Best speaker/system piano concerts

I play electric guitar frequently, putting distortion from various tube amps through guitar speakers in open back cabinets...I also play cleanly through the same rigs...these things should last for several decades as others I've owned have. I also have some old KLH Model 20s from a compact system I bought in 1970 or something (my first great sounding stereo) and they still sound great (relegated to a garage system). So there.

Years ago I spent the day with an elderly English neighbor who had a pair of old Rogers LS3/5As and a Quad amp, and we listened to a lot of great vinyl piano stuff...a magic day. Although those speakers are hardly full range, the tone and coherence of that rig was astonishing, and the pianos sounded beautiful and utterly alive. Who knew?

Yeah terry9...I was simply yammering...I prefer simple stuff...single ended amp, tube preamp, clean ear canals, etc. 

Kalili...2 good condenser mics, one over the treble side and one down the bass side does the job. Some EQ and general level tweaking is applied to each mic and you have to make sure there are no phase issues (that's obvious and rare really). Some pianists bring their own mics for this (Fred Hersch...can't remember what mic he used, but hey...they worked fine), and I did a show with Eldar (youngish hot shot piano player, nice guy) who wanted to take the large diaphragm condenser mic I was using as an overhead on the drums and stick it in the Steinway with the lid closed (supported by a stand sticking through the lid crack)...that worked also.

Speed isn't an audio term I pay much attention to as it's somewhat meaningless...subtlety in design? Does that mean careful soldering? A great sounding system puts the recording into the air relatively unscathed, so the recording is where the differences should be, and not in the system necessarily. Also if "decent systems" can differentiate between a Yamaha and Steinway it makes me wonder how many listeners can do that, or if that matters...the reference for the "absolute sound" for pianos is interesting to me as I've refined my piano miking technique over decades mostly by working with so many brilliant artists, and many want specific things requiring different setups. Miking for recording is different as level and sound leakage are issues primarily with louder live reinforced stuff...and is the sound one wants supposed to accentuate the "percussive attack" (which I feel is in the hands of the player), or the overall sound as heard by someone other than the musician?..i.e. somebody near the piano hearing the cumulative tone as it resolves the various elements of the instrument. I've heard recording where you can hear the mechanical elements of a piano here and there and that's somewhat disturbing, although the performance and passion of the music is all that matters really, otherwise the audioiphile critical nitpicking can harsh your mellow, so to speak.

Great piano reproduction by any system becomes evident when you notice that all recorded pianos sound somewhat different from each other.

Any decent system will give you fine piano sound without you having to spend into the stratosphere...I'm a piano freak and enjoy a range of stuff from classical to jazz, and in my job mixing live shows I often work with a fine, recently tuned large Steinway so I know what a great piano played brilliantly sounds like. I like a full range system with subs for weight, and my current rig of Klipsch Heresy IIIs with 2 REL subs and a little single ended tube amp really delivers the goods. Save most of the 30 grand and just buy a piano.