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How to reproduce sound of piano


I currently own a decent rig, Mac MA 2275, AP Sparks, Marantz 8001, Rega Apollo, Benchmark DAC w/ Squeezebox Duet. I love the way it sounds with jazz, voice, orchestral works and also it's decent with chamber music.

But I find when I'm listening to piano solo performances it doesn't quite sound nearly good as the live instrument. This is too bad because I mainly listen to classical piano works. I want to build a new system from scratch dedicated to listen to solo piano works as well as piano conertos.
I don't care for "warmth", "timbre", "soundstage" or other loaded audiophile terms. Just want absolutely accurate piano reproduction as possible.

What qualities should I look for? Analog vs digital source. Solid state vs tube amp? I find my tube amp unable to keep up with technical masters as Pollini or Horowitz. But will going to SS take away from the performces of more romantic pianists like Kempf and Zimerman? As for speakers, I never heard of a speaker capable of reproducing the deep bass of a 9ft+ concert Steinway grand. Are electrostatics way to go? My budget is around $25K USD. Thanks for any feedback.
plaser
muralman1
1,527 posts
 
Shadorne, you are right to point out overworked tweeters will smear over subtle resonances.

The Scintilla has yards of tweeter that never sound overworked. Highs flow off the ribbons naturally.

The mid ribbon is married to the tweeters so one cannot listen to one without the other. The big bass is musical into the 20s frequencies. All of that adds to a very great piano imitator.

In fact, the reason I own Apogee Scintillas is because of a fateful day listening to one in the 80's. I wandered about the listening room trying to convince myself I wasn't listening to some unseen piano player. I gave up, until I saw a Glodmund turntable spinning a record.
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shadorne
7,477 posts
 
People say panels like the Quad 57 sound fast...this is the effect of a clean waterfall...there is no lingering ringing coloration to the sound - everything has a "light" realistic quality about it and you just hear more of the details on the recording. In a conventional box speaker this requires drivers that have internally critically damped drivers within their operating bandwidth (this generally requires doped paper/pulp or woven fabrics - anything to "deaden" the sound of the diaphragm itself and prevent ringing)
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shadorne
7,477 posts
 
Shadorne,
How true, but I hate to have my head mimic a soundstage.

Exactly - me too. I don't like the sound being in my head. Headphones eliminate the pinna and that means they can never sound realistic even if they have superb performance.
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shadorne
7,477 posts
 
this generally requires doped paper/pulp or woven fabrics - anything to "deaden" the sound of the diaphragm itself and prevent ringing

I would add that the latest approach is to this problem is to use "Constrained Layer Damping" - instead of doping a speaker cone with a viscous damping fluid they are now sandwiching a viscous fluid between two rigid cones - kind of like a springing car suspension with "shock absorbers" to dampen it. This idea works well because the internal energy within the cone is lost as the constrained layer shears.

Basically if you can't dissipate the stored energy in a rigid cone you unavoidably end up with some resonance - after all this is exactly how cymbals are made and they ring a long long time...
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mapman
22,407 posts
 
Plaser,

If I were you, I'd focus on getting the right speakers to accomplish your goals first and build the rest of the system around those. The reason is that, particularly in the case of piano, the speakers present practically the most limiting factor to achieve what you want.

The APs are very good speaks TTBOMK. So have you ever heard piano on a system with a totally different speaker design, say Magnepan Planars or Martin Logan electrostats or even MBL or Ohm omnis or pseudo omnis?

I think auditioning radically different speaker designs might be the place to start looking for a radically better sound.

Then put the other pieces in place needed to drive those speakers optimally with good range and dynamics.

Make sure the speakers fit the size of the room they will go into properly. If the room is not too big, you should be able to find an ideal system to do the trick in it optimally for less.

After speakers, the other thing to look into, if needed, is to determine whether vinyl floats your boat better for piano than digital in general.
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