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If this problem is not exist on your headphone, it should have more relationship with sound environment.
Or we can say, the speaker system enlarges this character of sampling source.
Maybe you can change different piano sound to see the result.
When I played on N1x with some VST source at my friend home, I have not noticed this problem.

Thank you very much for your suggestion ！

Just my 2 cents:

The environment has huge impact on the acoustics (one of two main reasons I much prefer headphones for almost any audio these days; the other one is no disturbance to others).

If you are really into this, then here is what you can do:

1. Download a simple sound presure metering app (SoundMeter, etc.) to your smartphone - just make sure it supports Z-weighting (see Wikipedia for details if you are not sure what this is);
2. Download audio files for all frequencies you are curious about;
3. Wait for a quiet evening with low ambient, play all these files sequentially through N1X internal speakers as BT device, and write down the measured sound level value for each file/frequency.

You will get a pretty good acoustic map of your room by repeating step 3 for different piano and recorder locations. You will end up with having frequency response chart for every location where you did measurements.

I bet, if your room has any relatively big furniture, glass or crystal doors/windows/anything, shades, etc, you will be surprised at how far from even these charts will be, and the higher the frequency, the more the result is affected by location where you measure it. And we don't even count harmonic resonances and other side effects/distortions caused by environment here (these would require spectrum analysis which is mostly useless because of unavoidable ambient in any urban environment).

The only way to evercome this 'feature' to some degree (except professional acoustic room treatment) is to switch DP output to external monitors through good equalizer, and set EQ to compensate for measured dips and spikes in frequency chart for your preferred location IMO. Oh, and never move furniture after that, or all your previous efforts are trashed!!!

Myself, I just listen to whatever sound I can get without much effort. I still remember 78 rpm vynil records, 8mm video, and B&W TV to be as picky as teens are these days.

Are we still blaming the environment?

What do people with acoustic pianos do?

Put a rug under the piano.
Put up more/heavier draperies.
etc.
etc.
etc.

No "equipment" needed. Simple.

Rug, ottomans, cardboard with a black comforter on top. If you need to adjust the volume up you move stuff around. Volume control of 1 to 11.

That bit of using cardboard with a black comforter on top works a charm. Keeps the dust out too.

Timely discussions on rugs, ottomans, and such. So as part of the reshuffle in my flat and interior design, I may wait until the dust settles after my interior designer gets me new furniture & furnishings, and then do proper acoustical measurements of my rooms for piano, stereo, and TV. I never bothered before because I mostly use headphones, but if I am going to be making everything "comfy" then have nicely tuned room acoustics is certainly more "comfy."

With regard to my N1X, I haven't really investigated, but I assume there is no fine-grain adjustments for EQ. Is that correct?

In that case, would it be possible to send the N1X sound to my computer, do software EQ and send it back to the N1X via the aux-in port? Would that work? The piano would have to be able to send audio to the line-out port without playing that audio from the N1X speakers, and then accept an aux-in audio signal and play that from the speakers instead. If that's possible, how would I do that? Would I need to set something on the piano?

(I might consider getting monitors too which I could EQ fairly easily, but I expect my neighbors would start picketing me.)

I cannot speak for the N1X. But my Clav sends audio to the line outputs even when local control is off.

Then the question becomes: will the piano play audio coming from the line inputs, even when local control is off.
I've never tried that.

Assuming that second question gets a yes answer ... you don't have to use a computer for EQ.
A normal stereo equalizer can be inserted into the chain. Piano outputs to EQ inputs. EQ outputs to piano inputs.
And you avoid a double conversion loop (piano analog to computer digital ... digital EQ ... computer digital to piano analog.

The answer to that should be yes. Local control only severs the connection between the keyboard and the internal tone generator. It doesn't disable the line in, turn off the speakers, or even disable the internal tone generator (you can still play your piano's native sounds with local control off).

Of course when you do that whole line-out/in thing you lose the whole surround/multichannel output aspect of the AvantGrands, and are reduced to stereo, which would be a pity.

Could we retrofit a multi-channel ‘in’ audio card into an AvantGrand? Or perhaps use an external multi-channel card and then figure out the AvantGrand audio chain and hack the heck out of it?

If I could hack the N1X, I'd figure out how to hack a fine-grain EQ into it. That would solve everything

Then let’s get to work. Who’s up for the AvantGrand hack?

Could "we" do all that? ...No. That's a job for Cyber Gene.

I guess since I will be hacking around with the N1X, I can also try to replace the grand piano action with an upright action?

When my N1X arrives I plan on putting it in a room that hasn’t been acoustically treated (yet). Since I want to use Garritan CFX for the sound I though a nice pair of near-field monitors might be a good solution. I ended up going with a pair of Genelec 8331’s which can be used as close as 0.4 meters (since they are three-way point source) which will help exclude the room sound. There is also a kit you can purchase separately that will measure the room acoustics and make automatic software corrections on the monitors to optimize performance for that location. It seems like a good solution, although somewhat expensive. I am anxious to see how well it works when everything arrives.

What kit are you referring to? These days you can do it yourself without the need of a expensive kit, if you have a good microphone.

This is making me ill !!!At that price does the piano really need separate speakers?
The internal units are not good enough, and it requires an additional spend of $2200 each for a pair of monitors?

This it putting me off the thought of buying an N1X in the near future.
Must I really spend thousands for speakers on top of the many thousands for the piano?
If so, I'm beginning to wonder whether I might do as well with a P515 (and pocket the $10,000 savings).

Seriously Mac, I think you really need to start taking your advice to heart ("Go play and listen to the instrument yourself, and make your choice based on that. Don't depend on what others say or claim.")


The N1X doesn't have the world's best speaker setup. Or even the best among high end DPs. If it did, there wouldn't be an N2, or an N3X. When I last tested the N1, the NV-10 projected significantly more and sounded more realistic to me as well. The entire point of the N1X is a lower-cost AvantGrand that compromises a bit on the speakers.

And who knows, you may not even think it needs any replacement/augmentation at all. Hopefully not a surprisingly proposition, as we're all different, have different standards and different needs. It can't be that hard to find a location that stocks an N1X in NC, go play one for yourself and make your mind based on that!

It will be two years more until Mac finally settles on which piano to be put off by

BTW, lately I started playing on speakers right after I return home from work, it’s also when neighbors don’t complain since it’s still too noisy around with kids screaming outside, car horns, etc. and wife still outside with our daughter and I can have 30 minutes of peace.

I really think the N1X sounds great. Maybe it’s not as good as N3X and I don’t know how NV10 is but the N1X is certainly A LOT better than say a CA78. It may be the entry level of the AvantGrand but doesn’t mean it’s bad. Far from it.

When I went to make my final decision, after listening, I decided that the sound of the NV10 was better through speakers than the N1X but the sound through headphones of the latter was so much better it blew me away. Since I mostly use headphones, that alone pretty much made my decision for me. But if I had been one to use speakers most of the time, it was clear the sound of the NV10 was better - I wouldn't say it was enormously better, but enough to be clearly better.