Florian75 I have the K400 for a little bit over 3 months now and would say I play it 90% acoustic and 10% with headphones. The Aures 2 is a nice add-on but for me lesson learned is, I could have saved a little bit and just bought the ATX4 version. When I want to play without headphones I just play it in acoustic mode, the sound is so nice and it fills the room in a way no speaker or transducer system can. My subjective opinion is that the Aures systems sounds better than the NV12, because you have a "real" and massive soundboard that is resonating. However, direct comparison Aures 2 vs. Acoustic is again pretty disappointing for the Aures. Nothing compares to the real thing.
A little bit off-topic: I stopped playing piano for nearly 30 years ago. In the Corona lockdown I saw a Horowitz video on YT and thought….hey playing piano was actually really cool and after some research on digitals just ordered a Kawai CA-99. I was always a good sight reader and playing maybe on intermediate level. When the instrument arrived and I spent some time with it, it was crazy how things came back. It was like somebody opened a long-shut door to another dimension. I guess this is something only musicians can relate to.
Since then I am on a journey to find my perfect setup. Already after 3 months or so I changed the CA-99 for the NV10, because the grand piano action is so much better than any digital action. Then, last year I visited Vienna and went to all the piano stores there to test drive some uprights. Over the street from the hotel was the Steinway Store, where I tested the K 132 Upright. At the Bösendorfer Salon I tried the 130 CL with and without Silent System. My wife was pretty annoyed because after Bösendorfer I also went to C. Bechstein and two other general piano stores. Later that year, I also visited the Blüthner factory to test their uprights, which was a really nice experience. At Bechstein Berlin I tried their complete concert and resident upright lineup. I also had the chance to test the Steingräber 138 & 122 and the August Förster 116, 125 & 134. Other brands I tried so far are Yamaha (up to SU-7) and a few Schimmels.
At my Kawai dealer I tried all the Kawai uprights up to the K-600 and that's how I found my K-400 in the end. Besides the awesome warm tone (if you like that, some people don't) I choose it because I was afraid that the bigger ones would produce to much volume in our home and I don't want to annoy the neighbours to much. However, I had to find out that even a K-400 is super loud when you haven't practiced on a real acoustic piano for a long time like me. I had to learn again to control the dynamics. At first it's really a shock how much power and dynamic range an acoustic instrument can deliver. This is something you can't practice on a digital and will also lose over time when playing with digitals only. At least that's my experience. After re-learn how to control an acoustic instrument, I am now thinking that maybe even the big K-800 would fit in the room 😆. And there's also the super nice Master Series coming.
But back to the original topic, Aures2 is superior to the NV12 Pentadrive. I learned that I don't need it when I have an acoustic instrument, but it's definitely nice if you want to play without headphones and being able to turn down the volume. Especially if it's the only instrument you can accomodate, then with Aures2 you have all the options. For practicing I also kept my NV10 in a different room, to be able to play with a grand piano action. The NV10 I mainly play with headphones and VSL or Pianoteq.
