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I've had both for a million years. (Well not a million!)
I use an Alesis QS8.1 which is 88 key piano action, but a full synth, not just a piano. I bought it because i thought that it was the second best feeling action. (Surpassed, IMO, only by Kurzweil.)
I think the Roland action is too mushy to compare to a real piano action, and the Korg lacks any feel of escapement. (I will assume you know what that is. If not, let me know.)
The keys on the Alesis ARE wooden, covered in a plastic, which is one reason the keys feel so good.
My piano is a Baldwin console in the $8k price range, back when i got it. (5 or 6 years ago.) The keys feel superb for a vertical piano, and the escapement is pronounced. I really like it. If i had my druthers, i'd record on a real piano, but for a live gig, i think it's pompous nonsense, (unless one is doing solo piano or classical) to haul around a 600# piano when a digital would do.
But as to the differences, make no mistake. A digital piano is merely a very good substitute for the real thing. They're easier to move around, they don't go out of tune, they do more than one sound, but only a piano is a piano.
As to your Glenn Gould question. Remember that the controller which is under the keyboard can only send the equivalent of a MIDI signal to the keyboard. That means there are only 128 levels of loudness from dead silence to as loud as it can go. So, figure each increment is about 0.75dB. A piano has about 4 times this resolution. So, the nuance obtained from hammers hitting strings is far more profound.
Also, remember that very few (except the REALLY pricey ones) have more than about one sample for every 3 notes. That means that 2/3rds of the notes are actually sped up, or slowed down versions of the exact same sample. For many applications, that wouldn't matter much, but the actually definition of the tone suffers. So, again, not like the real thing.
Lastly, except in the VERY high line stuff, digital pianos have no way to create the phase interactions between the sets of released strings. There is no internal reflection off the soundboard bouncing around and making the other keys vibrate in sympathy. So, the richness of tone is simply not reproducible on $500 - $4,000 dollar digital pianos.
Glenn Gould could use that richness to soften the impact on certain notes or certain areas of the keyboard to create richness at low volume, and when using the piano, sustain, or sustenuto pedals create a pallet of tones that a digital piano would be hard pressed to reproduce.
Last point (I'll bet you're glad!): The visceral element of piano is extremely well served by an instrument that weighs, at least, more than 300 pounds. A digital piano, if played hard enough, will move a little. A piano won't. So, the solid feel of a real piano is also very hard to replicate when it would require so much added weight as to eliminate one of the huge advantages of digital.
Hope that helps some. The Professor
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