The Kawai K-800 is the ultimate vertical piano from Japan by many accounts, bringing to bear Kawai’s full engineering and manufacturing prowess in a single model

It features Sostenuto, Agraffes, premium solid spruce soundboard (tapered), Millennium III Upright Action with ABS-Carbon Composites, Royal George Felt Hammers w/ Mahogany cores, oversized music desk with a Grand-Style “Hard Finish” Music Rack, heavy-duty solid brass casters, and much more. It has also a NEOTEX key surface material made with cellulose fiber that offers the smooth, understated texture of natural ivory and ebony—and a semi-porous, silica-filled surface to absorb the hand’s natural oils and perspiration that can cause slipping.

The Kawai K-800 Upright Piano is Kawai’s imposing upright piano flagship, developed and built in Japan to give the best possible playing and listening experience in an upright cabinet and also is the epitome of upright piano craftsmanship. The K-series piano offers a level of tonal quality and performance to compete with many grand pianos.

Sound

The tone of the Kawai K800 is colorful, warm, and dynamic that makes an elegant form and exceptional tone that will fulfill the needs of any professional teaching studio or intimate performance setting. It has a huge volume range and a widely varied tonal palette throughout that range. The bass is big, subtly brassy, and sustaining. The instrument has virtually no ‘meow’ in the mid-range; by that, I mean that its bloom is extremely short and almost undetectable – it reaches its full projection almost instantly and then sustains with remarkable evenness throughout the range of the instrument.

The action feels fluid and grand-like, and double-hits and missed notes are non-existent. A testament to both excellent factory prep as well as good geometry on the action.

The sound is bolstered by duplex scaling – both front and rear – on the entire upper half of the piano. The front duplexing is provided by the capo bars themselves, where the rear is unbraided. This allows for plenty of textural harmonics and really helps to simulate a treble normally only achieved on a grand model.

The K-800 uses the Carbon-Fibre reinforced Millennium III action, an action that has received near-universal acclaim as one of the best actions on the piano market today, regardless of price point. Although I tend not to be a fan of super tall cap-stand designs in larger uprights, Kawai somehow manages to achieve a level of control and responsiveness that I would normally expect out of a 48-50”, without giving up the dynamic response one expects from a 53”.

The keys are solid, the travel distance is neither deep nor shallow, and the repetition speed is consistent or better than another premium 52 and 53” uprights.