Why not the piano as a reference for bass
I see a lot of commentary/reviews on a systems bass response that all seem to hinge on the 41 hz double bass and such range. At 27.5 the A0 note on a piano seems a better point to judge. Lots of piano in normal music vs say an organ note. I know when I feel that deep chord played it is one of things I enjoy about listening the most! Was listening to Wish you were here live and the piano was sublime.
So is it more of how much musical energy is perceived in the 40 hz range or what that makes this more of a reproduction benchmark?
I welcome your input!
New Joe Bonamassa out BTW!
If we are talking double bass, in most classical music it is mainly bowed and in a big orchestral piece there might be eight or so playing in unison. There is no other sound like that with as much character! |
I find piano recordings to be largely unrealistic- either too closely mic’d or a portrait in miniature but often lacking the gravitas of a big concert grand. I’ve had some large concert sized grands in homes- there is a growl to the lower bass that is not evident on most recordings. I use piano recordings (a few select ones) to judge the attack and decay envelope of a system. I typically use simple recordings of small combo jazz to evaluate how "real" the bass sounds- I’m a big fan of Cecil McBee-- almost every record he appears on has something interesting and I’ve gotten my system to the point where the bass sounds very filled in and dimensional, not just a faint hologram, and you can hear the positioning of the instrument relative to others on the stage as well as its height-- very convincing sounding as a full-sized instrument. This was the result of a bigger room, the use of a pair of DSP’d 15" subs that were dialed in by ear after some basic measurements and a change of phono cartridge that gave me the gravitas that seemed to be lacking using Avantgarde Duos and Lamm ML2s. |
Pianos are percussion instruments according to the Hornbostel-Sachs system of categorizing musical instruments. It belongs to the percussion family because it produces sounds by striking the strings with a felt covered hammers. It is often miscategorized as a string instrument because it has strings. A pipe organ is the better choice for testing bass response. A Pipe organ which is a wind instrument, can produce very low notes, all the way down to 16 Hz, which is lower than what most full-range speakers can reproduce without a very good subwoofer. |
You are mistaken. The piano is classified as 314.122, considered a "cordophone" because they "produce their sounds by means of the vibration of a string or strings that are stretched between fixed points." More info here. Percussion instruments are classified idiophones. |
