Upright vs. grand - sound clarity

raagamuffin · 2025-05-22T13:41:23+00:00

So I was thinking; yeah accidents happen 😉 When speaking to a sound technician on surround sound for home theaters, I got into a discussion of speakers. The...

iternabe

I don't know much about acoustic pianos, but I know a little about speakers.

Speakers are generally point sources - sound originates from the speaker cones and radiates out. The low frequency in bass (from woofers) are non-directional. Close your eyes and you won't be able to tell which direct the bass comes from. Therefore you have plenty of freedom for placement of the subwoofers.

Treble, on the other hand, is highly directional. This is where speaker placement become critical. Ideally, you want the tweeter to be placed at ear level, and also pointed at each ear respectively (this called toe-in became each side speaker is angled in). With this placement, the listener is also supposed to sit still on the centerline which is the only ideal listening position. Move your head left or right away from the center and you may hear difference in audio quality and in soundstage. Interestingly, Dr. Floyd Toole from Harman conducted research to find that one critical factor to speaker quality is off-axis response of the tweeter. Even when the on-axis frequency response is flat and even across the audible range, a speaker that has peaked or dips when measured off-axis would not sound as good as one that hasn't.

Acoustic piano, AFAIK, is different in that the "speaker" is really a large surface - the entire sound board.

MRC

When you listen to recorded sound, you want the sound you hear to be as near as possible to the sound that was recorded. The best ways to achieve this are either to use headphones, or to have speakers directed at the listener's ears in an acoustically "dead" room: one where the walls, ceiling and floor do not reflect any sound waves.

Listening to a piano is something else. Place a piano (upright or grand) in a room where all the surfaces do not reflect the sound waves at all, and it will sound too dry (cinemas do not have good acoustics for live music). Pianos are designed to sound best in a reasonably resonant room or hall, where surfaces absorb and reflect to create an situation where the listener will receive a mix of partially reflected and diffused sound. Here, it's not a question of fidelity to an original sound source, it's a question of making the sound most pleasing and varied: a good pianist, with a good piano, in a good acoustic can produce sounds that are rich, warm, brilliant, powerful, subtle, crystal clear, thunderous...

Seeker

MRC MRC - I am a fan of your posts as well as Iternabe's. I just want to express a differing opinion here. Actually, I don't want the recorded sound to be different from what I hear in the room. One of the things that was true about "in concert" recordings made years ago of my playing by various professionals was that they sounded "natural" - usually a pair of very good SDC microophones (AKG, Neumann) and something on the order of a Revox A-300. Things sounded natural, and that is the sound I go for in my own recordings.

One thing that you and Iternabe (seem to) overlook has to do with the lid of the grand piano. It is, IMO and experience, that the lid must be open, even if just slightly, for the sound to project properly. It really does change the quality of the sound, particularly in a live performance on a stage with a proscenium arch. If the piano is completely closed, the sound stays behind that arch, and so on.

Anyhow, I think when considering the sound of the grand vs the upright, it's important to consider how far the lid is open. It's part of the design of the instrument for it to be open and aiming the sound out and away from the instrument.

MRC

Seeker Actually, I don't want the recorded sound to be different from what I hear in the room.

I don't see where your opinion differs from mine: I also want the recorded sound to be as close as possible to what I hear in a room or concert hall. If you make a recording in a natural acoustic, then you will normally want the listeners to experience the sound as recorded in this acoustic. The recorded sound already carries all the reverberations of the acoustic in which it was recorded, so the best way to ensure that the listener hears the sound of the original recording correctly, is not to add any extra reverberations. Thus headphones, or speakers pointing directly at the listener in an acoustically dampened room will give the most faithful rendition. This is why the recommendation of the sound technician that the OP talks about makes sense.

But it doesn't follow that a piano is best experienced by listening directly to the sound coming in a straight line from the soundboard. When we listen to a piano live, we in fact hear a lot of reflected sound, and this is the way a piano sounds best. I certainly don't overlook the lid of a grand piano. I didn't speak of it, probably because I take this for granted: a grand piano is designed to sound best with the lid open towards the audience. Here, the sound reflections are wanted: they are part of the richness of the sound of the piano. If a piano is recorded well, it is recorded not just directly from the soundboard, but with all the acoustic reflections that make the sound agreeable and "natural". It's when we listen to this recording that we don't need any extra reverberation.

raagamuffin

Interesting points..
I wonder, what if a piano is recorded close to the strings and then when listening , the speaker is allowed to vibrate upwards like a real piano.. would that give the sense that the piano is in the room ?
Or does the source of the sound matter (unison string vibration from multiple sources vs. a couple of speaker cones) ?

MRC

raagamuffin I wonder, what if a piano is recorded close to the strings and then when listening , the speaker is allowed to vibrate upwards like a real piano.. would that give the sense that the piano is in the room ?

You'd need an angled lid above the speaker as well, like the lid of a grand piano.

In fact this is what Yamaha does with the AvantGrand N3x, in order to make the recorded samples sound as if they are coming from an acoustic piano. It's not perfect, but it is one of the most realistic digital pianos I have heard.

sweelinck

Sound playback that was 100% accurate to what was recorded is a meaningless metric. Even assuming a live recording in a performance space, what was recorded is not what you would have heard if you were in the space when the music was recorded. What is recorded is what was captured by each mic at its placement, and then mixed to create a stereo or multichannel illusion of the full sound in the space.

The most accurate speakers in existence in a space that is completely dead acoustically will render the defects in the mix too well. For the mix to maintain its soundstage illusion, a little bit of blurring by the speakers and the space is beneficial.

L-M

In my experience, grand pianos have a more nuanced sound due to their design, but it’s interesting to think about how orientation affects perceived authenticity.

ShiroKuro

raagamuffin wouldn't the sound clarity and 'authenticity' (whatever that means in a piano context) be best if the user was facing the soundboard as in the upright (with all panels removed), rather than the soundboard facing the ceiling, as in a grand?

Which user are we most interested in here? The pianist? Or a listener? Another point to remember is the grand piano lid, which (assuming it's open, whether on short or long stick) means that the soundboard isn't just pointed at the ceiling. there's more nuance there. Anyway, for the listener, most grand pianos generally sound best when you get some distance from them. Of course this depends a great detail on the space as well.

My current environment has the piano in a sort of small space with some angled walls, pointing out towards the living room where there is a vaulted ceiling. My piano tuner once had me stand in the middle of the living room while he played. I was amazing at the sound! He explained that the effect I heard was because my piano is not in a square box, and that the uneven ceiling has a huge and beneficial impact on how the sound moves, and swells, through the space. I like the way my piano sounds when I'm playing it just fine, but it doesn't sound anything like the way it does when you stand in the center, below the ceiling's point, while someone else plays.

So back to the question of uprights....

I never liked the acoustic experience of playing an upright. And I speak from experience. My first acoustic piano was an upright, I had that for eight years, then digital for seven, then two different uprights again for five years, then a grand. I've now been a grand owner for six years.

I much, much prefer the acoustic experience of playing a grand to an upright. With an upright, the sound is just blasting you in the face. No subtlety, fewer gradations of sound. With a grand, the sound swells and has room to grow before it gets to your ears.

I don't have any comments about speakers, but these are my thoughts about playing acoustic pianos... such as they are. 🙂

trecorda

I cannot say that I prefer uprights to grands but I never experience the sound of an upright as “blasting me in the face” Actually I have found placing an upright in the middle of the room was really when it sounded best.☺️ Of course it’s not practical to do that. With an upright I experience the sound coming from the back more than anything. Keeping the piano 5 or 6 inches away from the wall is best sound. I really loved the Steinway grands at university many moons ago, and I loved my Japanese grand but have enjoyed playing many uprights and grands since.
There is a difference in perceiving where the sound comes from for the pianist in grands and uprights. Depending on the upright, it certainly is still capable subtleness and great expression. Of course the good technician can work wonders on any piano. The size of grand gives a difference in sound here. It can be a wonderful experience. If the grand is too small or the hammers are messed up, a good upright can sound far better.
Most of all I love an expressive acoustic sound. If not a digital will do fine. 😙

I do think European uprights make the best ones. ( I apologize but that is just my perception) Japanese pianos uprights ARE very well made musical instruments, one cannot deny that. Chinese pianos vary greatly some remarkably ones are being made especially recently. American uprights are unknown to me except for Steinway.
The K52 is a nice piano if you can find a devoted technician to tune it, and of course if you can afford it. Like European uprights they are very expensive. Only at this stage in life were we able to afford a really expensive piano.

Player1

Here's an interesting thought; what would be the result if an upright piano had an acoustic pickup installed on the soundboard?

MRC

Player1 Here's an interesting thought; what would be the result if an upright piano had an acoustic pickup installed on the soundboard?

I've had pickups on the soundboard in both uprights and grands when a piano is part of a pit orchestra for a musical. This technique makes it possible to capture the piano sound without interference from extraneous noises or nearby instruments.

The quality of the result depends on the quality of the instrument, more than whether it's upright or grand. In most theatres it's rare to find a high quality upright in good condition (they've all been played to death), but there will probably be a grand that is kept in shape for concerts. If you do happen to have a top-range upright (Bechstein C8, for instance) that's not been mistreated, it sounds as good as a fine grand with the pickup.

WieWaldi

Player1 do you mean a pickup similar to those on acoustic guitars?

MRC

There are pickups specially designed for pianos. If you do an Internet search for "piano pickup microphone" or "piano contact microphone", you should find a selection. There are also universal pickups that can be used on any instrument that has a vibrating soundboard (guitar, violin, harp, piano...)

sweelinck

MRC
Helpinstill pickups used to be the gold standard of piano pickups. I don't know what that landscape looks like today.

https://helpinstill.com/