The musical truth is decided especially with the dynamics. What freedom from compression really means, you only know when you hear a loudspeaker that masters it. In Richard Strauss's "Frau ohne Schatten," more than a hundred musicians sit in the orchestra pit, including wind machine, percussion and two celestas. The live recording under Christian Thielemann, of course from the Vienna State Opera (Orfeo), captures the immense dynamic range quite well. When the lush brass turns up the volume, one notices that the Liszt can be really loud and authentically reproduces even the fortissimi that are sometimes deafening in the hall, without closing down in the slightest. Of course, this requires appropriate electronics, whereby the efficiency of the Liszt seems to me quite good, most amps should cope well with it.

But dynamics also means ...

... the component must be able to play quietly. With his large orchestra, Strauss also achieves the most distinctive color mixtures and filigree sounds in the piano, for example, when the spherical tones of a glass harmonica float in space like liquid silver towards the end. Especially here, and throughout the string music, I also notice how harmoniously the speaker was tuned. Even in more problematic recordings, there are never any annoyance effects in the treble or in the presence range. Presumably, musicality was more important to Peter Gansterer here than a smooth frequency response.

Of course, the namesake is also heard: The Steinway on which Arcadi Volodos plays "Vallée d'Obermann" by Franz Liszt (Sony) stands sonorous and columnar in the bass for the reasons mentioned, in the natural reverberation an immense overtone spectrum floats colorfully and overwhelmingly clear. The recording also reveals that the speaker reproduces the entire keyboard without any breaks and completely tonally uniform. The developers also succeeded convincingly in blending the registers.