Why not the piano as a reference for bass

A few years ago the local Yamaha piano dealer rented our local concert hall, The Kravits Center, in West Palm Beach, for an entire weekend to promote pianos.  A concert pianist was hired to demonstrate and compare the entire range of instruments from the mighty C9 on down.  The most impressive range to me were the upper end of the Clavinova range.  These are electronic instruments voiced to clone the sound of Yamaha C7 and C9 Concert Grands.  The keyboards are dimensioned and weighted to mimic the full sized instruments as well.  Some very accomplished pianists tried them and verified the claim.  I have perfect pitch and in terms of tonality and dynamics at least in the hall going from one to the other, the sound was indistinguishable.  That was on day one.  By day 3, the C7 was going ever so slightly out of tune which gave it away in favor of the Clavinova.  The C9 held firm.

@billstevenson 

I went to a violin / piano recital at the Sydney City recital hall last week, where in the 20 minute interval, a piano tuner came on stage to work on the concert grand piano in full view of those who did not need a beer or a bubbly!  That’s pressure ...

It would be interesting to learn if Yamaha bothers to synthesize the fundamentals for the lowest notes, or just creates the harmonics.  And to learn about the transducers (speakers) they use to produce the sound.  These extra variables are why I suggested doing your own experiment on a genuine mechanical piano.  It is no use listening to recordings through loudspeakers especially if the speakers are in your laptop.

In my sleep last night, I thought of another reason why the piano is an excellent sound reference.  It is because the sound produced from a single key depends only on how quickly the key is pressed, and the piano itself.  The ’touch’ of the pianist is irrelevant because the hammer mechanism is decoupled from the key mechanism.

That is unless the pianist reaches inside and manipulates the strings ...

@billstevenson 

At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, electronic pianos contain sound systems, with all their faults and idiosyncrasies.  At least some of Yamaha's Clavinova range contain cone drivers and use piano wood for the pulp

Drawing from our experience in building both acoustic pianos and high-end speakers, Yamaha CLP-785/795GP speaker cones use pulp from the same spruce wood used to make acoustic piano sound boards. The result is a more natural, piano-like attack to the sound that is more piano-like when you play the keys.

Testing bass is not testing a deep frequency but a lot of  band range interacting...

If an audio system/room do not reproduce  well a piano you had lost your money....

To test bass i use preferably piano, tuba, and organ ..

Re piano. I rediscovered an album from long ago that I found in the cut-out bin of a long-forgotten record store. The title is "audio symphony", Check up your sounds Vol, 1. It was produced by RCA Japan in 1976 and distributed by Audio Technica.

It has a 14 page insert describing all the equipment used and even includes the music score sheets. Although it goes into minute detail of the equipment used it does not describe the piano. Notable is the use of an Ampex 440c and Studer A-80MK II reel to reel. Both running at 30 ips.

The sound quality is astoundingly good with dynamic range and quit background even on my modest system, The bass quality of the piano is remarkably good but I would agree that it is not the best test of a systems bass agility and depth.

Also, as someone else mentioned bowed string bass (in this case a trio playing in unison) is also a pretty good measure,