Thoughts on the most difficult instruments for speakers to reproduce?

Is there a definitive answer? Or is it all of the above / prior? Thanks.

@nonoise Nice to see your mention of Upright Bass and Oud.

I don't think any one instrument is that difficult compared to complex orchestral pieces.  That's why you will rarely, if ever, hear orchestral music played at shows.   It's always something simple like Bach cello suites, Musica Nuda, some "girl and guitar" stuff.  Well, not always, but most of the time.  

Piano, oud, upright bass.

My bane is the human voice going from soft to loud (dynamics) or vice versa. There has always been a "shadow" made of distortion that parallels the transition. A corruption of the air coming out of the singers mouth? I can't explain it but I always hear it.

I can think of a few things.

1 - Microphone placement - Audience, stage or in the case? This all affects what is in the recording to begin with. 

2 - Bass - This is why so many feel subwoofers can add so much to music. 

3 - Radiating patterns. Piano's radiate spherically, with some direction given by the main lid. Some sounds are mechanical and coming right off the floor. 

4 - Room acoustics. I heard the Magico S1MkII in the Magico showroom - they did great except in the bottom registers. A little too chesty due to the speaker tuning. However the rest of the piano was quite convincing. I can't help but think how much of that was thanks to having speakers in such a large well treated space in combination with speakers with unusually wide dispersion. 

It might be really interesting to do a 4 channel recording, but with the microphones in 4 directions around the piano and using speakers back-to-back to attempt to reproduce the sound. Would this make us feel closer to listening to a live speaker? :) Wish I was in college, it would make a good research paper. 

Best,

E

Another +vote for a piano. It is a percussive and melodic instrument.
Happy Listening!

Piano.

Let's hear why piano is so specifically hard to reproduce.

I'd say some reasons:

1. Spans more of the frequency range than most instruments, hence has wider scope to show weaknesses in upper and lower areas of the speaker design.

2. Has a combination of percussive yet soft quality (a soft "hammer" striking hard wires) that is so easy to miss, either becoming too fuzzy or soft, or too hard and artificial.

3.  It seems extremely hard to both record and reproduce the BODY of the piano sound.  In real life the whole instruments seems to be in play, and you can "feel" the weight of the vibrating strings and the soundboard, body of the piano.  On recordings and through hi fi systems piano becomes a set of detached, floating keys being struck...as if severed from and preserved, the rest of the instrument thrown away.

piano

Piano for me. I have heard very expensive $0.5 million systems sound perfect, see: https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/2c-hifi-epiphany-worlds-best-system. Until you play a grand piano. No speaker IMHO will reproduce grand piano lifelike. Some come close, but, at the end of the day it is very apparent you are listening to recorded music.

Piano,Piano,and Piano.

When you have a system that gets all aspects of the Piano correct everything thing else will be there,with maybe the exception of the lwr Organ notes being totally realistic.

Kenny.

1) Without doubt a realistic live drum set. Percussion has such massive dynamics most speakers badly compress at realistic levels.

2)Grand piano is tough too.

3) Pipe Organ - especially the low notes.

The piano has the widest range off all instruments !
https://spinditty.com/instruments-gear/Why-the-Piano-is-the-King-of-Instruments

I would say piano for all of audio, but violins specifically for digital audio, especially massed strings.

String sections, and yes violin higher registers.  It seems almost impossible to find sound reproduction that captures the combination of texture, bite and silkiness of real strings.

And most speakers tend to thin out the body of the sound as you move into the higher frequencies.  Drum cymbals in real life are big and round, never the tiny pin-points of bright sound as through most speakers.

Piano...yeah...always on the list.

add piano.