What are the best loudspeakers under $4000 to re-create lifelike piano

Whart,

i was was responding to Inna's post, not yours.

I have had my Magnepan 1.7s for over four years now. From the beginning I was struck by how realistically it reproduced the sounds of pianos. Then I came across Dick Olsher's evaluation of the Maggie 20.7s, and his description gave words to the way the *.7 series Maggies do piano. I couldn't find that review online, but here's Jonathan Valin's description, which refers to the Olsher piece. It says, in part:

OTOH, they will do acoustic bass—classical or jazz or acoustic rock—very realistically, and are simply exceptional on bottom-octave piano. (Indeed, I don’t think there is another speaker that makes a well-recorded piano sound more like an actual piano than this Maggie. In part this is because a Maggie’s planar wavelaunch, as Dick Olsher once astutely noted, is similar to the planar wavelaunch of a concert grand, giving the presentation more of the size, volume, and dispersion of the actual thing. In the case of the 20.7 it is also because their bass is so extended, finely textured, and bloomy.)

Eve nthe 1.7s sound stunningly real. A stereo pair has 880 sq. in. of radiating surface, which approaches the area of some piano soundboards. Plus, the radiating pattern is similar to a soundboard.

Us the other $2,000 in your budget to get one or two powered subwoofers, which extend the bass range to match a 9' concert grand. There are a lot of good powered subs available in that price range.

In fact, for an extra $500, you could get the 4-sub Audiokinesis Swarm. Now *that* would energize the room.

bdp24 they have been on my radar but I never heard a speaker mix the two types of drivers and blend it good enough to stop alerting my subconscious and disrupt the flow of music. ATC speakers are great but when it goes down to the bass it is completely obvious to me a different driver (at least the old models)

snapsc I did not mean to hijack your thread

I guess in my roundabout way I recommended Maggies (or Quads for that matter) for piano reproduction

As said above...recording the piano accurately has been an issue for many years. Many base the sound they are after on prior recorded works which may be flawed in the first place. I would find a piano recording that you think best represents what you are looking for, then go from there. You may hit it with one recording, buy some speakers, then be frustrated with another recording. Many of the the old Riverside Jazz recordings are recorded "too hot" and exhibits distortion. Plus, many different piano models exhibit their own sound characteristics (warm, bright, etc) that record better than others. 

@johnnyb53   Question:  do the 1.7s need a sub to do piano or do they go low enough on their own??