For a Keith Emerson film score or a cool pianistic-type thing on a record - sure, all day long no problem. It's not designed for Gershwin or Beethoven or even the piano fugues of Keith Emerson. He exploits the things you can do with a piano that are not traditional and not at all intended to replace the real thing. This reminds me of Hans Zimmer's concept for a sampled piano which I think is exactly right. But alone and trying to sound like a real piano alone they give themselves away in milliseconds. That doesn't mean they don't have their purpose and can be used in certain ways within certain contexts. Those things don't work with real nuanced piano music - how can they? Pianos are machines and without all those wonderful mechanics going on you have an abstraction that falls down completely.

Just awful where you want it to stop and maybe put on a Bill Evans record to heal yourself. I'll end up with the matching Focal subwoofer, but I'm quite content to work with these Solo6 monitors until I can spring for it they're very satisfying, they present no sonic obstacle to anything you do.'Īs a piano player I have to say that the OP's demo sounds perfectly dreadful. It's actually more accurate than a 10-1/2 inch high-quality sub I own. Oh, and as a side note, the solid and accurate bass is surprising - given the woofer's size.

Voices are perfectly clear - through an adjustment of touch, the timbre is actually dramatically changed - these monitors differentiate everything fed to them - perfectly! Suddenly, I had to refine my touch because the monitors reflected everything I did, I finally have an electronic combination startlingly close to a fine acoustic instrument. I - am - amazed! Not only was the variety of tone, um, tripled, but the variety of touch possible on the Kawai-Spreeman keyboard had been masked by the more homogenous sound of the previous monitors.

So, I went all-in on the Focal Solo6 Be monitors - on the recommendation of the Spreemans, who built the sampled Ravenscroft grand, and. The sound was beautiful, but I felt that I was missing some detail and perhaps keyboard sensitivity. A Kawai VPC1 controller (dramatically upgraded by Spreeman Piano Innovations,) and the VI Labs Ravenscroft 275 concert grand software, routed through an Apollo Twin. 'I have a system dedicated to ultra-realistic piano sound. Russell Meyer wrote he is using the Apollo Twin as his DAC.Ĭan't see any subwoofers in the video but I would assume they are in the huge demo hall. In fact, a chap named Russell Meyer wrote that the Spreemans recommended this monitor for the Ravenscroft 275 on the sweetwater site (see quote and link below).īased on the web of wires and the newer macbook in the youtube video, I will assume they are using an Apogee Duet 2 DAC both to the active Focal monitors and to the headphones (via that green wire). I believe that you are correct on the monitors.

Vi labs ravenscroft 275 purchse