Thoughts on the most difficult instruments for speakers to reproduce?

piano

due to the nature of the instrument it is also very hard to mic well for a recording

that is part of the problem... garbage in garbage out

Most piano recordings are terrible, unfortunately.

One needs to be careful about conflating poor recordings with poor playback. They are two separate issues!

Traditionally, the ability to discern the difference between an oboe and a cello playing in its higher registers has been a benchmark of fidelity for the last 100 years- and its still a thing.

Piano , I think the father of Bill Eggleston told him , if he can make the Andra Eggleston sound right on piano, more likely other instruments will sound right too.I own Andra , to me they sound good on piano.

I'd say a familiar voice recorded in the same location as it's played back. No futzing around with the sound via EQ and with all of its dynamics intact. 

This should also be easy enough to record and demonstrate on playback.

Slip on a blindfold and you can play 'Is it real or a recording?

I once witnessed at a show where a female vocalist was accompanied by a solo piano. The aim was not to show off any speakers but how accurately you could record live onto an SD card of all things.

I wish I'd paid more attention  (I didn't like the equipment being used) but I remember there was a difference between live and the recording but it was tiny - a hint of less depth and space.

Failing that you could try any familiar piano or violin recording which hasn't been overly bleached out with the usual proviso that it be a fairly clean and natural recording.

None of your multiple splicing editing or EQ tricks. 

If any exist.

Lots of good comments in this thread, but the one wild card in all of this is how was the recording made? What kind of microphones and preamps were used? Where were they placed? Was dynamic limiting or compression used? What other processing effects were used in the mixing and mastering process? 

Another problem is that the majority of recordings involve multiple instruments. Different instruments have radically different radiation patterns and interact differently with their acoustic environment, whether in a studio or at a live event. As such, the engineer and producer end up making compromises when choosing how to make the recording. Yes, one often sees each instrument or group of instruments miked separately, but even then they have to be mixed down into a single stereo presentation. That means compromise. Even surround sound (which is often not used with this issue in mind) involves compromises.

Given all of this, I am not surprised that I find most recordings mediocre and some downright bad. It is almost a miracle that a few recordings out there are extraordinary. There really is an art to the process that not every recording engineer and producer possesses. 

PIANO DUDE!!!!!

GLOCKENSPIEL BE-OTCH!!!!! (previous post algorithmly removed, offensive word. I re-spelled. The comedic timing is lost.

@mlsstl ,

'Given all of this, I am not surprised that I find most recordings mediocre and some downright bad. It is almost a miracle that a few recordings out there are extraordinary. There really is an art to the process that not every recording engineer and producer possesses.'


Sadly true.
But not surprising in what is after all a profit driven industry. 

If we're talking about recording a human voice then I'm betting that even a smartphone could do an adequate recording of it for our comparison purposes.

I've played back home movies made on a Sony digital camera and the sound was wonderfully uncompressed - in the way you might expect live sound to be but usually isn't - not even on live albums!

As for the voices of family and friends, they were uncannily real in a way that TV or Radio ones with the usual added bass rarely are. 

Compare the frequency (both high/low) and dynamic (SPL) ranges of piano (or- any other instrument) and pipe organ, here: https://www.zytrax.com/tech/audio/audio.html#frequencies      Not a matter of opinion (all other considerations being equal)!

@isochronism Still worked for me!

I was listening to a nice, well regarded pair of speakers and getting ready to pull the trigger when on a whim I asked to hear an older 70's rock recording and that's when the speakers tweeter showed its true nature and the salesman couldn't stop the playback fast enough. Resale on new speakers is horrible so when buying new play everything you can and listen to how the system handles less than stellar recordings, listen for compression and how the speakers handle everything. The harder  it is to hear the compromise, the longer they'll last in your home.

Steve...glad you were able to avoid an expensive mistake. Tweeter attributes are critical in speaker selection. Don’t laugh but I would always bring the ultimate tweeter killer speaker shopping with me, BST Spinning Wheel. The opening horns exposed serious flaws in many expensive speaker tweeters . Ultimately I went with  soft domes which is a trade off but worth it to me....not that those BST horns will ever sound good on any speaker :)

Its not just speakers. These things are difficult for every component in the chain. As my system has gotten much better over the past year or so one of the best most unexpected surprises has been the way every recording sounds so much better now. Every single one. So if you have one that's a "tweeter killer" I would look long and hard at what else might be going on there.

 "Don’t laugh but I would always bring the ultimate tweeter killer speaker shopping with me, BST Spinning Wheel."

SW is an excellent demo song. I have a first run press(XSM137878) along with a MONO South American press(not rare, but unusual)

The mono press actually sounds  more convincingly "real" to my ears. No instruments/vocal leaning left or right. Great album.

I heard a test LP of SW on a UBER $how system. Those horns can sound pretty real with the right stuff.

My now possibly obsolete Klipsch Heresy IIIs are amazingly realistic and coherent, and I listen to piano stuff a LOT. Good gear upstream is key for this of course, but piano sounds great unless it's a crappy recording.