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Speakers that do pianos really well

I recently had the good fortune to listen to a half a dozen pretty well-regarded speakers back-to-back. For these kind of sessions I like using piano recordings - either solo or jazz trio - as a measure because, to my ear at least, it seems that speakers that can reproduce piano really well seem to be pretty well sorted on everything else. The surprising thing was how many of these speakers did NOT do piano well. Of the group there were only two - Vandersteen and Verity - that I thought really captured the big chords, shadings, timbres, and reverberations cleanly and naturally. The rest - and I'm not going to call them out by name - offered a mixed bag of over-brightness, distortion, and general unnaturalness. I was very surprised by the results as I expected better from some of these speakers based on their reviews and reputations. So my question is, Does anyone else use the piano as a litmus test, and what speakers do people use that they think do pianos really well? Regards.
grimace

Showing 3 responses by jetrexpro

jetrexpro
506 posts
 
Johnnyb53,

Interesting response and most interesting that on my An-E's with my wife's very good ears we could pretty much tell it wasn't a Steinway. I think it is the attack on the 1981 Gould recording that gives it way. So many variables...wow.
jetrexpro
506 posts
 
To Marty's point--I have a ton of recorded piano music both jazz and classical and each recording sounds totally different. I have not felt it possible to come up with a standard reference recording.

BTW my wife and I were listening to the 1981 Glenn Gould recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations and we both feel that it was not recorded on a Steinway which would be interesting if not, since so many musicians prefer Steinway and almost all major concert halls use Steinway.
jetrexpro
506 posts
 
Wolf,

Sounds like you have a cool gig.

Every room sounds different which will effect the piano sound as well.
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