GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: Romy The Cat's new Listening Room

Post Subject: My doubtsPosted by skushino on: 6/28/2012

I can empathize with your fascination on how a piano might influence the quality of playback in your home. A grand or large upright like a Steinway K52 has a resonating sound board 6 feet long or more. A Steinway Model D concert grand sound board is around 9 feet long. The size and quality of the sound board has a significant influence on the sound that uniquely identifies the instrument (what distinguishes a Steinway from a Chikering from a Bosendorfer from a Kawai). My second listening room shares space with a large upright piano (6 ft sound board) and large speakers (estimate cabinet volume around 24 cu ft). I seldom listen to loud music, but when I opened up the volume, the piano clearly resonates with the playback. It's actually very annoying and distracting. I partially solved the problem by putting a large piece of thermal insulating foam behind the piano, backed by cardboard, both covering the sound board. This helped. The problem was solved when I moved both the piano and the speakers to new locations, reducing the ringing below my hearing threshold.

From a different perspective, a piano in the listening room adds to the aesthetic quality, in my opinion. A large piano is a wonderful source of music, and seems fitting in a listening room, even if partially detrimental to the audio playback sound quality.

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