How to reproduce sound of piano

Jax,

The lowest pitched key on a typical piano is tuned to 27.5 hz. Bosendorfer makes a 96 key grand which adds an extra octave of bass - so the spec you cited is about right. Now, finding a recording which contains that information is another story!

IMHO, use of subs is appropriate to this instrument - and good digital pianos are often demo'd with subs for this very reason. It's certainly possible that there's a full range speaker out there which will reproduce the lowest notes of a full grand without compromising the rest of the response, but I believe that you've got a lot better shot at success if you use a sub, or a speaker with a built-in sub for this application.

As to the room - this is always a limitation to loudspeaker perfomance, particularly in the bass region. There are other contributors here who are more technically informed on the subject, but I can say that flat frequency response into the mid 20hz range is acheivable in a reasonably sized room. I have eq'd to this performance (and measured it) with subs and a Velodyne SMS-1 sub controller/PEq/room analyzer. I've also heard this response with quality pipe organ recordings. Honestly, that feels a bit like a parlor trick, but the SMS/sub combo really does a great job on the lowest octave of my best piano recordings.

Marty

Oops!

I just looked at the photo of Plaser's room. As per Emily Litella...never mind!

Marty

PS - For those interested, Synthology software makes a program called Ivory, which contains hypersampled "voices" of 3 pianos for use with a midi keyboard controller and audio system (digital piano). One of the pianos is the 96 key Bosendorfer.

Shadorne

I agree with you:

"You guys are on to something - how to make a grand piano sound real in a room that is not big enough for a grand piano. It seems we all missed the obvious...it just ain't possible. The room is a good 50% of what you hear..."

And my opinion:

A large slice of something good, is still very good...even if it leaves you wanting the whole pie.

30hz or so, while not the whole pie, would still be quite filling.

I know that in my room, listening to piano with one speaker system or the other (-3db@17hz) or (-3db@27hz)...there is not enough bass difference to even bother with.

The only difference between the two speaker systems is sound quality, one system being a large multi-cone type, and the other, a large planer. (I prefer dipole bass for music).

Dave

I just had a thought - maybe the problem is not pant flapping bass, or even deep bass, maybe it is a simple as a suck out in the upper bass. A broad and deep enuf suck out in the 60 and/or 120 hz range for example would surely rob enuf tone to make a piano sound unreal. Wonder if, or if not why not, Phaser hasn't evaluated the performance of his speakers in room performance. Perhaps he has some issues that are remedial by speaker movement, listening chair movement (often a biggie), or which are NOT remedial by addition of a sub (deep nulls related to the rooms dimensions for example). A test disc and a SPL meter might be of move value than any sub at this point in time. :-)

Greg,
Thanks for voicing your understanding of the true core or rather coeur of my efforts. Wished it could have been done more cheaply. But for that the technical resources, outward as well as inward ones were wanting.

Dave,
dipole bass with planars is actually a must, I agree. Another reason why Quads with Gradients sounded so good in combination and your planars were rightly famous for this. For this very reason I tried to keep the Grads when I changed to the Sound Labs but found they were bettered after all by the Soutiens plus Rel combination. The latter by the way is -6db@9hz in room. Helps to chase burglars away (and scare the shit out of you) but also to get the lowest registry of the grand piano in (almost) all its authority with (almost) perfect timing and pitch after much much fiddling, sweating and swearing. Since subbass systems are not only important for bass but for ambience cues ( the Rel is linear down to below 12 hz) which are more felt than heard, all that fiddling was certainly worthwhile.