Speakers for High-End Digital Piano

This is a tough one. I have a Kawai digital piano, too (really nice keyboard feel) and I've used Carver cinema ribbons run full range with a sub for the bottom end. The Carvers roll off naturally at about 90 cycles in my room and are IMHO one of the few speakers that hands off nicely to a sub without an active crossover. I ran the RCA outs to the subwoofer and the full range output from the sub to the Carvers. I also used a corner bass trap between the piano and the corner it straddled.

This isn't a set-up I'd use for hi fi reproduction, but it worked very well for this application. OTOH....

While the sound is "crisper" and more dynamic than the internal electronics in the Kawai, you lose the resonance of the piano's "box" and the feel that comes back to you thru the instrument. These days, I generally use the internal set-up, although the external system is still there. On the rare occasions that my wife or daughter play for an audience (something I'd never do) we may activate the external system.

Good luck.

I am very familiar with the Eon as a stage monitor and FOH PA. The ridiculous max SPL of the system (1000 watts behind 15" woofers, IIRC) is impressive, but....

I'd guess that it would be a very bad solution for amplifying solo piano. It's all punch and bark - a rock band will sound like a rock band - but it sure ain't designed with piano in mind. I suppose that, in a rock band setting - with much of the the left hand passed off to the bass player - it might work okay, but for solo piano, I personally wouldn't go there. Just the wrong tool for the job, IMO.

In my earlier post I didn't mention that I've also tried 3 way M-Audio powered monitors with the piano. They didn't work as well as the Carver/sub set-up, so the powered monitors went back to my studio where they do yeoman's work. I agree that both external systems I tries sounded too forward for my taste, hence (along with the "feel" issue) my decision to generally use the Kawai's internal system, it's deficiencies notwithstanding.

Chayro's suggestion re: Barbetta intrigued me, so I visited their web site. Yikes! that be some really bad web design, right there. The good news is that the company appears to be reasonably close to my home, so maybe I'll be able to visit and check the products out. I'll report back with my impressions if that happens.