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
I would chose voices and acoustic instruments, especially piano, violin and trumpets.

Back eons ago I was a rock and roll drummer and with some (but not all) well-recorded ride cymbals, you can "hear" the ping of the stick against the brass and "feel" the timbre of the cymbal vibrating.
kdude661,121 posts04-23-2018 11:49pmPiano,Piano,and Piano.

When you have a system that gets all aspects of the Piano correct everything thing else will be there,with maybe the exception of the lwr Organ notes being totally realistic.

Kenny.


100% agree.  In building components, I spent a few years on how to get the piano right.  I wanted to not only hear the wood of the piano and the hammers hitting the strings but I also wanted to hear the length and thickness of the strings and the attack and the decay.  It was a long road but now at the end, it was worth the effort.  Happy Listening.
The obvious/tried-and-tested options are all mentioned above (ie, piano; massed strings; muted trumpet). 

But another instrument that tests speakers/entire system in a very different way is the vibraphone ("vibes"). This is primarily played in acoustic jazz and/or modern percussion composition.

The layout of brass keys is piano-like, but the sound is very different: keys are struck with mallets, so you get that 1st-strike transient, followed by lengthy sustain (courtesy of sound propagation tubes beneath each key). My favorite players use 2 mallets per hand & can play many notes, simultaneously or in fast sequence.

The result is a characteristic "shimmer" to the sound. It's a louder than you think, something microphones readily react to if not set up properly. 

I find that speakers & electronics that fully convey the complex sound of this instrument can generally hit it out of the park on just about every instrument.