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Speakers that do pianos really well

I recently had the good fortune to listen to a half a dozen pretty well-regarded speakers back-to-back. For these kind of sessions I like using piano recordings - either solo or jazz trio - as a measure because, to my ear at least, it seems that speakers that can reproduce piano really well seem to be pretty well sorted on everything else. The surprising thing was how many of these speakers did NOT do piano well. Of the group there were only two - Vandersteen and Verity - that I thought really captured the big chords, shadings, timbres, and reverberations cleanly and naturally. The rest - and I'm not going to call them out by name - offered a mixed bag of over-brightness, distortion, and general unnaturalness. I was very surprised by the results as I expected better from some of these speakers based on their reviews and reputations. So my question is, Does anyone else use the piano as a litmus test, and what speakers do people use that they think do pianos really well? Regards.
grimace
robsker
132 posts
 
my view here is that when I have experienced poor reproduction of piano (on my system or on a friends) the main contributor, of course, is the source material (CD or vinyl). But from a system perspective, the CD player (and potentially, the preamp) are often the culprits. I know the post is about playing piano well... but when piano is bright, thin, or otherwise harsh... the and you are doing digital... the CD player is often the issue. So even with those speakers addressed above that can play piano very well if fed the proper signal... if digital is used... these speakers will pass on the trash if the CD player is the weak link
grimace OP
624 posts
 
To Robsker's point, I did use the same recording on all six pairs of speakers, so I was comparing apples to apples.
jetrexpro
506 posts
 
Johnnyb53,

Interesting response and most interesting that on my An-E's with my wife's very good ears we could pretty much tell it wasn't a Steinway. I think it is the attack on the 1981 Gould recording that gives it way. So many variables...wow.
robsker
132 posts
 
Grimace:

I am sure you were comparing apples to apples and I was not implying anything.

I was after a general point that I thought some might appreciate --- that being that piano reproduction is demanding upon the whole system and that often the culprit (in bad sounding piano reproduction) is the CD player and/or pre-amp --- that some of us likely have speakers that, if fed the right signal, would reproduce a fairly convincing piano --- and, as well, that great speakers fed bad signal sound bad.
italian
126 posts
 
In a modestly priced monitor the GMA Europa. As a reference I use the St Elsewhere Theme with the piano played by Dave Grusin (GRP Records). Wonderful. Also Kei's Theme by David Beniot. The Europa's does a great job on both and generally treat piano as to me a piano should sound.
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