Thoughts on the most difficult instruments for speakers to reproduce?

Massed (not single) violins, I agree, and (surprised no one mentioned) full bodied, contrapuntal choral singing.

My wife plays piano. I am a lapsed student of the instrument.

I put on some audiophile record (forget what it was, but it had excellent piano reproduction) on the big system and she called from the other room - "Is that YOU??"  It sounded so much like her piano in the next room.

Most of the time recorded piano doesn't really sound like a real piano played (even in the next room).

I tried it later on my Electrostat system and it works there too - pretty sure it wouldn't if it was a hybrid speaker mating a cone woofer with the main panels.

Mrdecibel...Thanks for the tip on Miles's " A Tribute To Jack Johnson, very good.

Glad to see that this fairly long chain has remained so informative and positive. Amazing that it hasn't morphed into a hardware p*match (no hardware mentions at all!), I knew it was possible on the forum!

Hmmm...should I say something about cable snake oil and see what happens? J/K

@jdliguori, please do not do it here, as there are too many snake oil threads already ( which I am a contributor ). Enjoy the Jack Johnson, as it is awesome ! Always, MrD.

If using your speakers for home theater, which sports a wide dynamic range with Blu-ray’s and UHD’s, there are some interesting sonic categories that, while not falling under acoustic instruments as such can be a challenging effort for speakers to reproduce, and also reflect on their abilities into music reproduction. Take for example a ships horn from a warship or commercial ditto, like from the Blu-ray to the film “Captain Phillips” (2013) where towards the end there’re some serious bursts from such a horn flaring off on a warship. If the speakers are up to the task here you’ll experience a startlingly forceful, dry, dense and present sound, demanding dynamic prowess, ample air displacement area and very little smear (i.e.: transient “snap”), but also calls for a high degree of coherency. These are important traits reproducing instruments like (concert) piano, solo violin, drum kits and saxophone, and so is a telling ability on your speakers performance over an even wider arc, I find. A banal example on the face of it, perhaps, but I’ve found it to be quite useful; watching films from such high quality formats over your stereo brings along a new set of tools to evaluate your speakers worth in many regards, some of which may not be readily exposed with music only.