Well generaly they are dipole speakers and room placement can be very critical.
And need to be place away from any refelctive surfaces by at least 2 feet minimum.
In the past they have been used as tweeter/midranges in some box speakers as well.
Such as Infinity and KLH brand from the 70's.
I use my little ones as nearfield as this helps to reduce the effect of bass cancelations a normal characteristic of dipole speakers.
And the typicaly have a naturaly flat respose from most every response graph I have seen to date from all sorts of sizes.
I don't have any recent pictures of them yet as they are not setup at the moment but I will do so in the very near future.
Basicaly its the width is what determines its lowest reproducable (f3 and f6) frequency due to the cancelations from the backwave.
Athough they will go sub 100hz just not efficiently
And I takes alot of surface area to get fullrange response.
This why hybrids are so popular and work very well.
There are many discussions of this, and, the high frequency beaming effects as well that are a charicteristic of planar drivers and how to combat these things.
As with all speakers compromises some times have to be made.
If you want to get an idea have how such a speaker sounds then I would suggest you to search out a high end stereo shop and listen to some Martin Logan ESL's or some Apogee's (if you can find them) or the Magneplan speakers and have a listen.
Then, Keep in mind that you very well can build something like them at a fraction of the cost.
Take look at Mavrics thread where he shows how simply they can be built with the help of CharlieM, aswell.
Before I built my first panels I had listen to some ML's and my very first panels were not any diffrent as far as midrange and high frequency's are concerned and the sound quality is second to none IMHO.
They sounded so acurate that one time I was listening to a cassett recording of some rain and forrest sounds that my dog would go to the door to watch the rain but would not go outside for fear of getting wet when there was NO RAIN (ha,ha,ha).
She is now dubbed the infamous sadie in these threads.
Mavric's build is a perfect testiment to this.
I don't mean to sound like it is the easiest thing in the world as they are much more complicated than just putting a speaker in a box with a crossover but the extra effort is much more worth the payoff in the end.
I have always wanted to build my own ribbons aswell and have done some expreimentations with a few builds but good magnets are not cheap and don't fare well around my tape machines and I now have a set of apogees,But IMHO my diy esl's blow those things away.
And I don't have to deal with the heavy magnets and the strong fields associated with them. jer
And need to be place away from any refelctive surfaces by at least 2 feet minimum.
In the past they have been used as tweeter/midranges in some box speakers as well.
Such as Infinity and KLH brand from the 70's.
I use my little ones as nearfield as this helps to reduce the effect of bass cancelations a normal characteristic of dipole speakers.
And the typicaly have a naturaly flat respose from most every response graph I have seen to date from all sorts of sizes.
I don't have any recent pictures of them yet as they are not setup at the moment but I will do so in the very near future.
Basicaly its the width is what determines its lowest reproducable (f3 and f6) frequency due to the cancelations from the backwave.
Athough they will go sub 100hz just not efficiently
And I takes alot of surface area to get fullrange response.
This why hybrids are so popular and work very well.
There are many discussions of this, and, the high frequency beaming effects as well that are a charicteristic of planar drivers and how to combat these things.
As with all speakers compromises some times have to be made.
If you want to get an idea have how such a speaker sounds then I would suggest you to search out a high end stereo shop and listen to some Martin Logan ESL's or some Apogee's (if you can find them) or the Magneplan speakers and have a listen.
Then, Keep in mind that you very well can build something like them at a fraction of the cost.
Take look at Mavrics thread where he shows how simply they can be built with the help of CharlieM, aswell.
Before I built my first panels I had listen to some ML's and my very first panels were not any diffrent as far as midrange and high frequency's are concerned and the sound quality is second to none IMHO.
They sounded so acurate that one time I was listening to a cassett recording of some rain and forrest sounds that my dog would go to the door to watch the rain but would not go outside for fear of getting wet when there was NO RAIN (ha,ha,ha).
She is now dubbed the infamous sadie in these threads.
Mavric's build is a perfect testiment to this.
I don't mean to sound like it is the easiest thing in the world as they are much more complicated than just putting a speaker in a box with a crossover but the extra effort is much more worth the payoff in the end.
I have always wanted to build my own ribbons aswell and have done some expreimentations with a few builds but good magnets are not cheap and don't fare well around my tape machines and I now have a set of apogees,But IMHO my diy esl's blow those things away.
And I don't have to deal with the heavy magnets and the strong fields associated with them. jer
I tested my piano when I bought it (the 1982 Sohmer)with Lecuona's Malaguena, which goes C#1(34.6 Hz) to D7 (2349 hz). Pictures at an Exhibition goes down to Eb1 (38.9) and George Winston's "Holly and the Ivy" goes up to C8 (4186). Only thing tougher on tweeters is tinkly bells, and the Peter Nero "young & warm & wonderful" record has that, too.
I like packaged speaker systems for the phase coherence. Not so sure about subwoofers, except the ones at circuit city/BB sound terrible. A bass drum hit like on ZZ Top "afterburner" should all come at once, not different frequencies at different times. Same with the cannon shot in "1812 overture". I marched 4 years 2 spots over from 2 bass drums, I know what they should sound like, too.
Oh, the budget. You had to mention that, didn't you? Just when the thread was getting fun, a reality check. lol Okay then.
Right now, I'm setting up a keyboard controller for PC-based soft synth. I love the sound I've heard from some Grand Piano sample VSTi's that came with a freebie version of Presonus Studio One played through a hifi amp/speaker. I know it could be a whole lot better and I want to find the best sample/amp/speaker I can afford. I figured I would get some ideas here because as you suggest, I recognize that it's a unique situation. I'm not a pro player, but I am pretty sensitive to real instrument sounds and my amateur MIDI compositions and recordings will mostly consist of real instruments. I'm not into vintage synth for example. Unfortunately, most of the instruments are pretty lame, with some exceptions. I heard a really impressive trombone the other day, for example. But good piano samples are out there and so I need to find the best speakers to do them justice and that's where I'm at. Later, I may get a good dedicated piano board, but for now, a good M-Audio controller does the trick and I like the flexibility offered with the soft synth approach. I may also need to replace my 16 bit DAC with a 24, also, but that's easy enough.
Frankly, I haven't set a hard and fast cap on cost, but I do need to keep things pretty reasonable and I'll have to do some listening to determine my best bang/buck ratio. Right now, I'll listen to any suggestions and go from there. I am a mere non-pro mortal, though, with commensurate means.
Thanks for the advice and links.
Take a look at these threads if you haven't already and it pretty much sums up what I am trying to say.
Good luck! jer
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/planars-exotics/181041-my-2-nd-esl-attempt-2.html#post2541523
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/planars-exotics/166280-jazzmans-new-stat-panels.html#post2174937
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/planars-exotics/165495-start-finish-esl-hybrid.html#post2160924
Good luck! jer
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/planars-exotics/181041-my-2-nd-esl-attempt-2.html#post2541523
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/planars-exotics/166280-jazzmans-new-stat-panels.html#post2174937
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/planars-exotics/165495-start-finish-esl-hybrid.html#post2160924
I'd love to hear some of these Gedlee speakers; those are good quality drivers, but are certainly not esoteric or really even that expensive. I guess how one implements them is what separates the men from the boys. Still, its hard to fathom that a 12"/1" box speaker could be as realistic as a Maggie for piano in a domestic setting. It would be great to do a shootout. Anyone got Gedlee speakers in the NYC area? I'll supply the Maggies and I bet I could get my hands on some Meyer UPA-1P's
Brett
Give us a hint, are we talking $500 or $5K, or ???? ballpark?
I set up something similar for my children to practice piano on many years ago,
and for synth drums more recently but they did not stick with either. I found an
excellent piano sound font for the PC but I'm not sure if it will even work with
modern PC sound cards.
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I'm only 600 mls from NYC..I used to live their.
I've had ML Summits, Questz and CLS IIz's, Final Sound 1000i's and a custom 3 way using Accuton C-79, Fountek Ribbon and Scan Speak woofer and the Abbeys just amaze me everytime I listen.
My room is "real world" as it's not a purpose built room but they sound fantastic IMO.
Sprinter check out Synthogy | Ivory II Grand Piano Demos
It is a 40 GIG piano sample. Not the cheapest but arguably the best. IMHO, if you don't have this or one of the close competing virtual instruments the speakers won't be the limiting factor whether you are running Maggies, Gedlees, or cheap prosumer studio monitors.
B
It is a 40 GIG piano sample. Not the cheapest but arguably the best. IMHO, if you don't have this or one of the close competing virtual instruments the speakers won't be the limiting factor whether you are running Maggies, Gedlees, or cheap prosumer studio monitors.
B
Wow, I had no idea this stuff existed. How interesting. They have a great AQ (Aesthetic Quality to the uninitiated) as well. I must look into this for my basement listening room I'm building. (I've determined that the best WAF design is a whole new room) : )
I know exactly where you are coming from the first place to start is with a 24 bit card.
The X-Fi card is hard to beat for the money and was my first 24bit card and I have been extremley happy with it.
From there the prices just go up.
My friend from the studio recording days gave me the GINA24 card that I now have because I ended up with all of the equipment and it is a 4in/8out full duplex card.
Since then he has replaced it with ASUS CROSSHAIR IV amd board with the X-FI system on board and is completely happy after having the GINA24 card for so long.
For me I went from the PHILLIPS PCS706 16bit card to the X-FI and then to the GINA24
And the difference is not just night and day but from winter to summer for 16bit to 24bit.
The X-FI is in another system that I don't use much as it is moms machine and it is the ELITE version so that she can transfer her old VCR tapes to dvd. jer
The X-Fi card is hard to beat for the money and was my first 24bit card and I have been extremley happy with it.
From there the prices just go up.
My friend from the studio recording days gave me the GINA24 card that I now have because I ended up with all of the equipment and it is a 4in/8out full duplex card.
Since then he has replaced it with ASUS CROSSHAIR IV amd board with the X-FI system on board and is completely happy after having the GINA24 card for so long.
For me I went from the PHILLIPS PCS706 16bit card to the X-FI and then to the GINA24
And the difference is not just night and day but from winter to summer for 16bit to 24bit.
The X-FI is in another system that I don't use much as it is moms machine and it is the ELITE version so that she can transfer her old VCR tapes to dvd. jer
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Actually, Sprinter, if you are not gigging in public and don't need portability, the best bang for the buck is an actual wood piano. There is a huge sell-off going on now to make room for giant flat screen TV's. I've seen 44" studio Baldwins from the sixties go for $200. Baldwin is a **** brand now, but it wasn't in 1960. Their sub line was Hamilton, which wasn't that bad. 60's Baldwins were the loudest consoles I ever played- something about a thinner soundboard. Other brands worth driving out to see if they come up on craigslist are Sohmer, Steinway, Wurlitzer, Everett after 1960. Don't buy anything under 39" tall. Baby grands don't sound as good as 44-48" consoles in my opinion. Hit all the notes and make sure they play fast and repeat, see if you like the tone high middle & low, don't worry about the lack of tuning. Way out of tune pianos are probably low mileage, bought for status mainly. Listen to the split between the 2 string keys and the 3 string keys, my Mother's 1954 Everett had a problem with that, sounded funny just below the split. Open the front and make sure the middle hammers are not worn down by excessive use. Steinways particularly are often flogged off by music schools after they have been practiced to death. They go for $2000 here from U of L, but the Steinway I got for $1000 was used by a little old mechanic with dirty hands that didn't use it that much. I had to tune it seven times to get it right (myself) but it was stable, only needs tuning now after two years. I use a $70 4 wheel 1200 lb dolly from mcmaster.com and move it myself in a U-haul trailer, with one helper. You don't want a pre-depression upright unless you play honky-tonk or Scott Joplin, they weigh 600 lb. Post war consoles are 400 lb roughly.
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Well, I must say I never even considered that option. Shows you how techie we've become. But you're right, I do think pianos are being sold off now for various reasons. Maybe I actually could afford an upright console. I've always been afraid of a used piano because of warping issues and such, but I guess if you know it's history...OTOH, my keyboard controller weighs about 5 lbs LOL.
Thanks for the buying advice. I wouldn't have had a clue. How can you tell the age of a Baldwin or any other?
Thanks for the buying advice. I wouldn't have had a clue. How can you tell the age of a Baldwin or any other?
Most of the cheaper pianos come with a story "this was grandmother's but she died" etc. Those are often keepers, Gma played a couple of hymns a couple of times a year. The post bankruptcy stuff costs more, but is *****ier in my opinion. Pearl River, Samick, Kawai, Yamaha are saving their quality work for their own names, and sell the economy stuff under baldwin, mason & hamlin, chickering, wurlitzer, to destroy the value of the the quality old stuff. Their marketing strategy is your gain. I personally think Yamaha consoles are worse, I don't like the sound of their bass strings. Many disagree.
Brands to stay away from, winter, kimball. 'winter was the kimball economy line, and I helped chop one up for the garbage with many bent hammer shafts. Kimball just was not very rugged. Pre-depression "uprights" were mostly 5' tall and very dark. Upright Baldwin, Sohmers, a couple of other brands are fun for Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton and have a unique tinkle tone, but there are alot of brands nobody heard of that were good. Save an upright for a second piano if you like the SJ sound. CL listers often call postwar console pianos "uprights", and sometimes calls uprights "grands" because that is cast into the metal, but they are not. Look at the picture. Be sure to get a bench, they are about $80 naked. 9 of 10 Baldwin Acrosonics here are spinets, 28"-34" pianos. Stay away from spinnits unless your working bars, the bass strings are too short and not enough fundamental, and the action is funny, not fast. Again, some CL people call 39-48" pianos spinnets because of ignorance.
you can look at the back to see if the soundboard is split, that will also cause a rattle in many cases. You can look at the hammers to see if the stems are bent, that is a sign of too much humidity, or *****y wood in the first place. With the front open, in addition to the worn hammer felts, high mileage units would have wiggly hammers (side to side) caused by wear in the bearing/shaft. Visit some CL listers and take a turn, people like different sounds in their piano. I like bright overtones and find Bosendorfer grands a little dull for example, preferring Steinway. Others like the Bosendorfer.
Baldwin acrosonics are very bright, 1941 Steinways too, 1980 Steinways and Sohmer's less so. Wurlitzer is very resonant, good for singing but less so for percussive work like Moonlight mvt 3. Hit a key with alternate fingers very fast to see how fast the action is. My 1941 steinway is a tiny bit faster than my 1982 Sohmer. Have fun, visiting used pianos is a cheap hobby and CL is full of them, some with stupid prices too high (winters) some stupidly low (like that 1960 baldwin 44") It was blonde, but a can of stripper and stain can fix that for $100.
You want to talk a particular candidate you've found, PM me your email & we'll talk that way. I might not notice here, and I might be away from the computer for a few days when it is dry here (mowing).
Brands to stay away from, winter, kimball. 'winter was the kimball economy line, and I helped chop one up for the garbage with many bent hammer shafts. Kimball just was not very rugged. Pre-depression "uprights" were mostly 5' tall and very dark. Upright Baldwin, Sohmers, a couple of other brands are fun for Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton and have a unique tinkle tone, but there are alot of brands nobody heard of that were good. Save an upright for a second piano if you like the SJ sound. CL listers often call postwar console pianos "uprights", and sometimes calls uprights "grands" because that is cast into the metal, but they are not. Look at the picture. Be sure to get a bench, they are about $80 naked. 9 of 10 Baldwin Acrosonics here are spinets, 28"-34" pianos. Stay away from spinnits unless your working bars, the bass strings are too short and not enough fundamental, and the action is funny, not fast. Again, some CL people call 39-48" pianos spinnets because of ignorance.
you can look at the back to see if the soundboard is split, that will also cause a rattle in many cases. You can look at the hammers to see if the stems are bent, that is a sign of too much humidity, or *****y wood in the first place. With the front open, in addition to the worn hammer felts, high mileage units would have wiggly hammers (side to side) caused by wear in the bearing/shaft. Visit some CL listers and take a turn, people like different sounds in their piano. I like bright overtones and find Bosendorfer grands a little dull for example, preferring Steinway. Others like the Bosendorfer.
Baldwin acrosonics are very bright, 1941 Steinways too, 1980 Steinways and Sohmer's less so. Wurlitzer is very resonant, good for singing but less so for percussive work like Moonlight mvt 3. Hit a key with alternate fingers very fast to see how fast the action is. My 1941 steinway is a tiny bit faster than my 1982 Sohmer. Have fun, visiting used pianos is a cheap hobby and CL is full of them, some with stupid prices too high (winters) some stupidly low (like that 1960 baldwin 44") It was blonde, but a can of stripper and stain can fix that for $100.
You want to talk a particular candidate you've found, PM me your email & we'll talk that way. I might not notice here, and I might be away from the computer for a few days when it is dry here (mowing).
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Well, I love shopping around for stuff like this, (as my wife will be quick to confirm). I see several Baldwin Acrosonics listed on my Seattle CL right now. What is the story on that line? They look like spinets. Drop action spinets have kind of a bad rap. Justified?
I'm pretty picky about timbre of any instument. I think I would prefer a full, rich tone over "bright", but I'll try a few and see. That's why I like the better "Grand Piano" soft synth samples. I'm pretty sure I would quickly find myself preferring the taller string versions of acoustics. I've had two inexpensive pianos in the long past and was not really happy with the sound. You go to a piano store and you can get spoiled pretty quick... I'll see if I can locate some true consoles in the 44" range that I can afford.
Oh, my, there's a $40,000 Steinway on CL. Must have been Frasier's. Wonder how that would sound?
You know, I just remembered playing a Yamaha grand in a store once. As I recall, I thought it was too bright for my taste, although amazing in every other way.
Have you ever tried the yamaha clavinova electronic piano.
I had a pianist friend that did clasical stuff and he was exteremly picky about how they sounded.
And even though this was in the mid to late 90's, He said that the clavinova was the closes thing that he could find and had tried them all as cost was not a factor for him.
His name was Mark Meyers from the Naple Florida area.
I think I still have some of the master tracks of a few of his sessions.
I will have too dig them out some time and give them a listen again.
If you do I can dump then them to 24bit digital and send you a copy.
jer
I had a pianist friend that did clasical stuff and he was exteremly picky about how they sounded.
And even though this was in the mid to late 90's, He said that the clavinova was the closes thing that he could find and had tried them all as cost was not a factor for him.
His name was Mark Meyers from the Naple Florida area.
I think I still have some of the master tracks of a few of his sessions.
I will have too dig them out some time and give them a listen again.
If you do I can dump then them to 24bit digital and send you a copy.
jer
You play much, you don't want a spinnet. 90% of baldwin acrosonics are spinnets.Spinnets are real flat above the music rack, whereas 39" and above have some height in the back. My 39" Sohmer and my 40" Steinway are quite fast. yeah, spinnet action is slow. Grandma didn't need the speed for hymns, but I do for Beethoven or Elton John. The other 10% of Baldwin Acrosonics, the consoles, can be great pianos. Dealers cherry pick and sell a story- if you can inspect yourself like I said, you don't need it. You will need to tune immedidiately if it has been benignly neglected.
You don't need to unplug a piano in a lightning storm like you do a clavinova. The electrolytic capacitors in the power supply don't go bad in 15 years. You need to tune them. I do mine with a 1/4 drive 5/16" socket, a long reach 5/16" allen wrench, and my fingernail. The hammond organ is the pitch reference.
I heard a Yamaha grand on TV. If the sound system was okay, I liked it. More a copy of the Steinway than the Bosendorfer. I really don't like the Yamaha console at church, it is way too soft and not enough overtones for me. Try some different things before you buy them, for the tone. Remember bass, middle, and treble tones can be different, and different on the different brands and models. Wurlitzers are a little duller than Baldwin Acrosonics. Baldwin Hamiltons (the budget line) have a duller sound than the Acrosonic, too. Hamiltons from the 50's-70's were quite durable.
You don't need to unplug a piano in a lightning storm like you do a clavinova. The electrolytic capacitors in the power supply don't go bad in 15 years. You need to tune them. I do mine with a 1/4 drive 5/16" socket, a long reach 5/16" allen wrench, and my fingernail. The hammond organ is the pitch reference.
I heard a Yamaha grand on TV. If the sound system was okay, I liked it. More a copy of the Steinway than the Bosendorfer. I really don't like the Yamaha console at church, it is way too soft and not enough overtones for me. Try some different things before you buy them, for the tone. Remember bass, middle, and treble tones can be different, and different on the different brands and models. Wurlitzers are a little duller than Baldwin Acrosonics. Baldwin Hamiltons (the budget line) have a duller sound than the Acrosonic, too. Hamiltons from the 50's-70's were quite durable.
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Hi Jer,
No, I haven't. I just googled a bit and it certainly looks like an interesting option. What that whole line tells me is that digital pianos can be quite impressive if done right. To me, being an experimenter, if I were to stay in the digital realm I would want to set up a system that was as versatile as possible, which probably means soft synth, to take advantage of new instruments when they come out. That means the biggest challenge is hardware and we're back to talking amp and speakers. For strictly piano work, a very good quality board would be paramount as well, and I imagine the Clavinova has that.
Given all that, my ideal setup for live playing (no sequencer or recording) would be a dedicated synth module that uses off the shelf VST plugins (is there such a thing?), an audio system that does justice to the better plugins, and a nice weighted 88 board. The audio system could then be used for playing recorded music that requires sonic accuracy (like solo piano or other solo stuff). In addition, I would want to quickly change out the weighted board for a synth-weighted board for organ and other plugins. To me, that's the ideal live setup. Similar to a store bought Yamaha keyboard with an onboard synth, but a modular design with mix and match parts, and probably cheaper and probably better if you chose components well.
For recording and MIDI work, my controller and computer is fine and the audio playback system above could be used when desired.
Sound reasonable? I'm not a great player, but I truly like good sounding instruments and the sound is what keeps even amateur players interested in continuing.
Oh, I wonder what Yamaha uses for speakers in the Clavinova? I'm sure they put a lot of thought into it.
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