Hi everyone,
For my new upright I've settled on a Kawai K3 or K5. I'm hoping someone could advise on the relationship between different room acoustics and the vertical size of the piano (as you know, the K5 is slightly taller than the K3), and whether there would be any environmental/acoustical reason why a K3 (i.e. a smaller piano) might be a better purchase than a K5?
Just for context, I'll be putting the piano in a rectangular wooden-floored room of around 18 meters by 12 meters, with an apex ceiling reaching to about 10 meters at its peak. There is one rug and two sofas, three windows, and no other soft furnishings/bookcases etc. It's a very 'bright' and resonant environment!
Philtre
Room effect
Moderators: Feg, Gill the Piano, Melodytune
-
Silverwood Pianos
- Junior Poster
- Posts: 25
- Joined: 14 Oct 2011, 16:31
- Location: Vancouver Canada
- Contact:
Re: Room effect
I would recommend the larger instrument as that is a fairly large room with a lot of air space for an instrument to beat. A larger instrument will have more horsepower and this can be knocked down by voicing or fix the room if you need to.
Rectangular rooms can exhibit what are commonly called room modes. Actually any space configuration that has one or more parallel walls or a pair of parallel walls can do this….
Room modes can be sustained at any frequency of sound where the wave length fits exactly the distance between the parallel surfaces. Integer multiples of wavelengths can cause this also I believe.
The evidence is the location of a hot spot or conversely a dead spot at certain locations within the space.
Room modes can be tangential, axial, or oblique…Imagine 3D for a moment….
So different from the collected focus of a round room where this happens to all frequencies at one spot, square room modes occur at specified frequencies in many spots.
Furnishings, carpets, wall hangings, anything with absorptive qualities all assist in breaking up the parallel walls in most of the residential situations in a satisfactory manner so the modes are not too bothersome.
When a rectangular room gets big enough and the furnishings are sparse or non-existent, modes can become quite bothersome indeed.
Room mode calculators can be found on the internet and are mostly used for the design of recording studios and do not have much practical application for the rooms we live in.
Rectangular rooms can exhibit what are commonly called room modes. Actually any space configuration that has one or more parallel walls or a pair of parallel walls can do this….
Room modes can be sustained at any frequency of sound where the wave length fits exactly the distance between the parallel surfaces. Integer multiples of wavelengths can cause this also I believe.
The evidence is the location of a hot spot or conversely a dead spot at certain locations within the space.
Room modes can be tangential, axial, or oblique…Imagine 3D for a moment….
So different from the collected focus of a round room where this happens to all frequencies at one spot, square room modes occur at specified frequencies in many spots.
Furnishings, carpets, wall hangings, anything with absorptive qualities all assist in breaking up the parallel walls in most of the residential situations in a satisfactory manner so the modes are not too bothersome.
When a rectangular room gets big enough and the furnishings are sparse or non-existent, modes can become quite bothersome indeed.
Room mode calculators can be found on the internet and are mostly used for the design of recording studios and do not have much practical application for the rooms we live in.
Dan Silverwood
http://www.silverwoodpianos.com/
http://silverwoodpianos.blogspot.com/
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur."
http://www.silverwoodpianos.com/
http://silverwoodpianos.blogspot.com/
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur."
Re: Room effect
Thanks, that's really useful to know.
Re: Room effect
Easy one. If you are going to buy one of them ask the dealer to bring both, put them in the room and give you half an hour to try them and make your choice. Ive done it many a time and always results in a happy customer. Of course if you buy neither expect to pay a standard delivery charge to cover the dealers time etc.
Re: Room effect
Thanks. If I can muster the cash, I'll definitely be going for the K5...vertical-height wise, there's only a couple of cm difference between the K3 and the K5 anyway. I was just considering if there were any situations where a vertically-smaller piano might be preferable to a larger one, if everything else (build quality, age etc.) were pretty much equal. I suspect room size and acoustic might sometimes be a factor to consider?