Silent Experience: the piano, heard on headphones
A pianist plays, the audience listens on wireless headphones and the place around them stays silent. Night gardens, museum galleries, ancient temples, a terrace at the foot of a glacier: the concert goes where speakers never could.
What if the concert hall disappeared?
A Silent WiFi Concert starts from a simple question. What happens if the music no longer needs a hall, a stage and a wall of loudspeakers? If every listener carries the concert with them, the venue can be anything: a meadow, a cloister, a museum after closing time.
The piano is played live. Its sound goes from the desk to a radio transmitter and from there to every pair of headphones, at the same instant and with the same clarity. Listeners can stay close to the pianist, lie on the grass or walk away slowly, and the music stays with them.
The concept was shaped by the Italian pianist and composer Andrea Vizzini together with Silentsystem and Yamaha, as a nocturnal experience in which music, landscape and words blend into each other.
From a museum in Trento to the rest of the world
December 2014, MUSE Trento
The first concert in headphones of this kind: Paolo Fresu and Gianluca Petrella chose Silentsystem equipment to play inside the science museum designed by Renzo Piano. The press called it a unique and moving experience.
The Silent WiFi Concert
With Andrea Vizzini the idea became a format for the piano: concerts at night, in places chosen for their beauty, with a programme inspired by darkness and silence.
A registered trademark
Silent Experience® is an EU trademark (no. 018145266) owned by Silentsystem España and granted to Yamaha Music Europe on 16 March 2020.
Why headphones change the piano
Every note, close up
The listener hears the instrument as the pianist does: soft passages stay soft, nothing is lost to wind, traffic or the echo of a large space.
Freedom to move
Within the range of the transmitters the audience can wander, sit, lie down. The place becomes part of the score.
Respect for the venue
No speakers, no vibrations, no sound spilling outside: fragile sites, nature reserves and museums can host a concert without disturbance.
A private moment, shared
Hundreds of people experience the same performance together, yet each one has their own intimate listening space.
Headphones made for quiet music
SX-809
Super Power BassThe headphone with the glowing frame: in an evening concert the lights draw a line of colour through the audience, and each frame shows which channel the listener is on.
- Channels
- 3
- Battery
- up to 10 h
- Lights
- channel colour
- Signal
- RF, no latency
SX-553 V2
Evolution HiFiThe reference headphone for the piano: soft over-ear cushions that keep the outside world at a distance, a clean, detailed sound for the piano, and lights that switch off when the concert is in the dark.
- Listening
- over-ear, HiFi
- Lights
- can be switched off
- Controls
- one button, one lever
- Signal
- RF, no latency
SX-839 V2
HiFi over-earClosed, cushioned and light on the head for the longest programmes and the quietest passages; the multichannel version can carry a narrator or a translation next to the piano.
- Channels
- 3, 10 or 60
- Battery
- up to 14 h
- Cushions
- over-ear
- Input
- mini-jack
TX-500
Stage transmitterConnected to the piano feed at the mixing desk, it sends the music to every headphone in range. Several units can cover a long walking route.
- Range
- up to 400 m
- Input
- RCA from the desk
- Power
- adjustable
- Headphones
- unlimited
TX-350
Battery transmitter · CH3 / CH5It runs on its own battery, so it can follow the pianist to a terrace, a garden or a mountain refuge with no socket nearby. Made in CH3 and CH5 versions.
- Versions
- CH3 and CH5
- Range
- up to 400 m
- Inputs
- RCA, Bluetooth, mic
- Power
- battery or mains
A piano, a place, and silence around it
Tell us about the venue, the date and the size of the audience: the Silentsystem team will propose the listening system for your Silent Experience.