notes that 'hang' properly

Saab

Saab

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I am lucky enough to have a piano playing missus who uses a Knight,so although I am tone deaf I can relate to how the things leaves notes floating in the air

not unlike my new speakers,although considerably cheaper than my last pair,I can't stop listening to Chopin,the difference is dramatic,the notes do indeed hang in the air

what is this called? is it 'timbre'?
 
what is 'timbre'? or just my post in general? or my wifes ability to play a piano?

would the good Dr kindly expand?
 
Timbre is the tone of a sound. Whether it sounds like a violin or indeed a piano. What you're hearing is the improvement in sound your tweeter makes, those hi-fi attributes of air and space, the reproduction of the room the piano was in when it was recorded
 
thank you

luckily,I am used to The Devils acerbic wit so my self-confidence hasn't been dented
 
saab,
any attempt to try to dissect hi-fi is bollox in the eyes of certain 'thin' types. alternatively you may just be blindsiding bub by describing something his speakers don;t do and therefore unwittingly implying that they are less than ideal. this of course requires a full on armed response in case the overweening air of superiority slips for a femto second.

what you describe i've always thought of as 'air', 'space' etc. timbre is the tonal difference between things like trumpets and coronets or various makers violins (stradivarius etc.). for example with some lo-fi systems you may find it difficult to tell the difference between a piano and a harp (as a very bad case).
cheers


julian
 
its apty descriptive of what I meant,I had no other way of asking the question,but i will try and avoid mag speak in future
 
It's to do with decay on reflection. If you play a note on the piano in different acoustics, it will sound different as the note decays. The better my speakers have got the better they have got at reproducing the resonance attached to a note whilst still playing the next note.
 
I know exactly what Saab means by the sense of the music hanging in space before you. Its one of the joys of hifi for me, and I wouldn't be happy with a system that couldn't do this.
 
yes,thast exactly what it is Alan,my previous speakers did many things right,but these Von Scweikerts are the first speakers I have had that can do justice to piano,particularly some of Chopin's finest
 
semantics, Julian and LS have also used the words 'air' and 'decay',whatever,my new speakers do something my old ones don't,they bring an element of reality to the music,particularly classical pieces
 
Saab said:
I am lucky enough to have a piano playing missus who uses a Knight,so although I am tone deaf I can relate to how the things leaves notes floating in the air

not unlike my new speakers,although considerably cheaper than my last pair,I can't stop listening to Chopin,the difference is dramatic,the notes do indeed hang in the air

what is this called? is it 'timbre'?
Click to expand...

Mine plays a beautifully toned 'K. Kawaii' (vintage 1975/76 before the increase of the thickness of the felt on the hammers - a slightly more brilliant tone).

I've found that the 'reality' of the sound of piano music through my system is highly dependent upon how it was recorded. John Atkinson does a phenomenal job of capturing the sound of a Bösendorfer on Orpheum Masters' (Robert Silverman's) "Beethoven's 32 Piano Sonatas". While the Bösendorfer has a slightly "darker" sound than that of my wife's piano, and the room where the Bösendorfer was recorded a little small for the instrument, there is no question that the CD captures the essence of how the piano really sounds.

"Timbre" to me when speaking of recorded music, is not a word I'd use to describe how a note 'hangs in the air' per se. Timbre, again to me, is more than that: it is the sonic signature of the note - the ability to hear all aspects of a 'note': the attack (the hammer as it strikes the string), the vibration of the piano string combined with its resonance through the soundboard and cabinet of the piano, and finally the natural decay of a true piano note in the context of the space that the piano is being played in. It is a very complicated characteristic of an instrument's sound as there are so many variables that can contribute to 'timbre'. 'Timbre' is one of the most critical aspects of realism in a Hi-fi experience (once again, to me).



In my experience, the dynamics of piano music are better produced by a dynamic loudspeaker. I love what planar and electrostatic speakers do with bowed, soft-attack musical instruments, but they do not get piano music entirely "right" to my ear. My Totem Forests, a simple two-way design, excel at reproducing piano music.

Describing a subjective experience with the written word is a difficult task, but to me a note "hanging in the air" is only one aspect of 'timbre'.
 
DMMcG said:
In my experience, the dynamics of piano music are better produced by a dynamic loudspeaker. I love what planar and electrostatic speakers do with bowed, soft-attack musical instruments, but they do not get piano music entirely "right" to my ear. My Totem Forests, a simple two-way design, excel at reproducing piano music.
Click to expand...
Interesting, I find the total opposite. For me electrostatics produce the most realistic sounds for all unamplified acoustic instruments, especially piano. I find with a few exceptions, that dynamic speakers always inevitably veil or distort the total sound waveform of a piano in one way or another, usually by adding cabinet resonances from the speaker itself (although some people like this). With ESL's you get the whole note from beginning to end unalterted as it was fed into the mic IMO.
 

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