Thoughts on the most difficult instruments for speakers to reproduce?

@jdliguori, please do not do it here, as there are too many snake oil threads already ( which I am a contributor ). Enjoy the Jack Johnson, as it is awesome ! Always, MrD.

If using your speakers for home theater, which sports a wide dynamic range with Blu-ray’s and UHD’s, there are some interesting sonic categories that, while not falling under acoustic instruments as such can be a challenging effort for speakers to reproduce, and also reflect on their abilities into music reproduction. Take for example a ships horn from a warship or commercial ditto, like from the Blu-ray to the film “Captain Phillips” (2013) where towards the end there’re some serious bursts from such a horn flaring off on a warship. If the speakers are up to the task here you’ll experience a startlingly forceful, dry, dense and present sound, demanding dynamic prowess, ample air displacement area and very little smear (i.e.: transient “snap”), but also calls for a high degree of coherency. These are important traits reproducing instruments like (concert) piano, solo violin, drum kits and saxophone, and so is a telling ability on your speakers performance over an even wider arc, I find. A banal example on the face of it, perhaps, but I’ve found it to be quite useful; watching films from such high quality formats over your stereo brings along a new set of tools to evaluate your speakers worth in many regards, some of which may not be readily exposed with music only.

Piano.

Digital is not always bad, so with the proper set-up we can get quite acceptable quality, meaning a lot of instruments sound very acceptable. Of course, the rest of the system should support such elevated quality levels as well. Nevertheless, even with the current high end audio, it is still easy to differentiate life from recorded music. (analog and/or digital). It al comes down to what we find acceptable, which is personal. Some people are prepared to go further than others. I believe that the sound of certain instruments is harder to reproduce using audio equipment within a certain price class. To reproduce the sound of certain instruments properly, it may take a higher investment, perfect room acoustics and so on.... (however, I (and you) believe I (we) can easily detect if what I hear if life or recorded music, so...the engineers are not yet done with it...)