Most piano teachers, if they are serious about what they do, are likely to direct students to purchase or at least be interested in an acoustic piano. However, there are many reasons why an authentic handcrafted instrument might not be your best choice. With portability, convenience, affordability and all the other features a digital piano offers, you might just want to head in the other direction. When it comes to digital versus acoustic, all it basically boils down to is just a matter of genuineness against everything else there is. This is how you can determine which will best suit you in the long run.

Acoustic piano are deficient in many features that you will find in a Digital piano, as the volume control and the convenience of porting your music to your personal computer and many others. The latest version of the Digital piano includes onboard functions such as the electronic metronome as well as mixing features. In comparison to the Acoustic piano, the making of a Digital piano involved the velocity calculating of each key, making this an array of high quality recordings possible. The aesthetic quality of the sound produced is of high quality. An Acoustic piano comprises of a multifaceted assortment of hammers, strings as well as other operational parts which function in association. This simply put, is that when any note is being played, in is not played entirely on its own, instead is affected by the surrounding mechanisms of the piano. As for example, when you play a chord on a Digital piano the outcome would be three notes being played, as though they have been recorded independently, whereas on an Acoustic piano, the three notes would act together with each other and become a stew of ambiance resulting in a more complex and more affluent reverberation. An acoustic piano has no limit of loudness or softness as to when a note is being played; digital pianos have a limited noise level that can be reached, meaning that you would not be able to play a note as loud or as soft as you wish.

Key touch is a vital issue aside from the sound. Digital pianos have been made to feel like their acoustic counterparts. The hammer on the digital has been applied to a graded hammer action, as with the line of hammers on the acoustic which slowly becomes lighter from the left to the right. The digital piano hammers are mainly an annex of the piano players' fingers. The hammers on the acoustic piano on the other hand acts as projectiles which are sprung at the springs.

In terms of cost, acoustic pianos are more expensive than digital pianos. Unless you can find someone to give you an acoustic piano, you'll find that you need to have some cash to buy one. If you're on a tight budget, you can get a digital piano for a few hundred dollars. Of course, digital pianos would always fall short in terms of sound authenticity; an acoustic piano is the way to go if you want to hear authentic piano sounds. But as mentioned earlier, the decision ultimately rests on your shoulder. You have to take into account your needs and other factors like budget and space. A digital piano is a good choice if you want to continue playing the piano and you neither have the budget or the space for an acoustic piano.