In this blind shootout, we have 2 recordings of a Steinway piano recorded through a PreSonus Quantum and a Merging Technologies Hapi. Take a listen and let us know which one you prefer.

Where Was This Recorded?

These recordings were made by Francesco Perlangeli and Derek Williams in the Zipper Hall in  Los Angeles, California on 29th August 2017 using a pair of Sennheiser MKH80s Microphones.

The piano is a New York Steinway “D” 9ft Piano,  and the pianist is the very talented Jaemin Shin.

The two recordings, both at 96KHz/32 Bit, are two separate passes each with the microphones connected directly to the mic inputs of the test interface using 35 ft Canare Starquad cables.  No Splitters or multicores were used in this test. They used the internal clocks of both interfaces.

Listen And Tell Us Which You Prefer

Take a listen to these two files, the audio on the page below are 320k mp3s, but you can download the original 96KHz/32 Bit files, and then vote in the poll below to tell us which one you prefer. We will announce the results in the new year.

More About Francesco Perlangeli, Recording and FOH Engineer

With over 20 years in the audio industry, Francesco Perlangeli has seen many aspects of the business. He started in Italy working on post-production and sound design for radio and TV shows, before moving to LA and landed at the Alfred Neumann scoring stage on the 20th Century Fox lot and Skywalker Sound, after a few years through LA's most prominent studios.

Since 2010, Francesco has been managing the Colburn School recording department and enjoying some fantastic concert halls and incredible talent. He has worked on hundreds of scoring sessions and with many artists including: Stevie Wonder, Pink, The Doors, Gustavo Dudamel, LA Opera, among many others.

Francesco's most recent work includes collaborations with the LA Phil at Walt Disney Concert Hall as a recording and FOH engineer and he is a regular at odoark30 studios

More About Derek Williams, Recording and FOH Engineer

Derek Williams has been working with sound for 12 years. He has been privileged to have worked on a wide variety of projects and events, ranging from small film shoots to running sound for the Pageant of the Masters.
 
Derek holds a Bachelors degree from Azusa Pacific University in music, and a Recording Technology certificate from Citrus College.

He started working at the Colburn School in 2014, where he has worked among many talented musicians and performers on the Zipper Concert Hall stage.

More About Zipper Hall

The Herbert Zipper Concert Hall at The Colburn School was completed in 1998, making it about 70 years younger than LACO’s other two regular concert venues. It seats approximately 400 and is considered to have among the best acoustics of music performance venues in Los Angeles. Examples of CDs recorded in the Zipper Concert Hall include LACO’s compact disc on Deutsche Grammophon featuring Hilary Hahn as well as two CDs featuring Jeffrey Kahane in recital.

More About Jaemin Shin

Jaemin Shin has won several competitions such as the Music Teachers’ Association of California Concerto Competition in San Diego and the Ulsan University Music Competition as well as the Steinway Prize in Berlin in July 2014. In August 2014 Shin was qualified as finalists of the Piano Competition Ferruccio Busoni in Bolzano, 2015.

Jaemin Shin has gained performing experiences through concerts with orchestras including the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra, the Ulsan Symphony Orchestra, and the Pohang Symphony Orchestra.

He also enjoys exploring a variety of music. He performed Joao Pedro Oliveira’s “Timshel” in the Seoul International Computer Music Festival in 2008. In 2015, he premiered “Bomsori” composed by Djong Victorin Yu with Duo Essen (Chisang Park, Mihsun Bahk, violin) in Berlin Philharmonie Chamber Music Hall.

Shin acquired the bachelor’s degree from the Korea National University of Arts in Seoul under the guidance of Choong-Mo Kang, and the master’s degree from Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin, Germany studying with Fabio Bidini. Jaemin Shin is currently an artist diploma candidate at the Colburn Conservatory of Music, where he studies with Fabio Bidini.