Piano Notes On Harbeth SHL 5

"so is it only me"
No its not only you,IMO if you like the speed,transparency,detail etc of Dynaudio theres really no way to go with Harbeths.Although Ive never owned Harbeths(and never would)Ive listened to them way too many times and always came away with the same impression as what your saying..So no, your not alone

very strange ,I find highs of SHL5 more extented than on Dynaudio C1 or contour s1.4 I tried krell and shl5 for several times,and found it was not a perfect match.I think piano notes are perfect on harbeth ,but driving them with japanes Technics mosfet amp su-a3000,su-c3000 which sounds much more cleaner and have better midrange(more weight,livelier) reproduction.

Piano strings are in groups that decay in various degrees if sustained...compare a digital piano by muting it during a chord strike and then bring in the volume while it's decaying and you can demo what I mean...an actual piano has movement and harmonic waves during decay, digital piano doesn't. El Fluctuo A Mundo.

I sold some otherwise well regarded speakers due to midrange piano distortion...I listen to a lot of acoustic piano in small jazz trios or whatever and I have to have it clean or it drives me nuts.

I found my Shl5 very sensitive to speaker placement and room treatment as it creates a lot of mid bass around the room. I was having fat undefined bass and too warm sounding mids before room treatment. After placing one ceiling trap and 2 multi-traps at the back wall, the bass is now tight and defined but the mid and highs are almost too neutral to my liking. When moving the speakers a few inches in or out again changes the character of the sound. I found they are much more difficult to place then my Thiels 3.6! Anyway, once placed right, their tones, textures and mids range are very addictive!

Interesting observation. I agree that recorded piano tone can often be bothersome, but "thick" isn't a descritpive that I'd ever be inclined to use for any reproduction of piano. So, it's hard for me to comment on the Harbeth from your description, but....

Recording techniques vary so much and the pianos themselves vary so much (a new concert grand will sound rather different than an old upright with worn pads on the hammers) that it's hard to know if even really good reproduction by your system will sound satisfying on any given recording. As Wolf mentions, digital pianos (pretty common these days) sound different, too.

I've attended a recording session and watched everyone struggle - and never really succeed - in trying to get the piano to sound just right. I've also recorded my own (pretty horrible) playing on my daughter's high quality Kawai digital upright in the living room and can never get it to sound right 20' away in my listening room.

There are occasions when it's pretty evident that the system is the culprit, but I rarely use piano recordings to reach that conclusion. When it comes to problems in reproducing piano, I'm always wondering about the recording and reluctant to blame the system.