How to reproduce sound of piano

"Krell does a good job on piano"

I've heard the $2500 Krell integrated do a very respectable job on piano music with Martin Logans.

I agree with Jax2 and Tobias. Vinyl played through horn speakers with tube amplification are the way to go for things that cover the full frequency range all the time, like solo piano music, or large orchestral or opera. I also agree with Detlof that some of the finest recorded piano sound out there, both for recording quality and interpretation, are Alfred Brendel's recordings for Philips, the Dutch pressings. I just picked up his 70's Beethoven Sonata set, it is truly magical. I also have a few of his Mozart Piano Concerto recordings with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, also on Philips. Again, magic.

For those of you who also love Brendel's playing, some sad news. He performed his last live concert the other night in Vienna. Our recordings are all we will have of him, now. I hope he continues to teach and write.

On the subject of realistically recording the grand piano, I don't know that it's particularly difficult rather than the engineers being scared to do it without compression?
Listen to Keith Jarrett- The Koln Concert on ECM (recorded live) to see how realistically you can transfer the concert grand to vinyl or Masaru Imada-Piano on Three Blind Mice.
The best recorded classical concert grand I've yet heard is Liszt Sonate h-Moll B Minor by Daniel Barenboim on Deutche Grammophon.

My Apogee Scintillas, source a no oversampling DAC, can not only do a piano accurately from the lowest A key to the highest C, but at full volume as well.

We have a nice piano too.

I agree with Jax2 and Tobias. Vinyl played through horn speakers with tube amplification are the way to go for things that cover the full frequency range all the time, like solo piano music, or large orchestral or opera.

Er, ah, I didn't say that. I don't listen to vinyl anymore (except in friend's systems), but certainly enjoy it. I also said nothing about horns, though I've enjoyed those in the past as well, and remain a big fan. I'm not sure I'd agree with everything you've said. I'd agree that solo piano is well served (or can be) by the system topology you propose. I'd have to say that my experience, at least with SET amplification and horns, is that it would not do the scale and dynamics of opera or large-scale orchestral music as much justice as I've heard done with other means of amplification (though it certainly can sound quite good). As far as other tube amps (push/pull, pentode, etc.) my own experience has been that the larger scale, more dramatic/dynamic music that is more densely layered seems to be better served by various SS amps I've had and or heard, though OTL tube amps have occurred to me to be a contender as well. Though I used horn loaded speakers for many years, I no longer do because of space limitations (I haven't been fond of any of the smaller horn solutions I've heard, and just don't have the space in my current room for the horns I'd like). I'm currently using Coincident Super Eclipse III's (not horns), which I like very much. Perhaps what we do agree on, and what I was trying to point out, is that one does not necessarily require high-watt SS amplification to get close to a convincing sound of piano. It seemed like early posts seemed to focus on that perfectly reasonable approach, but I thought it should be noted there are others. YMMV, as always. I don't believe there's only one way to go to get closer to realistic piano as far as the system-approach is concerned. I think everyone's version of what "realistic" piano sounds like may be quite different as well.