It doesn’t matter what number of a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} you shell out for an audiophile-grade dwelling stereo, a recorded piano efficiency won’t ever sound pretty much as good as a dwell one on an precise piano, so Steinway is finally introducing a feature that permits dwell performances to be streamed and carried out, in real-time, on its self-playing pianos.

Self-playing pianos aren’t a brand new concept, they had been first demonstrated over 120 years in the past and I’ve fond reminiscences of a traditional mannequin in my aunt’s basement that makes use of lengthy scrolls of paper perforated with holes to play songs whereas the performer’s solely obligation is to maintain their fingers off the keys whereas their ft pump a pair of foot pedals that generates the air stress the piano runs off. It is a fascinatingly advanced contraption, and one which weighs way over you’d count on, which is why Yamaha’s makes an attempt to digitize participant pianos within the ‘80s with its Disklavier line were a welcome upgrade.

But, even if you can’t muster a recognizable rendition of Chopsticks if you sit down at a piano, you undoubtedly know the identify Steinway & Sons and that as grand pianos go, there’s no extra revered identify within the trade. So whereas Yamaha technically delivered the same function the place dwell performances may very well be streamed from one instrument to a different, the truth that it might now be finished on a Steinway is a giant deal.

The function is being made out there on Steinway’s Spirio line of self-playing pianos which had been first introduced in 2015 and now make up virtually half of the corporate’s piano gross sales. The electronics that energy the Spirio pianos are utterly invisible—they give the impression of being identical to common grand pianos—however every one ships with an iPad that serves because the interface for the instrument’s sensible options by varied apps. That consists of the flexibility to report and edit performances to be performed again later, in addition to an ever-growing library of over 4,300 songs that may be accessed and performed at any time. Think of it like Spotify, however as a substitute of listening to a recording, the piano itself recreates a whole efficiency.

The iPad can be what facilitates the brand new SpirioSolid function, which may dwell stream video, audio, and the efficiency itself—the motion of the piano’s keys and foot pedals recorded with sufficient element to seize each nuanced movement of a pianist—to the cloud the place it may be made out there to the general public, or solely to pick viewers, whose personal Steinway Spirio pianos will reproduce the efficiency in real-time. It actually is the last word audiophile expertise for followers of piano music, and in additional methods than one as a result of the most cost effective mannequin within the Steinway & Sons’ Spirio line prices about $100,000, and as a lot as $200,000 if you add options like efficiency recording, and now SpirioSolid.