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Speakers that do pianos really well

I recently had the good fortune to listen to a half a dozen pretty well-regarded speakers back-to-back. For these kind of sessions I like using piano recordings - either solo or jazz trio - as a measure because, to my ear at least, it seems that speakers that can reproduce piano really well seem to be pretty well sorted on everything else. The surprising thing was how many of these speakers did NOT do piano well. Of the group there were only two - Vandersteen and Verity - that I thought really captured the big chords, shadings, timbres, and reverberations cleanly and naturally. The rest - and I'm not going to call them out by name - offered a mixed bag of over-brightness, distortion, and general unnaturalness. I was very surprised by the results as I expected better from some of these speakers based on their reviews and reputations. So my question is, Does anyone else use the piano as a litmus test, and what speakers do people use that they think do pianos really well? Regards.
grimace
italian
126 posts
 
In a modestly priced monitor the GMA Europa. As a reference I use the St Elsewhere Theme with the piano played by Dave Grusin (GRP Records). Wonderful. Also Kei's Theme by David Beniot. The Europa's does a great job on both and generally treat piano as to me a piano should sound.
ptss
1,964 posts
 
To do a piano well requires a speaker with mass. Otherwise many subtleties are drowned in the vibration of a smaller lighter speaker. Of course sound can be beautiful w/o being reasonably accurate. $ + sense are factors as always.
I reinforced and mass loaded my 200 lb speakers to 470 lbs and the delicacy and dynamics became startling and most enjoyable.
Steinway just sold. I hope they maintain/improve quality-pianos, of all instruments, deserve the finest. Most creators of music still use them.
bander's avatar
bander
504 posts
 
Don't know if they were mentioned already but if you can, audition Audio Note
speakers. I dropped something off to be repaired and piano music was playing. I was floored by the realism of the music coming through the Audio Note's. Gorgeous.
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,882 posts
 
Tonian Labs. Like Audio Note, they go counter to the "built like a vault" way of speaker building and still end up sounding very realistic.

That, and I agree with what Robsker says about what's upstream as well.

All the best,
Nonoise
br3098
995 posts
 
IMO, no speaker can actually reproduce the tonal range and timbre of an acoustic piano realistically, but some I have heard have come closer than most.

To my ears, the old Apogee Full Range Planar was the best at reproducing piano, other EL/planar speakers such as the Maggie MG-1 and SoundLab are also very good, for a couple of reasons: I believe that not only does the nature of the planar transducer more accurately represent the effect of piano strings and a soundboard, but the dipole design produces a similar reflective environment.

I find the Quad designs pretty good at piano reproduction, but their limited panel size makes them less accurate for piano than the aforementioned larger speakers.

One non-planar speaker that impresses me with it's ability to reproduce piano and other tones with little coloration os the Earo Eight; an active, rear-loaded horn design that I find sounds remarkably similar to a planar speaker (but is much more room tolerant and wife friendly).
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