hammer themselves in-house, and for the K300, they use double felted (underfelted), mahogany core hammers. Mahogany is a step-up from Maple as a material for piano hammers as it’s lighter and denser than Maple, meaning the hammer spends less time on the strings when striking, resulting in a less distorted, warmer tone.

NEOTEX key surfaces become available on the Kawai K-500 and on.

Soundboard

When looking to the soundboard in the K300, you’ll find another area where it’s clear Kawai spared no expense. The K300 uses a Solid Spruce (Sitka) soundboard, with only straight-grained spruce selected (also quarter sawn.) What really stands out though is that Kawai also tapers the soundboards prior to installation – a process typically reserved for much more expensive pianos due to its cost that improves the soundboards resonance potential.

This is a truly important distinction and one that can’t be made light of given how other manufacturer generally charges a premium and only include a tapered soundboard in many expensive models.

Rim/Cabinet

Kawai redesigned their cabinetry as well for the new K-Series for a more contemporary/sleek look. The K-300 features some beautiful beveled edging, an extra-long music desk/music rack, as well as a soft fall fallboard. It also has large solid spruce back posts for long-term stability and durability and stylish double brass caster wheels. The K-300 looks both classy and modern in any space and is often mistaken for a European piano from afar.

About Kawai

Kawai pianos have been built in Japan since 1927, and through consistency in quality and aspiration to continue innovating the modern piano, have become one of the largest and most respected piano makers in the world. The Kawai company remains family-owned/run and continues to focus its attention solely on piano-making acoustic and digital pianos. Kawai Musical Instruments make products to satisfy both the best pianists in the world, right through to aspiring students. Regarded as the Apple or Google of piano making – in the sense that they continue to innovate their products, while current ones continue to sell very well, which keeps Kawai stay ahead of the curve, and their competitors playing catch up. Kawai has been a treasure of piano-making for close to a hundred years.