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Thoughts on the most difficult instruments for speakers to reproduce?

I’ve heard a number of speakers over the years, and the sounds of some instruments never seem as realistic as others. I would love to get some opinions on this, as I’ve been wondering about this for years.

My my vote on the toughest:
- Trumpet with mute (good example is Miles Davis)
- Alto sax
- violin (higher registers)

Thx!




glow_worm
offnon57
72 posts
 
piano
prof
3,511 posts
 

Let's hear why piano is so specifically hard to reproduce.

I'd say some reasons:

1. Spans more of the frequency range than most instruments, hence has wider scope to show weaknesses in upper and lower areas of the speaker design.

2. Has a combination of percussive yet soft quality (a soft "hammer" striking hard wires) that is so easy to miss, either becoming too fuzzy or soft, or too hard and artificial.

3.  It seems extremely hard to both record and reproduce the BODY of the piano sound.  In real life the whole instruments seems to be in play, and you can "feel" the weight of the vibrating strings and the soundboard, body of the piano.  On recordings and through hi fi systems piano becomes a set of detached, floating keys being struck...as if severed from and preserved, the rest of the instrument thrown away.
twoleftears's avatar
twoleftears
5,320 posts
 
Piano.
jafant's avatar
jafant
20,267 posts
 
Another +vote for a piano. It is a percussive and melodic instrument.
Happy Listening!
erik_squires
16,687 posts
 
I can think of a few things.

1 - Microphone placement - Audience, stage or in the case? This all affects what is in the recording to begin with. 

2 - Bass - This is why so many feel subwoofers can add so much to music. 

3 - Radiating patterns. Piano's radiate spherically, with some direction given by the main lid. Some sounds are mechanical and coming right off the floor. 

4 - Room acoustics. I heard the Magico S1MkII in the Magico showroom - they did great except in the bottom registers. A little too chesty due to the speaker tuning. However the rest of the piano was quite convincing. I can't help but think how much of that was thanks to having speakers in such a large well treated space in combination with speakers with unusually wide dispersion. 

It might be really interesting to do a 4 channel recording, but with the microphones in 4 directions around the piano and using speakers back-to-back to attempt to reproduce the sound. Would this make us feel closer to listening to a live speaker? :) Wish I was in college, it would make a good research paper. 

Best,

E
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