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How to reproduce sound of piano


I currently own a decent rig, Mac MA 2275, AP Sparks, Marantz 8001, Rega Apollo, Benchmark DAC w/ Squeezebox Duet. I love the way it sounds with jazz, voice, orchestral works and also it's decent with chamber music.

But I find when I'm listening to piano solo performances it doesn't quite sound nearly good as the live instrument. This is too bad because I mainly listen to classical piano works. I want to build a new system from scratch dedicated to listen to solo piano works as well as piano conertos.
I don't care for "warmth", "timbre", "soundstage" or other loaded audiophile terms. Just want absolutely accurate piano reproduction as possible.

What qualities should I look for? Analog vs digital source. Solid state vs tube amp? I find my tube amp unable to keep up with technical masters as Pollini or Horowitz. But will going to SS take away from the performces of more romantic pianists like Kempf and Zimerman? As for speakers, I never heard of a speaker capable of reproducing the deep bass of a 9ft+ concert Steinway grand. Are electrostatics way to go? My budget is around $25K USD. Thanks for any feedback.
plaser
guidocorona
4,298 posts
 
Newbee, you are absolutely correct. That is why I often say that our hobby is much more about the creation of a subjectively desirable hyperreality congruent with reality, than the replication of factual reality per se. What I hear in the Poroshina recording is a virtual performance from a vantage point no more than 12 feet in front of me, but with some low level detail elements that are more suggestive of a performer's viewpoint than a third party listener. Interestingly, some residual congestion of close chords towards the bottom of the 2nd and 3rd octave below middle C were largely addressed by replacing the original Synergistic Research T3 cord with the SR Precision Ref. What is very amusing is that the harmonic congestion I was initially detecting and later eliminated, is actually consistent with the listener's live viewpoint of most grand pianos under concert hall conditions.
detlof
1,899 posts
 
Very good points Newbee, Guido. In fact, I found for myself, that the sound that satisfied me the most, was not the sound I heard in concert, but that playing a grand myself (badly, alas) or sitting right next to one and thus hearing the full spectrum of sounds, those beasts are capable of. Apart from a few Phillips recordings of Brendel, the closest I came to this my perception of "reality", was with a Deutsche Grammophon, no less, Martha Argerich ( in her heyday ) playing the Liszt Sonata in B Minor on DG 2530193. I more or less fine tuned my system on this recording for piano. Also here you will practically hear all the side-effects Guido so expertly writes about and yes, I must try to hunt up that Brilliant classics Box and see how it does through my Spoiler.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,407 posts
 
Off the cuff, I'd love to hear a properly functioning pair of full range Ohm Fs sourced from a very good Class D amp like say a Rowland set up properly in a moderately large room with any quality digital or phono front end for a shot at doing piano exceptionally well for reasonable cost.
guidocorona
4,298 posts
 
Right on Detlof. . . I found that in some cases, there are some details of piano sound that I can hear -- or perhaps feel -- only when when my own now totally inept fingers are at the keyboard. . . e.g. the absolutely magic harmonics of a Bosendorfer. The 5 CD set of complete Dvorak piano works with Inna Poroshina at the piano is Brilliant Classics 92606. The quality of the compositions varies from dutiful to great. . . but Poroshina is invariably magnificent.
guidocorona
4,298 posts
 
Mapman, for the most refined results on piano using JRDG amps, you should consider models that either are equipped with active power factor correction like Continuum 500 and 312, or models that can be augmented by PC1 external PFC units like 201 and 501 monos. Without power factor correction, 201 and 501 can sound slightly 'matter of fact'. Fair to state that, even with my beloved JRDG 312 and Capri in the system, significant musical value was still added by the addition of the SR PowerCell conditioner + Precision Ref PC combination, to which I feed all components, including amp.
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