Speakers for High-End Digital Piano


Hello,

I have a high-end digital piano (Kawai MP8II). The keyboard is in a dedicated living room with a hardwood floor, couch, chairs, windows (no drapes) and high-ceiling. The room (approx 800 sq ft) can seat about 15 people. Uses: for solo piano playing (classical, some jazz/contemporary) and classical chamber music. Requirements -- speakers that would produce warm acoustic realism to hypersampled piano sounds (i'm using Ivory II American Concert Steinway D & Kawai EX Pro). I have tested several active/powered speakers (Mackie, JBL, Yamaha) and have not found them satisfactory.

Two questions:

1. Which mid to high-end floor-standing speakers would you recommend (budget is $4,000).
2. What kind of peripherals would I need (e.g., cables, amplifier, etc) to connect the digital piano to the speakers. The piano outputs have "R, L/mono" and fixed XLR R & L.
koncherto
This is a tough one. I have a Kawai digital piano, too (really nice keyboard feel) and I've used Carver cinema ribbons run full range with a sub for the bottom end. The Carvers roll off naturally at about 90 cycles in my room and are IMHO one of the few speakers that hands off nicely to a sub without an active crossover. I ran the RCA outs to the subwoofer and the full range output from the sub to the Carvers. I also used a corner bass trap between the piano and the corner it straddled.

This isn't a set-up I'd use for hi fi reproduction, but it worked very well for this application. OTOH....

While the sound is "crisper" and more dynamic than the internal electronics in the Kawai, you lose the resonance of the piano's "box" and the feel that comes back to you thru the instrument. These days, I generally use the internal set-up, although the external system is still there. On the rare occasions that my wife or daughter play for an audience (something I'd never do) we may activate the external system.

Good luck.
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Maybe the active pro monitors just needed to be bigger? Those brands are popular for your application.