speaker placement feedback

Satisfying results for private/home playing using external speakers is very hard to achieve in my opinion. So much depends on room acoustics and of course speaker and amplifier quality.

I use Paradigm monitors with a NAD 60W per channel amp which should be comparable to what you have, sitting on normal vertical ear level stands, and I have experimented with diverse speaker placements, to no avail. It always sounds like two speakers in a room, and not a piano in a room. Maybe lower tilted stands would be better but I doubt it.

My only conclusive result is that it is better not to put speakers too close to you, like for instance directly behind the keyboard which seems natural to emulate an instrument.

Keyboards with built-in speakers, even of lesser quality, may seem to do a better job because the whole instrument resonates with the speakers and the illusion is better (but maybe not the sound itself)

I experimented with ambiophonics RACE encoding in order to try to cancel crosstalk between speakers and get closer to headphones sound, but it has a detrimental effect on the piano sound quality, although it is very good for listening to recorded music.

More recently, I downloaded this VST plugin :
( http://electro-music.com/forum/topic-27871.html )
which works very well for getting a satisfying out-of-speaker sound and has less effect on the signal by not using the recursive part of the RACE algorithm. It also reduces latency to an inaudible value.

The thing is that ambiophonics can work miracles with a source that is recorded to make use of it, in a similar way that binaural recording using a head microphone does for headphones, but the output of pianoteq, in my opinion, doesn't (yet...) take into account 3D sound distribution in space.

So using ambiophonics doesn't do the trick for pianoteq. I still prefer headphones...

have you thought of using an amplifier instead of monitors? I know this might sound strange but I have a single Yamaha MSR100 powered speaker / stage monitor which I use in angled monitor position at a similar height to a grand piano. It sounds like there is a real piano in my studio! The quality of the speakers' sound and the fact that I can angle it to mimic the direction of the sound coming from a real grand piano produces a very realistic sound indeed. You see, an amplifier is what's used in a digital piano rather than a pair of ear level peakers because manufacturers know that there is value in using amplifiers because their acoustic ambience or range covers more than a speaker or monitor would. Maybe you could try this with an amp you already have or maybe borrow one to check it out?

http://uk.yamaha.com/en/products/link/106448

Hello ethanay,

Just to explain, ambiophonics is only practical for the player, because you have to position two speakers close together and sit right in the middle to get the effect. Also, they have to be quite far away so as to keep a 10 to 20 degree angle between the center of the speakers and you. If you play for other people or accompany somebody, it is not useful. I experimented with it because I play mostly for myself and tried to emulate the sound of headphones. One way I did this with pianoteq is to use the ambiophonics plugin along with pianoteq in Cubase. It was not satisfactory, but I still like a lot the plugin for listening to recorded music through Winamp. The effect varies from recording to recording, but sometimes you really get a full stage both wide and deep which makes you forget there are speakers involved. This is the 3D effect I was trying to get with pianoteq.

The reason it doesn't work in my opinion is that the sound output of pianoteq doesn't include any room or stage contribution which could benefit from ambiophonics (for good reasons actually). Reverb can help but it has no out of phase component which could bring depth to the sound. I experimented also with a much better external reverb (not convolution based though) but found no improvement over headphones.

You are probably right in wanting your speakers to be higher up because tweeter dispersion is usually bad coming from the top of the speakers because of interference with the edge of the box. This is the case for my speakers anyway, and my stands being not height adjustable, they are too low if I put them near the keyboard and sit in a correct height to play. But I would not rule out also trying the tilted base because this might also correct the dispersion problem if you keep them low on the ground. This might even be closer to the effect of built-in speakers, the sound coming from the ground up in a similar way. You may want to try this with a different arrangement of temporary support...

If I understand sigasa correctly, he is using a single powerful horn-loaded active PA speaker, which might also work better than a weaker stereo pair in some cases, in part by probably having much higher efficiency and so playing a lot louder and closer to the sound output of a real piano.

Hope this helps...

I think you could try this cheap solution: as you said your speakers are good for ambient listening and I'd enhance this by putting them parallel (not angled toward you) under the keyboard; if they have roll off switches on the back you could cut some dBs of high frequencies on the left speaker and cut low on the right one. This should help the stereo perception but will give you , from the player position, poor clarity and presence; to solve this problem you could feed into the mixer two more cheap speakers (like computer sets) that work quite good in hi-mid, high frequencies and place them directly over the keyboard. You won't have the best clarity because of the cheap tweeters but you will add a lot of presence and maybe some robustness in the hi-mid area where pianoteq is still lacking a little if you need a more aggressive sound: in this way you are not recreating the depth of a gran coda but rather a vertical piano situation..
Hope this help
Ettore

PS: never tried it so not sure it will work

Since you resurrected this old thread in which I spoke about my trials, might as well update my point. Last thing I tried before going headphones only is use an angled floor stand and put two speakers beneath the keyboard, angled toward me. This minimizes interaction with the room and connects more with the keyboard. But still, it sounds like speakers in a room, not piano in a room.

Here is a link to a picture of the right speaker on the stand:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/k...directlink

To me, as somebody playing only for himself, the best results are with Bose noise cancelling headphones. No keyboard or pedal noise, no room interaction, just the pure sound of the model. Somebody doing gigs or playing for people is of course in a whole different situation.

I recall Joe Felice once wrote about his home setup using large high quality speakers along with powerful amplification. This must sound pretty good indeed because Joe has such a stellar technique! The other point I would like to make is that sometimes a piano in the room is only possible if a good pianist is also there! Not my case...

What makes me think this way is a recent experience during a choir sectional rehearsal in a very bad sounding conference room. At one point our accompanist, a professional organist, came along and played the complex piano reduction of the piece we were learning on a very cheap Yamaha keyboard, with plastic keys and a synthesizer spring action. Well, the result was extraordinay, there was a piano in the room suddenly, because there was also an excellent pianist. The fact he was used to pipe organ touch surely helps in dealing with this bad action, but he also sounds fabulous on our regular real upright...

I placed the speakers upside down with the tweeter at the bottom, shooting straight into my ears, but still, I agree it is far from optimal...

By the way, these speakers in the picture are ancient (but good) Dynaco bookshelfs, and not the higher quality Paradigm I used previously. Speaker quality doesn't convincingly improve the realism at low to moderate volume in my opinion.

Hi all,

Looks like some good new contributions to this thread  

My own update:  I've had some success using both headphones (AKG K240) and the studio monitors (see above) *at the same time* whenever possible.  That said, it's nice to have headphones when the graciousness of family wears thin!

cheers,

ethan

PS Gilles, noting the "stopper bar" you put behind the pedal and in front of the rear legs of the stand -- I have the same piano stand (love it!  very stable and compact when folded) and have been wondering how to deal with "pedal migration"

PMFJI --

Would adding some reverb (using Pianoteq's reverb) help the situation, with "near-field" speakers?

Thanks --

.    Charles (usually with headphones, occasionally with an ElectroVoice ZXA1 aimed at my head)