They are in a way less like human hearing than other mics in that from a single point, they pick up nearly everything in all directions, across a vast FR range. That is a bit hard to get your head around (so to speak) until you play with them and play the results back through monitors. They don’t “hear” like your head/ears/brain does. Then when you add a second one, a bunch of things start to happen that are hard to imagine in advance as well.
An excellent summary.
A cardioid x/y pair is a lot easier. 
…if she’s singing into the piano 
No she faces the audience, turning to her left. I have performed works for trumpet and piano in precisely this spot.
The piano is loud and enveloping, a bit like having a monitor. It provides a wonderful sound cushion for one’s playong.
I think he’s making a joke about the perspective of the recording, E.
That’s all great information. But, it doesn’t change the fact that the perspective is completely unnatural for a listener. For a recording to be great, it not only needs to have great sound, it needs to have realistic sound. My problem with the recording has never been the quality of the recording. The sound quality is fantastic. The problems are the tracks chosen are rather pedestrian and the recording is so unrealistic.
Well - that’s what I’ve said from Day One, so… 
If you want to pay for the Hall and associated costs, can get the artists (who are not tied to other contracts), etc. - I’m sure Paul will be interested 
It is a nice recording. Lotta room, though.
One of my favorite recent recorded piano sounds is on this record:
But my sonic bias is toward a piano sounding like it is in My room rather than a large hall, unless I’m sitting very close in the hall.
You have indeed, and so have I - although you were first.
It is good to see the rest catching up.
There are many, many ways to record a piano, in various size spaces, all of which sound superb.
If you broaden your Google search for smaller spaces you will find many.
Just trying to inject the odd facts into the conversation as I got them from Gus on the day the album was released. Because as soon as I listened to it, I emailed him about the perspective, which is where and when I got the info. But I elected to stay out of it. Most people seemed to love the sound of it. I had no desire to tell anybody what they should hear or like, nor to piss on Paul and Gus’s efforts. It’s a very cool thing they’re trying to do here.
Agreed. I love what they are doing.
“Realistic” does not happen with recordings. Sound stage, imaging, ambient balance, etc. - all are aspects audiophiles love but which are fake.
Consider the recording set up Steven posted of Igor Levit. My guess is the sound is superb. Yet, look at all the mics and consider how they will all be mixed into the recording. You will hear the hammers and other sounds from the close mics, together with a stereo image, ambiance from every direction from the raised ambient mics etc.
So where exactly does one sit to experience this resulting sound from Mr. Levit’s piano? 
I have yet to be fooled by audio playback which I believed to be real instruments playing.
Indeed, there are many. One of the better ways is to fill smaller rooms with people.
When you have to compensate for the fact that the room is too small, then you’ve got problems. The way to go is probably to start with plenty of space and the preferred acoustic and then the engineers can make their choices.
A nice budget from Sony helps. Plus the Palace Bellevue was loaned to Levit for live streams and recording by the President of Germany.
This is one of our local churches, about 10 minutes away. You can rent it cheaply.
https://www.staugustinekilburn.org
Here are The Sixteen recording in it.
https://www.staugustinekilburn.org/gallery?pgid=k5n5xysp-324aa6ea-0215-4be4-a196-886459c3735c
Another one half a mile from that one.
This fabulous recording was done there:
Another one, within walking distance, called St Judes, is also used for many professional recordings and hold a Proms series in the summer.
There are so many public buildings and churches, besides concert venues, around the UK and Europe that can be used cheaply for recording, it’s ridiculous. Many recording studios are older converted brick buildings. Air Studios was a church, also a mile or two from the above. Mark Knopfler’s state-of-the-art facility was a Victorian laundry.
I’ve done some recordings in large churches. It is certainly often a really cool acoustic, especially when it is an organ built into the structure itself. But from the perpective of getting a recording of an instrument like a piano, it is like there is this immense, loud, complex Reverb that you can’t turn off. You can only attempt to balance the direct sound from the instrument with the “reverb” via mic choice and placement.
The other difficulty I have with lotsa-room-in-them acoustic recordings, is that unless you’re listening on headphones, you’re typically listening on speakers inside…(wait for it)…Another Room. Sonically confusing.
Of course it does. At least it seems realistic based on what we think we should be hearing. I think you need to look up the word “realistic” in the dictionary.
What we have with “Out of Thin Air” is something that sounds completely unrealistic and unnatural…
Watching the news lately, I’m guessing Realistic is “Whatever I Want it to Be” 
Yet a whole lot of folks felt it was one of the best sounding recordings of a piano they’d heard. So, perhaps that assessment is a bit harsh-ish. Or maybe just…unrealistic.
No, recordings are inherently unrealistic. It is artifice. For example, there is no such thing as pin-point imaging in real life as audiophiles crave. Microphones simply do not “hear” as our ears do.
There is only what one happens to prefer in recorded sound.