I just bought a Steinway which sounds like a banjo.


I have a question: I’ve seen a lot of terms in audiophile jargon: laid back, top end, low end, harsh, soft, smooth, etc.
I don’t understand them. I only listen to recorded music, almost nothing synthesized. So the adjectives I know are: pitch, timbre, dynamics and spatiality. I cannot think of sound characteristics that are not inscribed within these four adjectives.
I believe that a sound reproduction device must first of all take care to satisfy these 4 characteristics.

When I read that a loudspeaker sounds harsh to me it means that the timbre is wrong because nobody would describe as harsh the reproduction of an instrument that has a harsh timbre. That would be a speaker that has a correct timbre. It can only be described as harsh the reproduction of an instrument that does not have a harsh timbre. The same goes for the other terms listed at the beginning. For spatiality it is even simpler because it is a geometric, spatial question. An ensable of which occupies 5 meters must sound like an ensambe that occupies 5 meters, not as one that occupies 2 meters nor as one that occupies 20 meters. Then the dynamics is linear so it is the simplest of all.

When Steinway puts a Steinway on the market it does so by taking care of a certain amount of objective characteristics, i would say 96-98% and 2-4% are probably left to the "character" of the instrument.

In the audiophile field, judging by the immense difference between one reproduction technology and another, it seems that the opposite meter is used, that is 4% of objectivity and 96% of character.
As if a Steinway sounded like a forgotten Pleyel in a basement, and a Pleyel sounded like a Boesendorfer. The whole is defended with sword drawn by the audiophile community as and cleared as subjective perceptions or eventually as an incompatibility between the elements in play (source, amplifier, speakers, cables) Hahah! Obviously, if all the products that follow the 4% objectivity meter and 96% "character", it takes a lot of luck to have a system in your hands that allows you to recognize a Pleyel from a Steinway.

When will sound reproduction become serious?
128x128daros71
x Brianlucey: I understood my mistake. Maybe I haven’t explained my idea well, or, because other people have understood it, you simply have not understood it. You’re posing the problem as if I wanted to synthesize the sound of a piano ... I don’t want to synthesize the sound of a piano. I would like a speaker to be able to reproduce all the dynamic range, all the timbre and all the spatiality of real instruments. To do this one must have the possibility to compare the original with the reproduction and if there is any discrepancy, precisely identify the origin of each problem. He must also have the possibility to compare all reproduction techniques and all reproduction media, trying to identify the exact peculiarities of each one and its repercussions in the reproduction phase. Today we have many recordings available but they are all made in circumstances so different from each other that we cannot become wiser because the combinations are too many. It would therefore be necessary to remake masters in controlled situations, so that each variation can be related to a repercussion and mold the construction of the loudspeaker around that information.
It’s completely useless that some of you tell me that they are satisfied with their system! You simply are the champions of the silly "brute force empiricism" approach.
If i buy a source, an amp and speakers, i turn them on (ohhh yes! One year of burn in, i know!), play a known track and no instrument sounds like it should then the silly "brute force empiricism" approach is the only way i can go...i can pass the rest of my life thinking about hifi gear and go for the endless the try-and error highway, hoping to find the three components that song wrong enough to copensate each one. All that in my space in my home...completely useless to listen to a speaker at the resellers shop because wen you bring the speaker at your home it sound completely different. It’s your space!, It’s your amp! the cables!
Imagine i go to buy a sax, i play it in the store, i like it, i buy it, i play it at home and i’m disgusted. I go back to the shop to complain and they tell me that it’s probably because i’m playing the sax in the wrong space with the wrong t-shirt.
It seems that we cannot understand each other. It’s fine.
I like to use my head to formulate theories; you’d rather use it to bang it on the "wrong hi-fi component" wall. Brute force empiricism, or how to share a problem and never its solution. Only a logically structured solution can be a shared solution.

I’d recommend a pair of Quad electrostatics. I have a pair of the 2905’s powered by an ASR Emitter II Exclusive, an Ayre DAC with a Bryston media player. The speakers are very temperamental in the way they are positioned but the results are beautiful when properly set up. The Quads shine where classical/art music is concerned and less so that with rock. Also, Steinway made a limited run of loudspeakers but they’re way too expensive and I don’t know how difficult it would be to even find a pair.
You're talking about the circle of confusion. There is no answer unless you standardize the entire production and reproduction chain. Unless that ever happens some recordings will sound great on your gear and some will suck. The closest I've come is using studio monitors that measure exceptional and DSP to compensate for room shortcomings.
X djones 51 
Yes, exactly this is what i'm saying. You got it. 
And you are right, my tiny 1000 euro genelec monitors are able to reproduce sound in a far more natural way as my silly 10k shiny speakers, non matter with which amplification, source, space i let them play. That do not makes any sense. 
Lyngdorf are producing the Steinway Speakers, known originally as the 
Brand, 'Lyngdorf Steinway'.
I believe recently the Lyngdorf name is not as prominent and the latest
collaboration for Speakers are to be found under the Brand name
'Steinway and Sons'.