How to reproduce sound of piano

I suspect that there may be more ways to skin this particular 'piano cat' than there are audiofools on Agon. In my case, I have achieved magnificent piano results with a system that combines a digital front end, an SS pre, a class D amp, dynamic speakers dipping to 22Hz, and a recently added power conditioner. I listen to about 50% classical piano, the rest is chamber with a smattering of orchestral work and non classical. I will never be so bold as to assert that my way is the only way, rather that it has worked remarkably well and getting better for piano reproduction, as I make careful incremental changes. My system currently consists of TEAC Esoteric X-01 Limited CDp + PAD anniversary PC, Jeff Rowland Capri linestage + Cardas Golden Ref PC, Rowland 312 amp + Shunyata Anaconda Alpha Helix PC, Vienna Acoustics Mahler speakers + Cardas Golden Reference speaker wires. For piano analysis I often use Inna Poroshina playing The Ruins Of the Old Castle by A. Dvorak from a Brilliant Classics box of complete piano works. After I completed my review of Vienna Mahlers and Rowland 312 (TAS 188), I have added to my system a Synergistic Research PowerCell + SR Precision Reference PC. Surprisingly, I have experienced that the harmonic exposure in piano notes has increased to the point that on the lower notes I can easily hear not only the direct ringing of overtones 3, 5, and beyond, but also the faint contribution from treble strings of the grand piano resonating in sympathy with the bass.
In some piano recordings, I can now even identify the anomalous resonance of high strings immediately adjacent to the reinforcement struts of the inner cast iron harp. While I will write about the SR powerCell in a great deal more detail elsewhere on these pages, I suggest that there may be no single electronic/transducer technology to yield supreme excellence in piano reproduction. Rather, every component in a chain of disparate technologies can be synergistic (no pun intended) to overall results. G.

Guido, FWIW I think that your analysis of the value of a collection of audio equipment sort of focus's on its ability to reproduce (and for you to hear when the recording engineer puts his mikes near the sound board) what is going on when you sit next to the piano, just as a conductor hears from the podium, but the reality is that few of us ever do that. Our reality is quite different.

We are usually quite some distance from the piano where these low level sounds, some of which are mechanical and are not in the score at all :-) are lost, but where the dynamics and the appropriate volume rules our appreciation for what sounds like a live piano. But, to get that thru the recording and thru our audio systems it is going to get compressed. And it is that compression that really robs the music of any real sense of liveness. Ultimately you still have suspend your sense of reality and just 'pretend' that it is live.

You might be amused, but I work in a room adjacent to my audio room (accross am open hall way) and I often get caught up more in piano music playing when I'm there than sitting in the sweet spot. :-)

Newbee, you are absolutely correct. That is why I often say that our hobby is much more about the creation of a subjectively desirable hyperreality congruent with reality, than the replication of factual reality per se. What I hear in the Poroshina recording is a virtual performance from a vantage point no more than 12 feet in front of me, but with some low level detail elements that are more suggestive of a performer's viewpoint than a third party listener. Interestingly, some residual congestion of close chords towards the bottom of the 2nd and 3rd octave below middle C were largely addressed by replacing the original Synergistic Research T3 cord with the SR Precision Ref. What is very amusing is that the harmonic congestion I was initially detecting and later eliminated, is actually consistent with the listener's live viewpoint of most grand pianos under concert hall conditions.

Very good points Newbee, Guido. In fact, I found for myself, that the sound that satisfied me the most, was not the sound I heard in concert, but that playing a grand myself (badly, alas) or sitting right next to one and thus hearing the full spectrum of sounds, those beasts are capable of. Apart from a few Phillips recordings of Brendel, the closest I came to this my perception of "reality", was with a Deutsche Grammophon, no less, Martha Argerich ( in her heyday ) playing the Liszt Sonata in B Minor on DG 2530193. I more or less fine tuned my system on this recording for piano. Also here you will practically hear all the side-effects Guido so expertly writes about and yes, I must try to hunt up that Brilliant classics Box and see how it does through my Spoiler.

Off the cuff, I'd love to hear a properly functioning pair of full range Ohm Fs sourced from a very good Class D amp like say a Rowland set up properly in a moderately large room with any quality digital or phono front end for a shot at doing piano exceptionally well for reasonable cost.