the virtual fortepiano

Hello all,

For my first post here I want to start by thanking the Modartt team for their amazing work in developing this wonderful software instrument! 

I'm a professional 'classical' pianist, recently relocated to Asia from the North Eastern USA and, as an unfortunate by-product of the move, had to sell both my Steinway and my fortepiano (a 1790s Koenicke replica), so finding PianoTeq has been a veritable god-send/life-saver as I now have this cornucopia of lovely instruments in one box, immune to the ravages of crazy humidity and a rather acoustic-instrument-hostile tropical environment.  What a treat to play Mozart on the Walter, Beethoven on the Broadwood, Schubert on the Graf, Chopin on the Pleyel, Liszt on the Erard (1849 of course, though the 1922 instrument is magnificent as well), Schumann and Brahms on the Streicher, etc etc!  While the modeled virtual piano isn't yet a perfect replacement for real-world instruments, it truly feels mighty darn close when setup well (and what a real time-saving relief it is to be able to work on voicing, tuning, regulation, etc with such ease and facility)!  Aside from practicing/playing a good eight to ten hours per day (something I haven't done since conservatory days, many many moons ago) and being totally geeked-out for all things piano since acquiring PianoTeq Pro, I've been spending countless hours tweaking the various instruments & mic setups trying to find the "perfect" sound, which (with apologies for this overlong preamble) takes me to my first question: 

I'm using a Roland A-88 and Duo-Capture Ex to drive the Pro version and am reasonably happy with the results.  The trouble is that the sound is going through a very old Bose Acoustimass 3 Series III/Onkyo receiver arrangement (feel free to throw your virtual tomatoes) and so is far from optimal... I've been playing around with positioning the speaker cubes facing upward and correspondingly positioning the virtual mics in the same spatial location and orientation as the speakers in a (perhaps misguided?) attempt to replicate the projection of an acoustic soundboard... the results are fairly convincing, but the speakers are the obvious weak link in the chain and need to be replaced.  I'm looking to go with active monitors and have my eye on either AVI DM10s + Subwoofer or the Dynaudio BM5 Mk IIIs + BM9 S II Subwoofer... does anybody here have any experience using PianoTeq with either of these speaker systems and have a preference for one or the other?  or have any recommendations for something better?  What sort of speaker system do the devs use?  I don't have an unlimited budget, but am willing to drop up to $5k USD in pursuit of as high-fidelity a sound with PianoTeq as possible.  I'm not so much interested in a "recorded" sound as I am in replicating the sense of the instrument being live in the room, and so 'would also readily welcome considerations and suggestions on speaker arrangement, etc.

Secondly, I'm curious about the process involved in creating new instruments.  Do the "factory"/core modeled instruments have some sort of embedded acoustic profile or are they all just "tweaks" using the various Design, Voicing, Action etc sliders in the Pro version?  I'd love to replicate my old Koenicke (purely for the nostalgia factor) and would very much appreciate any tips on how to accurately go about this from the ground up.

Finally, 'would be very enthusiastic to see more historic instruments added to the mix, especially Beethoven's 1803 Erard (in the Kunsthistoriches Museum Wien) despite his apparent displeasure with the instrument, and N. Streicher's 5&1/2 and 6&1/2 octave instruments (c1796 & 1802 respectively; see the late great Margaret Hood's instruments for example ==> http://www.fortepianos.pair.com/fiveandonehalf.html , http://www.fortepianos.pair.com/sixandonehalf.html).  I realize that there's a lot of competing demands for new instruments, but I strongly feel ('admittedly biased here) that the historic "fortepianos" are a major asset, from the standpoint both of historic conservation as well as for the beauty of the sound quality that can be obtained when playing 18th and 19th century music on the instruments (albeit virtual) for which it was written...

In any event, many thanks in advance, and bravo! Modartt!!