Recomendation for speakers BEST for Piano?

Eldartford: Your entitled to all of your opinions too, but opinions are just that, especially when people like you dont have any true "hands on experience" with doing true controlled audio tests on a daily basis. I do just by playing my piano and bass guitar.

If you want to swing by and place a friendly wager(of cash)on how good your ears truely are. Feel free to email me directly. I would love to set up an audio test on fully controlled equipment and instruments where its garenteed that you will fail miserably, please be my guest. Ive yet to have one person walk through my door and do otherwise. And alot of these friends and aquaintences of mine are actual real musicians who actually have trained auditory senses unlike you. Playing an instrument and "listening" to instruments requires different skill levels. And its a fact that people who actually play instruments have a much higher degree of sensitivity to changes in amplitude and pitch, than people who just listen to musical instruments.

Just like the FACT that if you went blind, over time your other bodily senses would try and compensate for the sensory loss by increasing sensitivity and awareness to our other forms of physical interaction with our environment. Or is this just more "opinion" of mine? If you think so, Ill start posting some articles that are nothing but proven facts on what the human body is truely capable of and some of the tricks that the mind can play on our senses.

Ritteri...How do you know what experience I have? Again you quote your conjectures as if they were facts.

I play the violin. My wife plays our Steinway grand. I have screwed around with audio equipment since about 1953. My job involves the design and testing of complex military electronics. However, I don't claim that all this makes my ears any better than yours.

Again I say: your opinions (like mine) are of interest and worthy of consideration, but should not be confused with facts.

You play the violin? So do I! Who made your voilin? Full size?Type of wood used? Who made the bow? Horse hair or synthetic? WHat kind of strings do you use? How do you store your Violin?

Funny that you mentioned Violin's. I used to appraise them part time in Ma. to help pay my college tuition a few years back. It was a very enjoyable job, very laid back, but I learned alot about appraising,repairing, and even mfg. techniques used by old school string maker's in the area.

Steinway Grand too eh? Really? Which model does your wife have?

BTW, no opinions on my part,ALL facts until you can prove otherwise(and that isnt going to happen because I doubt you would ever be foolish enough to take on a bet you cant win). And you know how you can do that. Take me up on my offer so I can make you(your ears actually)look a bit foolish in person. Ill bet ANY amount of money you couldnt tell the difference between a Yamaha YDP223,a Yamaha U-1,a yamaha P-22,A Samic SIG50 a pair of Dunlavy SC-IVA's and Revel Salon's(I wont include the ML Prodigies because they have an easily identifiable harmonic distortion thats easy to pick up on, just like all planer speakers have)You would have 1 electric piano, 2 vertical's and one grand piano along with 2 pairs of full range competently designed speakers. With no visual que's you would NEVER be able to tell on a consistent basis if its "Live"(a real piano) or "memorex"(floor standers), let alone which model is playing(well maybe the electronic piano on a good day). If you feel otherwise, next time your in the Boston area, be sure to swing by.

But in all honesty you should have read some of the other posts above a bit more carefully about being able to discern the differnces in piano harmonics and full range speaker without even knowing what the actual piano is supposed to sound like in the first place from the original recording. There is no opinion to this, just a plain simple fact. If you dont know what the piano sounded like exactly to begin with before being recorded, how can you tell if the recording or speaker is faithful in itself to the original track? You cant, just like you cant make the original statement you made. And that my friend IS FACT.

Muralman, your enthusiasm for the Apogees is curious. I owned the Duettas for a time and found them exciting but ultimately unsatisfying. I suspect many others did too leading to the demise of the company. Their inefficiency and cruel impedance swings tended to bring out the worst aspects of most amps except those least suited to the nuance of piano and voice. I must confess that before your post on 11/14 I did not realize that the Apogees could all "straight line to 20db". For the Quads to match that feat you'd have to use the volume control but I think they get pretty close to 0dB with the mute button.

Ritteri, your comments are, well, more opinion than fact until proven otherwise, so saith doubting Thomas. I would be interested in hearing more details on how you have arrived at your conclusions, these tests that you have done. I haven't heard an audio system yet properly produce all the things necessary to convey the realism of a live piano, any piano. Timbre is the first to bite the dust but Quads do come closest in my experience but lack in other areas, dynamics mostly, to be totally convincing. I sure would love to have you prove me wrong cause then I will have found my speaker!

btw, I've heard some great recordings on both vinyl and CD on modified IRS 5 and Genesis 200 system which came closer than anything in ALL areas, but maybe I was fooling myself in believing what I heard wasn't real? ;^)