I am a professional pianist/ organist, and was an agent for Bosendorfer piano many years ago. I use the 97 key Imperial at my church, and have my favorite Bosendorfer 7 foot, 4 inch model at home. The lowest notes on the Imperial contain so little fundamental frequency energy, that even the most skilled piano technicians are very challenged to tune those pitches properly! The reason for the extra nine notes was for scaling and tone. Strings close to the rim do not resonate as well because the soundboard best resonates in the middle area. This is true of any vibrating membrane on any musical instrument! On the Imperial Grand, now the string of the lowest A on a regular piano crosses almost down the middle of the soundboard, creating its beautiful singing quality with almost organ like sustain! On a Steinway, one can achieve power, but with much quicker attenuation than the Bosendorfer, because the string is much closer to the rim. BUT, there still is no comparison to an organ pipe as a bass reference because of the sheer physics of the pipe itself, creating the true fundamental bass frequency! So yes, the piano is a great instrument for testing speaker accuracy, but for a variety of other reasons, not for bass! And no, I’ve never heard a speaker sound like a live Bosendorfer, but the closer they can get is a great evaluation tool for quality audio reproduction.
