I agree that reproduction of the piano is essential for any competent loudspeaker. It is a very good test of a wide variety of sonic attributes, particularly coherence. I have heard several speakers which sound very good on a wide variety of music fall down when reproducing a piano due to crossover issues. I agree that Vandersteen's do a good job in this regard--I've heard the 5A create a pretty lifelike piano sound. I also think the Harbeth C7's and Spendor S100's which I have owned at various points were good at capturing the tonal qualities of the piano, if not the subtle dynamic shadings and macrodynamic swings. The best I have heard anywhere near my price range however are my current speakers--the Daedalus DA-1.1's. Great tone, attack, decay and coherence--sounds like a piano in your living room.
Speakers that do pianos really well
I recently had the good fortune to listen to a half a dozen pretty well-regarded speakers back-to-back. For these kind of sessions I like using piano recordings - either solo or jazz trio - as a measure because, to my ear at least, it seems that speakers that can reproduce piano really well seem to be pretty well sorted on everything else. The surprising thing was how many of these speakers did NOT do piano well. Of the group there were only two - Vandersteen and Verity - that I thought really captured the big chords, shadings, timbres, and reverberations cleanly and naturally. The rest - and I'm not going to call them out by name - offered a mixed bag of over-brightness, distortion, and general unnaturalness. I was very surprised by the results as I expected better from some of these speakers based on their reviews and reputations. So my question is, Does anyone else use the piano as a litmus test, and what speakers do people use that they think do pianos really well? Regards.