How does solo piano help you evaluate audio gear?

Yes, when they sing those low notes, they run 3’ to the left….. , capturing the spatial cues while keeping EVRYTHing else in balance…is the difficult part….

carry on, i got a microphone preamp to tweak…..

Jim

@serjio 've had my pianos voiced at some expenditure of time (and some money). They sounded fabulous for the moment, and maybe two weeks out before souring. Bernstein's guy told me to get rid of the old Bosendorfer and buy a Steinway. 

You are right about EQ. It is frowned upon in high end circles, even the top end stuff (eg. Cello) is regarded as a curiosity, not a "solution." 

I'm not sure I fully understood your discussion of manufacturer offered configuration variables, I think there are simply too many variables for a single manufacture to  be responsible for some non-existent standard. 

@hilde45

for me, it is a useful comparison in many respects

we are fortunate to have a lovely 1920’s bechstein grand in our living room - sometimes it is fun to hear it being played live, as a reference, then compare various aspects of its sound to what can be reproduced by the hi-fi (albeit in a different room)

There is no question that a well-recorded QUALITY piano in good tune played by a pianist who really knows and understands the piano, is an essential litmus test to appraise the tonal verity of an audio system. The same applies to reproducing the human voice, male and female alike, as well as "massed strings" and a full symphony orchestra.

ALL of these music sources must be as well-recorded as humanly possible - it can be very difficult sometimes to single out really GOOD recordings from lesser-quality ones to use as our be-all and end-all test recordings.

The pipe organ is another very difficult instrument to record well - and it is often overlooked as a means-test to judge the performance of an audio system. Like the piano and the symphony orchestra, the pipe organ possesses a very wide frequency and dynamic range. There are some splendid examples of organs found today around the world - for example, the organ that J. S. Bach himself knew well and played, the very beautifully restored (in 2000) instrument the renowned organ-builder Zacharias Hildebrandt (1688-1757) built between 1743 and 1746 in the Wenzelskirche in Naumburg, Germany. Bach himself highly praised Hildebrandt’s work, and there has recently been released on the Aeolus label an audiophile-grade recording of J. S. Bach’s Art of the Fugue ("Die Kunst der Fuge") played on this historic Hildebrandt organ. Here’s a brief YouTube video describing the making of this recording:

The excellent recording introduced in this short video (I have a copy of this SACD/CD which I highly recommend), gives us listeners the opportunity to hear how the well-recorded sound of a fine pipe organ can also be used to evaluate the quality of our audio systems.

I got rid rid of a Rega turntable when I was playing an album of Beethoven Piano Sonatas by Wilhelm Kempff and the triplets in the opening movement of the Moonlight Sonata were being bent so much that they sounded like a Mellotron