What are the best loudspeakers under $4000 to re-create lifelike piano

@inna
You really do surprise me by saying if it is digital forget it. I have heard some digital master recordings that if we had access to would dispel that myth straight away. The way I see it the recordnig process has a lot to do with it at the microphone end. We are by the way trying to record sometime levels of 110db. I have heard some valiant attempts to portray it but they were usually through very high end active speaker systems with massive active sub woofers also and in recording studios I used to frequent. Only then would I say we are getting towards it in any medium. In the 70s I used to burn out bass panels on my Quad 57s by trying to replicate what I had just heard from the concert hall previously ( not recommended as it used to cost a fortune with each visit to Quad). No I havn't heard proper portrayal from any domestic setup that I could say, yes that sounds like a full range piano recording that I am listening to. If you go to concert hall recitals with any regularity you soon get to know the sound the recording engineer is trying to capture as I say with good and not so good results.I remember years ago going to The Queen's hall in Edinburgh to hear Boris Beresovsky
play Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. When It came to The Great Gate of Kiev at the end of the piece the younger females in the audience were cringeing and some were even holding their ears as we all know younger females have better hearing than most of us men.That was the first time that I knew what a Steinway Model D concert grand was actually capable of. As an aside The BBC were recording that concert that night and the later broadcast bore no relation to the experience in the hall.

@joeschmoe

I can understand why you, or anyone else for that matter could be discouraged reading this thread, but for my part - with my post above - I’m trying to get after what it would take to approach a fairly realistic(!) reproduction of the (grand) piano, no less, an instrument I’d regard as one of the absolute most demanding for ANY speaker, regardless of price, to tackle. Any sought realism with this instrument and its reproduction is a daunting task, certainly if you uphold what it really sounds like live.

I’ve never heard your Bryston speakers in question, but I’ve read very positive reviews of the larger, floor standing sister model. I can only assume Bryston is consistent with the quality across their range of products, and for this to naturally translate to your speakers as well.

Be that as it may; if you like ’em that’s all that matters. Enjoy them and your future ventures into "audiophilia," but, if I may: remember to attend acoustic live concerts to really bridge your own sonic findings in audio equipment with that of a real reference. To my mind it could have you save a lot of money, and importantly by-pass a tendency in "audiophilia" to close its walls around itself and be less susceptible to marketing drivel.

$4k goes much further if you buy used, All sorts of possibilities, Vandersteen, Magnepan, ML CLS, Quad, that would mostly exceed your cap new but are available in good used condtion in that price range.

Choice for you will depend on other equipment, room size desire for deep bass etc.

Most domestic audio rigs can not reproduce the sound of grand piano such as Steinway-D if recorded with no compression. Among Jazz labels DMP was the only label that dared to record piano with minimal compression but unfortunately they are out of business, Telarc was also into audiophile jazz recordings but theirs were not up to DMP standards. Among classical labels BIS records everything uncompressed, if you really want to test a system reproducing grand piano try BIS-1580, Mussorgsky Pictures performed on Steinway-D by Freddy Kempf, the finale of this work will bring the house down if your system can reproduce it in a realistic volume and survive.