You are sending me on quite a mission. I'll have to see if I can find the required kit for doing these measurements without breaking the bank - maybe I can borrow these things somewhere.

Once I got this done, can you advise me on how to pipe my measurements into Pianoteq?

I agree that Kawai did a good job with its presets - I would not touch anything if I would not have the feeling the thing is out of tune in some places (which it likely isn't according to an app on my mobile - guess I have become obsessed about this...).

Cheers,

Wulf

Cable quality can make a difference but only if there's a problem. E.g. I could hear interference hum with the cheap cable I found in a drawer when I first tried it. A £5 shorter cable with better insulation fixed that. Really not something worth spending serious money on! Again - if the sound is good through headphones connected to the Novus, then your input signal isn't a problem, and you can move on to speaker calibration.

The one thing I would say about the input line - every analog input will have a noise floor, so the trick is to run the input line quite hot (i.e. loud), so that the sound you want to hear is maximally different to the background noise. Then you can use the tiny dial next to the input socket to reduce the input gain so that loud -> normal, and noise -> near-silent. It'll need some tweaking: run the line too hot and you'll experience clipping (the signal is louder than can be converted, so the sound crackles) - you want as loud as possible without running into clipping. Since pianos have a high dynamic range, their sweet spot is a bit narrow.

I would recommend biting the bullet and learn the speaker calibration process. I know it's a bit daunting and audio nerds have a persistent inability to say things that humans could understand... so I sympathise. I bounced off this a few times myself before my stubbornness forced me through. And yeah you need to get a calibration microphone. But if I tell you that this will more than double the quality of the sound your Novus speakers will produce, and you put the cost of a mic in context with the cost of a Novus, hopefully it turns into a reasonable gambit . I went with a UMIK calibration microphone but that's honestly a bit overspecc'd for the need, a cheap budget calibration microphone will also serve you well. Try and find one with a published calibration profile, that tends to be a mark of quality.

The corner placement is kind of the factor that forces your hand here: mine is in a corner as well (common for pianos I guess!) and this set up is uniquely difficult for out-of-the-box calibrations for speakers. Standing waves resulting in muddiness and boominess are guaranteed with this kind of placement. But tbh, even if you change the piano's position, the upward facing speakers will always cause some suboptimal acoustics with the wall behind the piano.

Little aside: the way Kawai have mastered the built-in sampled pianos is really clever in this regard: the aggressive dynamic compression + transient shaping de-emphasises sustained sounds, especially in the frequency ranges of domestic standing waves, so it still sounds decent in most placements. That's an uneasy compromise though because it removes a lot of detail from the piano sound. My conspiracy theory is that this is why the NV12 switched to a "soundboard" style transducer: the larger surface area of a swinging plate is less prone to room resonances than a speaker's point source.

Edit/PS: I have no specific pianoteq setting tweaks that help reliably - the problem you experience is audio-chain level not model level. Your best in-app fixes would be to strongly over emphasise the direct sound and pull the resonances and reverb way back; but I think that's a bad trade, as it robs the instrument of much of its soul.

PPS: some tutorials to help you get started with room calibration (disclaimer: REW is a super confusing piece of software and will make you feel dumb. It makes everyone feel dumb)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYMQ6M-Z5rM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuEwoeN7ZJk

I have the same set up and had the same experience.

The good news is that the speaker hardware in the Nv10s is actually really quite good. They are poorly calibrated though (especially around their crossovers) and their orientation punishes suboptimal placement, so you need some room equilisation wizardry.

I found that measuring the speaker responses individually with REW sweeps and exporting the correction curves as a stereo impulse response radically transforma the sound for the better: all muddiness removed, good soundscape, credible bass. A relief really because I was worried about wasting the built in speakers.

Have hope, there is a great sound set up at the end of the tunnel with pianoteq + the nv10s. You just have to invest a weekend into becoming a budding audio engineering nerd.

Pro tip: as the first step make sure you're happy with the sound through headphones (via the NV10s headphone jack). If that doesn't sound good either, you first have to work on the quality of the signal going into the NV10s (a 3.5mm jack is adequate but temperamental), otherwise no room correction in the world will make things better

Thanks - I had seen your earlier post on that matter and was hoping for your reply.

It sounds as if one can spend quite a bit of time to optimize this setup. If I understand you correctly, then cable quality will make a difference - would you recommend anything in particular?

I did a little bit of AI chatting, resulting in a few parameter tweaks in Pianoteq - I wonder if you have a good set to share yourself. The calibration procedure you indicate sounds a little intimidating: it seems I'd need to get myself a calibration microphone to measure the room (our Novus sits in a corner of the living room) and then somehow use the measurements to tweak Pianoteq or the Novus itself? How is that done?

Looking forward to your advice!

The good news is that the speaker hardware in the Nv10s is actually really quite good. They are poorly calibrated though (especially around their crossovers) and their orientation punishes suboptimal placement, so you need some room equilisation wizardry.

I found that measuring the speaker responses individually with REW sweeps and exporting the correction curves as a stereo impulse response radically transforma the sound for the better: all muddiness removed, good soundscape, credible bass. A relief really because I was worried about wasting the built in speakers.

Have hope, there is a great sound set up at the end of the tunnel with pianoteq + the nv10s. You just have to invest a weekend into becoming a budding audio engineering nerd.

Pro tip: as the first step make sure you're happy with the sound through headphones (via the NV10s headphone jack). If that doesn't sound good either, you first have to work on the quality of the signal going into the NV10s (a 3.5mm jack is adequate but temperamental), otherwise no room correction in the world will make things better

Dear fellow piano enthusiasts,

I have a Kawai Novus10S that I really like to play in its out-of-the-box settings, but I recently got to the impression that some notes are not matching the rest of the keyboard very well (I am particular worried about G#2). The Kawai people told me that this can't be, so this may be a feature rather than a bug...

Looking for an alternative sound engine, I decided to treat myself to Pianoteq Stage 9 with the Steinway D models and the Shigeru Kawai (a shame really since I live in Braunschweig, the home of the defunct Grotrian and the still-alive Schimmels). I connected the Novus through a USB-A (out from Novus) and 3.5-mm (into the Novus) cable, switched the sound engine of the piano off and gave it a go.

The first impression through the Novus speakers was disappointing with all of the Pianoteq presets, but using headphones (plugged into the computer) sounded quite promising. I don't like playing with headphones very much, though.

I therefore wonder if there is anyone in this forum who could give me a bit of advice how to use the Novus speaker system better without too much tweaking.

Cheers,

Wulf

PS: Happy birthday, Modartt - it is great to see scientists working on something that helps culture and arts!

It will require a bit of tweaking.
First of all you need to set up the right  gain adjustment so that the output signal from your computer or audio interface is strong enough so that when you listen to your NV10S internal speakers you don't force to apply too much gain that could create distortion. If  I remember correctly you can adjust Line in level.  Secondly you need to adjust both EQ3 setup as a pre -EQ and use tone control in the NV10S as a post EQ . Again I believe tone control is the only parameter that will influence the speakers response when you play external sounds.  Also pay attention to the  wall EQ setting in the NV10S  as low frequencies can easily bounce off the wall behind your piano if too close from a wall  and create a muddy sound in which case  setting Wall EQ ON is supposed to tighten it up .

One of the reasons why it is not that easy to tweak internal speakers  on  the NV10S  is because they have been been designed to work with the multi channel internal  kawai samples system  that route low frequencies to different internal speakers which obviously is inoperant when you use external VSt's.

I am sure that they are NV10s  owners  in the forum that give you more specific advice when it comes to which EQ settings work best.

I have a Kawai Novus10S that I really like to play in its out-of-the-box settings, but I recently got to the impression that some notes are not matching the rest of the keyboard very well (I am particular worried about G#2). The Kawai people told me that this can't be, so this may be a feature rather than a bug...

Looking for an alternative sound engine, I decided to treat myself to Pianoteq Stage 9 with the Steinway D models and the Shigeru Kawai (a shame really since I live in Braunschweig, the home of the defunct Grotrian and the still-alive Schimmels). I connected the Novus through a USB-A (out from Novus) and 3.5-mm (into the Novus) cable, switched the sound engine of the piano off and gave it a go.

The first impression through the Novus speakers was disappointing with all of the Pianoteq presets, but using headphones (plugged into the computer) sounded quite promising. I don't like playing with headphones very much, though.

I therefore wonder if there is anyone in this forum who could give me a bit of advice how to use the Novus speaker system better without too much tweaking.

Cheers,

Wulf

PS: Happy birthday, Modartt - it is great to see scientists working on something that helps culture and arts!