Piano on vinyl - the best

While I love vinyl, I've had such a hard time with piano. Does anyone else occasionally encounter a loss of crystalline clarity in certain passages? Not distortion or inner groove damage, but just a "smearing" or slight lack of focus?

Jdaniel, a little congestion in the upper bass/lower midrange, maybe? In my rig, I found it (at least I think I did-still experimenting) to be my speaker placement. I moved them a bit futher apart and thing I'm getting there.

Jdaniel, I don't have problems with smearing or lack of focus (at least none that bother me), but I would agree that piano is difficult for LPs for another reason. Even a slightly off-center LP can have noticeable change in pitch, and this bothers me more with piano than most other instruments. For example, on the Satie box set I mentioned, two of the three LPs are very slightly off-center. It's not a big deal, but enough that I end up playing the 3rd LP more often.

Dave

Thanks, I've tried everything and now look to SACD/CDs of piano works. My system is Vandersteen 3a Sigs, VPI Scout 9" arm and Dyna XX2, weighted at a little over 2.2 grams. I've experimented with many different speaker placements, but have stuck to placement formula provided by company, no change though.

An example you might be familiar with is Rubinstein's Chopin PC #1, towards the end of side one on Lp the piano sometimes loses its pearly quality and gets a slight, "dirty" sound...but so does the SACD reincarnation!

I also get it during the "gallop" back to the final "big theme" in the third mov't of the Ashkenazy Rachmaninoff 2nd PC. Not on the CD though.... One Lp that is fabulous and--for all intents and purposes--**should** distort (but doesn't is the RCA Prokofieff PC #2 with Liebowitz/PCO. Wow.

Professor Longhair