How does solo piano help you evaluate audio gear?

Thanks for partaking your interesting story...

I am glad we understood one another better...

I was more lucky....

I have a very good hearing judging by my work in small room acoustic...

I decided to realize my Hi-FI dream after my retirement few years ago...But no money...

I succeeded with improvising my homemade devices for electrical,mechanical and especially acoustical aspects, the three working embeddings dimensions for any audio system....All this at almost no cost...

I discovered by experiments that acoustic treatment and especially acoustic mechanical control over pressure zones distribution and laminar air flow guided by Helmholtz method and Has wavefront law in acoustic that no improvement upgrade can beat acoustic....

It is the reason why my 500 bucks system present a S.Q./price ratio over the roof....Embeddings control of the system...

My deepest regards to you....

@mahgister

Any contributions I afford, I do not put great value on. My experience with audio is "old" having gotten out as a shop steward in 2001 and continuing as financial backer until 2008.

All 3 shops achieved gossamer like status and no longer exist.

I have also lost about 30% of my hearing starting in 2005 when taking several motorcycle trips cross-country.

Perhaps playing trumpet in a jazz band did not help as well.

Perhaps i get touchy about my own inner turmoils but I am at the point now where "audio" has lost its esoterica for me.

Perhaps little makes any difference to me now. Perhaps i've heard too much. Perhaps I've achieved "ok is good enough" so don't go making a lot of fuss about nuthin". "This one sounds more clear and real to me than that one" Period. I am not one for word smithing or literary adornment. 

I have gotten to the point where "why do you like this wine? Is its bloom, its after note? its finish?

And I answer: "no, it just tastes fucking good to me."

I would make a very bad reviewer, "about this amp, it has no audio weight, its highs are rolled off, it is sparse in its detail and its bottom end is almost non existent...In other words, I think it sucks."

While I agree that we’ll recorded piano is excellent in some ways for testing speakers & whole systems in terms of tone, body  & real subtlety,  I think in many ways well recorded drums can  be even better. Bass drums, tom toms, snares, cymbals of all kinds are great tests of dynamics, frequency extension, speed & even imaging. Both styles of music & recordings are important to get a complete picture of what a speaker or system can do. 

I will add this observation, it takes many instrument and especially voices to evaluate the S.Q. of new speakers ... Piano was always a favorite of mine but cannot reveal all there is by itself alone for sure... Think for example like someone rightfully observed about cymbal decay...But by itself i think piano is a good "thermometer" of the room and not only a way to evaluate speakers...

But one this is said, remember that NO speaker can beat the room...

No speakers at any cost will beat by his upgrading power acoustic control,

Here are these 6 aspects of acoustic control parameters in a room i experimented with :

1 -Balance between absorbing surfaces,

2 -Reflecting one,

3 -Diffusive one....

This was "classical" passive material treatment of a room, now these 3 new other factors are related to my concept of the  mechanical active control of a room ( what i called a mechanical equalizer):

4-control over reverberation time and timing of the wavefronts

5- control over the distribution of the pressure zones

6- fine layering and tuning of the laminar flow

These 3 last aspects could be controlled with Helmhotz mechanical method NOT by electronical equalization...

Then the piano will not sound the same from the same pair of speakers in a non controlled room and in a controlled one...Not even close...
 

Dont upgrade good speakers with costly one BEFORE studying and experimenting with acoustic...

My acoustic devices and experiments were all homemade and cost me nothing...

I can then claim that great hi-Fi experience is possible at low cost contrary to what is claimed or supposed almost everywhere by almost everyone...

People dont know acoustic and never seriously try experimenting with it in a dedicated small room.

@mahgister,  I've agreed with pretty much everything you have said in this thread.   I will add a few comments/commentary.

When I am auditioning in a Brick and Mortar setting, time is limited and the variables are complex and not always controllable.   A speaker audition is a complex problem that is best solved by simplification.  Piano is a single, more or less full range instrument, whose harmonics are well known to most of us.  You can get to issues like tonal correctness across the audible spectrum and coherence/integration of drivers within a minute or two.  If a speaker fails this, you move on and haven't wasted 2 hrs on a speaker that might seem ok with other types of music, but 6 months and 20K later you want to get rid of.  I've personally not auditioned a speaker that passed the piano test and failed the voice test. My guess is there are none.   But piano won't tell you a lot that you need to know. Generally speaking, issues with imaging, soundstage width and depth, and dynamics, where many speakers can get very congested with a high volume complex orchestral work, may not be best discerned using solo piano.  So one certainly can't make a purchase decision based on piano alone, and I don't think anyone is really advocating that approach. 

 Piano is for me the first hurdle a speaker must pass.  I can reject a lot of speakers quickly using one or two well recorded and well known piano sonatas.  

What you say about the room is critical for anyone to understand.  But I won't take a pair of speakers home that don't sound right hoping the vendor had a lousy room.  Also, the caution you issue suggesting that people not go chasing expensive speakers until they are sure they have their room set up properly is extremely important.  Better speakers won't necessarily sound better in a room that is poorly treated and set up.  Relatively inexpensive speakers can sound mighty good in a room that is well set up. 

Along with absorbing  and diffusing surfaces, you mention reflective surfaces.  In my opinion, reflective surfaces and woefully underutilized.  Reflective surfaces that can convert early reflections into late reflections  is a trick I stumbled into by accident.  Proper use of reflective surfaces, in my experience, are an order of magnitude more effective in improving imaging and stage than absorbing surfaces. 

I concur with your post...

Especially this part..

Along with absorbing and diffusing surfaces, you mention reflective surfaces. In my opinion, reflective surfaces and woefully underutilized. Reflective surfaces that can convert early reflections into late reflections is a trick I stumbled into by accident. Proper use of reflective surfaces, in my experience, are an order of magnitude more effective in improving imaging and stage than absorbing surfaces