How does solo piano help you evaluate audio gear?

But also remember that all these qualities you mentionned here are easily improved to a huge extent by passive material treatment and active mechanical acoustic control, if we have realtively good speakers commensurate to the room dimensions to begin with...

Generally speaking, issues with imaging, soundstage width and depth, and dynamics, where many speakers can get very congested with a high volume complex orchestral work, may not be best discerned using solo piano.

I concur with your post...

Especially this part..

Along with absorbing and diffusing surfaces, you mention reflective surfaces. In my opinion, reflective surfaces and woefully underutilized. Reflective surfaces that can convert early reflections into late reflections is a trick I stumbled into by accident. Proper use of reflective surfaces, in my experience, are an order of magnitude more effective in improving imaging and stage than absorbing surfaces

I will add this observation, it takes many instrument and especially voices to evaluate the S.Q. of new speakers ... Piano was always a favorite of mine but cannot reveal all there is by itself alone for sure... Think for example like someone rightfully observed about cymbal decay...But by itself i think piano is a good "thermometer" of the room and not only a way to evaluate speakers...

But one this is said, remember that NO speaker can beat the room...

No speakers at any cost will beat by his upgrading power acoustic control,

Here are these 6 aspects of acoustic control parameters in a room i experimented with :

1 -Balance between absorbing surfaces,

2 -Reflecting one,

3 -Diffusive one....

This was "classical" passive material treatment of a room, now these 3 new other factors are related to my concept of the  mechanical active control of a room ( what i called a mechanical equalizer):

4-control over reverberation time and timing of the wavefronts

5- control over the distribution of the pressure zones

6- fine layering and tuning of the laminar flow

These 3 last aspects could be controlled with Helmhotz mechanical method NOT by electronical equalization...

Then the piano will not sound the same from the same pair of speakers in a non controlled room and in a controlled one...Not even close...
 

Dont upgrade good speakers with costly one BEFORE studying and experimenting with acoustic...

My acoustic devices and experiments were all homemade and cost me nothing...

I can then claim that great hi-Fi experience is possible at low cost contrary to what is claimed or supposed almost everywhere by almost everyone...

People dont know acoustic and never seriously try experimenting with it in a dedicated small room.

Thanks for partaking your interesting story...

I am glad we understood one another better...

I was more lucky....

I have a very good hearing judging by my work in small room acoustic...

I decided to realize my Hi-FI dream after my retirement few years ago...But no money...

I succeeded with improvising my homemade devices for electrical,mechanical and especially acoustical aspects, the three working embeddings dimensions for any audio system....All this at almost no cost...

I discovered by experiments that acoustic treatment and especially acoustic mechanical control over pressure zones distribution and laminar air flow guided by Helmholtz method and Has wavefront law in acoustic that no improvement upgrade can beat acoustic....

It is the reason why my 500 bucks system present a S.Q./price ratio over the roof....Embeddings control of the system...

My deepest regards to you....

@mahgister

Any contributions I afford, I do not put great value on. My experience with audio is "old" having gotten out as a shop steward in 2001 and continuing as financial backer until 2008.

All 3 shops achieved gossamer like status and no longer exist.

I have also lost about 30% of my hearing starting in 2005 when taking several motorcycle trips cross-country.

Perhaps playing trumpet in a jazz band did not help as well.

Perhaps i get touchy about my own inner turmoils but I am at the point now where "audio" has lost its esoterica for me.

Perhaps little makes any difference to me now. Perhaps i've heard too much. Perhaps I've achieved "ok is good enough" so don't go making a lot of fuss about nuthin". "This one sounds more clear and real to me than that one" Period. I am not one for word smithing or literary adornment. 

I have gotten to the point where "why do you like this wine? Is its bloom, its after note? its finish?

And I answer: "no, it just tastes fucking good to me."

I would make a very bad reviewer, "about this amp, it has no audio weight, its highs are rolled off, it is sparse in its detail and its bottom end is almost non existent...In other words, I think it sucks."

I apologize if i reacted a bit rudely but your post was a bit rude also... 😁😊

You seem to be a gentleman though...

I am more wired to understand people but i also  tend to react too swiftly ..

i understand you better now and i offer to you my deepest respect...

Sincerely yours...

Your past experience is welcome here for sure....

2ndly, when any poster here becomes impatient enough or high on his horse enough to begin his response with "for fucks sake" because of inner turbulence created by an answer contrary to his pre conceptions, that acts as an antagonist to my less than perfect side.

Is it right? no. I’m as imperfect as he.

I am not wired to "turn the other cheek".

I dont think that nobody claim that ONLY one instrument will do the job for judging the S.Q. of an audio system... The OP thread speak about a question : is the piano may HELP? indeed it may help a lot for all the reasons many here spoke about...

Some and me too, only said that piano is particularly interesting to use for that...Not ALONE...Voices or chor or anything else will reveal some details or aspect of sound more clearly...No one argue about that.... Then your qualification "altar" of the piano is preposterous and reveal only your own frustration not knowledge or any factual existence of piano idolatry here......

So no, I do not pray to the "piano" altar as some do as the definitive test for accuracy in sound repro.

Second, you description about evaluating speakers FORGET that no evaluation of speakers is DEFINITIVE till the speakers/ room is acoustically under control in a treated room.. For sure for a first evaluation in some seller room a piano cd can help or a chor or a voice cd...It is relative to the listenings  experience history of each of us.....

No speakers sound the same in different room especially in different untreated rooms ... Then the choice of piano, voices, etc is mandatory not only to test speakers in a nude room but also to TUNE the speakers/room relation...

Then a decay is not the same decay with the same speaker in different room...A transient and an attack note either... Then when you claim that you have heard wonderful piano on a speaker and shitty voice on the same speaker, this was more an illusion created by the room/speaker specific relation there, because any RELATIVELY good speaker in a well controlled and treated room CANNOT give a wonderful piano sound and a shitty voice in the same room acoustic condition ...

Why ? Because only on a very well treated room and in a well acoustically controlled one a transient is a transient, an attack is an attack and a decay is a decay... WHY ? because acoustician use controlled room to set their standards...They dont use speakers only in any bad room....

An attack note is an attack note. A transient is a transient and a decay is a decay. I’ve heard wonderful piano and shitty voice and have heard wonderful trumpet and shitty piano all on various perspective speakers.

When somebody turn acerbic by lack of attention , i am out....

I wish you could have fun though even with so great need for attention..

😊😊😊😊

When a person garnering attention here turns petulant, I’m out.

Have fun child.

Thanks i will go for it after listening it on youtube... Really good for sound and interpretation...

Britten rules...

@brownsfan  and others, I've been listening to the 1.5 minute piece, "Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings."

It's an outstanding test, easy to get to know, and very revealing.

Great post that explain well why piano is so useful for tuning  our system/room...

Thanks very much.....

My deepest respect....

Piano has stretched overtones.   I believe it is somehow related to the fact that string has mass.  Extremely long and thin string under extremely high tension would have straight harmonics, but it is not practical.  Because of this stretching piano octave is not tuned to double frequency, but a little bit higher when the beating with overtones of lower octave stops, resulting in about 30 cents error at both ends.  That is why tuning of the piano is so difficult and also why reproduction of the sound is very difficult as well.  Any harmonics produced by the playback system might beat against stretched piano overtones.  Overly warm systems produce even order harmonics that sound great with other instruments or voice, but piano sounds almost like out of tune.

A fact not mentionned here with the importance it has :

No audio system and speakers will sound the same in two different rooms...

A controlled and treated room will give to an audio system his real potential S.Q. and this potential S.Q. will have NO RELATION to the same system in a non controlled and non treated room...

Then the best way to listen to any instrument recording in a chosen system is to model the room with his dynamical zones pressures accordingly not to the "measured by tool " specs. of the speakers but accordingly to what your ears will say to you in this progressively TUNED room one step at a time...

Then you will listen the  specific "recording" of an instrument and you will discover that not one piano recording sound the same on different system but ESPECIALLY in different room... Then chosing some voices and instrument to chose gear is possible like proposed by the OP but in a non treated room and in a non controlled room this have his limit...Acoustic is more powerful than MOST change or upgrade  of gear in improving sound...

I chose my speakers by reading for months reviews and i did  the same for my amplifier and for my dac...I could not listen before chosing any piece of gear where i live...

When i listened to them in my non controlled room i was not displeased but not pleased either... 😁

BUT when after buying them i modelled my room with acoustic devices and treatment for this specific  system i owned now, i reach a level of S.Q. which had no relation with the original sound of this system in my plain room, no relation at all, NONE...

Then i know the OP asked another question than the answer i give in this post, but people must be conscious of this fact...

Acoustic is the key to high fidelity not the gear choice by itself...

Be it magneplanar or my Mission Cyrus speakers, or any dac compared to mine, or My Sansui versus any good amplifier....

The bad news is they will be all different in S.Q.with plus and minus...

The good news is this difference between gear DECREASE very much  versus the difference between plain room acoustic and fully controlled room adapted to each system itself...

Then magneplanar or box speakers it is possible to be happy with any of these two and forgetting  any future  upgrade if we use acoustic rightfully...

It is possible because the same room must be controlled in a different way completely with magneplanar or with my box speakers...If someone know how to do it with his tuning ears the results will be happy for the two type of speakers... Different but very good... I know because my friend own magneplanar and me box speakers...He is a magneplanar addict and guess what was his surprize listening my small box speakers in my controlled room ?

Then dont trust sellers, trust acoustic science and your ears using it....

It is very easy to buy good gear anyway, but less easy to learn how to treat a room and control it FORTHIS SPECIFIC GEAR AND FOR YOUR OWN EARS...

My best to all and i apologize for being beside the question of the OP...

To test imaging and soundstage nothing beat this in my collection, the sound of some  voice comes often from my back or from my left ear or right ears, sometimes the voice walk around me....It is intimate like with headphones but out of the head...I used it much tuning my room with my devices to translate these sonic effect in my room...

The musical interpretation is the best for this work...The recording engineer was a genius for sure...

To test subtle transients and details... I use this ...

Great post that say it all simply and better than me... Thanks...

About 50 years ago Bud Fried(Irving M Fried of IMF speakers) told me he thought the 3 hardest things to reproduce in order are male voice(we are so familiar with it and it goes into an upper bass region speakers often suck on), female voice(again we’re so familiar with it) and piano because it has such a huge dynamic ranger which is often very short duration demanding linear level changes that stop and start very quickly stressing a system and especially speakers hugely.

Bud used the term dynamic linearity. He didn’t just mean the ability to play clean and loud. He meant the ability to accurately follow all level changes, small to medium to large. I find this to often be the achilles heel of systems that otherwise sound clean and tonally accurate, the difference between a wonderful wide band radio and something that at times lets you make believe it’s real. My main source for this is a Kissin piano ’Pictures At An Exhibition,.

But getting a chorus right with all details is the END goal...Single voice, piano and separate instruments timbre and even orchestra are STEPS in the tuning process... Chorus are very difficult to be done right because the voices timbre could be huge in number and near one another like cello and violins are...

Here you must perceive and distinguish 8 voices....2 females and 6 males...

You must be able to recognize these three very different timbre:

Very true...

I used Moravec nocturnes Chopin or Feltsman Bach Well tempered Klavier....Only these 2...They are very different but good in their own way...The Moravec recording though is unsurpassed both musically and sonically...But the dynamic of the Feltsman recording is sometimes stunning for bass notes tuning ...

In an incremental process of tuning the room for months you must know the recording very well and it must be a good one....

IMO, the problem with using a piano as a reference (generally) is that there are so many poorly recorded piano pieces. The piano must/has to be the hardest instrument to get recorded correctly to fully reproduce its the broad and nuanced (detail) sound capabilities, much more apparent live.

You cannot have a piano right and violin wrong AT THE END...

You cannot have all these two right and voice wrong AT THE END of the process...

First voice... Because we are inwardly tuned to recognize voices...

Then piano...Because of the huge dynamical field covered by this instrument...

Then violins and brass and wood...Or orchestra... Because the great number of this different timbre playing together distinctly is great test to end...

There is an order for me because i use that to test my room for the tuning for months...

The most important thing about piano is already said here:

So what does piano reveals exceptionally well to my ears?

- musical scale, unlike any other instruments offering an incredible, unparalleled range.

- higher and lower scale in frequency range than any other instrument.

- both treble and bass clef while most other instruments reveals only one or the other.

But i used the human voice first before piano.... Chorus or single voice... Because evolution trained us one million year to recognize a voice anywhere in any location at the risk of death...

After that i use piano also....

Third i used brass and violins...

but never mind the instruments, each playing note must be SEEN to be  a dynamical flowing volume in the room with a micro-structure like a skin with his own texture...

«Sound smell»-anonymus acoustician