REVIEW – Lowrey EZP3 Digital Piano – Recommended – The Lowrey Organ company has been around for decades and is a well known home organ company which produces a variety of digital organs for professional & home use and primary purchased these days by older and retired people for recreational purposes. The EZP3 is their only portable digital piano which currently has an internet price of
$599US). I have played many Lowrey organs in years past and not only can I play the organ pretty well, I understand how to use their technology. It is not a well known fact that the Kawai piano company actually owns the Lowrey organ company and has been in control of that brand for nearly 30 years. So when it comes to digital pianos which the Lowrey company does not actually produce, how does Lowrey offer this model called the EZP3 when they don’t actually make it? The answer is simple…it’s an older repackaged Kawai portable digital piano that used to go under the model number of EP3. The new model number under the Lowrey name is called the EZP3, with the letter Z differentiating it from the older Kawai model number.
So exactly what is a Kawai EP3 (aka: Lowrey EZP3)? It’s approx 6 year old Kawai model that originally sold for about $1000 regular discount price in its day. It was a very good piano and I did a review of it back in 2011 and said some very good things about it and you’re welcome to read my review on this blog. The Kawai EP3 was a digital piano for people who wanted more of a portable piano to play and also wanted to be under $1000 price range. It had no “automatic arranger functions” which are features that allow someone to hold a one-finger chord or 3-finger chord on the left hand and have the chords play automatically just by holding any chord down with the appropriate keys and then playing a right hand melody along with the left hand auto-chord. That’s the digital feature difference between the Kawai version and the Lowrey version and that’s why Lowrey calls their model “EZ” which stands for “easy play.” If you will not be using and have no interest in using a simple easy 1-finger auto-chord on the left hand and you’re primarily interested in just playing/learning piano in the normal way along with having some other instrument sounds, a bit of recording and playback, and maybe a drum pattern feature to play along with drums which the Kawai ES100 has as well as the Lowrey, then the Kawai and Lowrey versions are identical.
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| Kawai ES100 cabinet |
Although Kawai is not making the EP3 any longer and has not done so for a few years, Kawai does have their newer ES100 portable digital piano which takes the place of that model in the under $1000 price range and sells for $699US internet price. The ES100 model has twice the piano sound chip quality as compared to the Lowrey EZP3, the same good piano key action, and better functions with a lighter weight cabinet all for $699. So why would someone buy the Lowrey with older piano sound and function technology over the new Kawai ES100, especially given the fact that the Lowrey name in digital pianos has little value in terms of resale as compared to the Kawai name? The Lowrey EZP3 does offer a more robust internal speaker system than the new ES100 with almost twice the audio power with more internal speakers and it also provides more and better connectivity to external devices. The EZP3 is heavier in weight by about 14 lbs or so, and it is also larger in size although it has a nice cabinet design with a 2-tone black & silver finish and…it has the EZ-Play feature which the new Kawai ES100 does not have.
The EZP3 has 21 total instrument tones, 96-note polyphony processing power, metronome, dual or layer, split, 4-hand mode, transpose, brilliance, voicing, reverb, MIDI ports, USB port, line-in, line-out, and the EZ-Play button and a few other nice features. But…it is approx 6 year old technology repackaged by adding an EZ-Play feature and changing the paint job and putting it under the Lowrey name. For $100 more at $699, you can also buy the new ES100 as I mentioned earlier that has a much more realistic piano sound chip or you can purchase a new Yamaha P115 for $599US internet price, or you can purchase a brand new Casio PX760 Privia digital piano with full stand and 3-pedal unit that looks more like a little piano along with built-in sliding key cover all for $699. If you want to keep the price way down then you can buy the very popular Casio PX160 with upgraded furniture stand together for an internet sale price of $549US, which for a portable digital piano is a better buy than the Lowrey in my opinion. The Casio also offers 3-sensor key action electronics while the Lowrey offers 2-sensors per key.
While I do like the Lowrey EZP3 and it is virtually the identical model to the old Kawai EP3, I would rather have the new piano technology found in the other models of digital pianos in this price range because ultimately that technology is much newer, the sound is much more authentic, and the other brand names have much better resale value on the used market should you ever want to sell it. Also most people I know of who play piano or are learning as a student (although there are exceptions) don’t use the EZ-Play feature on the Lowrey. If you want more info on this model or want to get the lowest possible price on a new digital piano, please contact me before you do anything with anyone.
*By the way, if you are the kind of person who does want the easy play type features including 1-finger & 3-finger auto-chording and a myriad of accompaniments and rhythms that are much more extensive and authentic than the Lowrey EZP3, then I highly recommend the new Casio CGP700 digital piano at $799US internet price. It’s an amazing piano and definitely worth the extra money in my opinion assuming you can bump up your budget. Please take a look at the following reviews of other piano options on my blog:
Kawai ES100 Review
Casio PX160 Review
Yamaha P115 Review
Casio CGP700 Review
If you want more info on new digital pianos and LOWER PRICES than internet discounts, please email me at tim@azpianowholesale.com or call direct at 602-571-1864.
