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Elite Violinists Can't Distinguish Between a Stradivarius and a Modern Violin
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "If you know only one thing about violins, it is probably this: A 300-year-old Stradivarius supposedly possesses mysterious tonal qualities unmatched by modern instruments. However, even elite violinists cannot tell a Stradivarius from a top-quality modern violin, a new double-blind study suggests. Like the sound of coughing during the delicate second movement of Beethoven's violin concerto, the finding seems sure to annoy some people, especially dealers who broker the million-dollar sales of rare old Italian fiddles. But it may come as a relief to the many violinists who cannot afford such prices."
I bet that's worth a fair bit.
It's because they are "playing it wrong" in the tests
Table-ized A.I.
Important paragraphs:
Have you read my journal today?
There is no such thing as secret knowledge shared only by erudite who can tell between morning wood taste and salty grape balls.
Yeah, but you're still not cool if you don't play a Stradivarius ...
who da thunk it
"cannot tell the difference" -- that's not what is being said here. Instead, the violinists were asked which ones they preferred. Certainly they could distinguish between them.
This is nothing new. Audiophiles and musicians are notoriously stubborn when it comes to accepting reality. There are still people who insist that vinyl records are a more genuine/accurate representation of sound than digital formats. There are people who insist that they can hear the difference between 320kbps mp3s (using the highest-quality available compressor) and their uncompressed counterparts.
Science and math proves all of these things wrong, yet people still insist they're right.
Yes, but you *can* tell the difference if you play the recordings on the original vinyl with a tube amp. That's how Stradivarius intended his instruments to be heard. He even held the wood close to a fire for a few minutes, to give it that warm sound.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
People have some kind of innate (or maybe learned, but deep) fondness for "authentic". They'll pay for things that were touched by celebrities, as if there's some kind of magic that's transmitted through it.
These were, almost surely, the best violins available. The Stradavari family had extraordinary skill, surpassing anybody else at the time. It's remarkable and amazing that it should take us centuries to make other instruments with similar precision, balance, and quality.
But it's not amazing that we should eventually do so. There was no magic to these instruments, just tremendous hard work and a commitment to quality. These are rare, but hardly unique, especially over the course of centuries.
Let us appreciate these for what they are: remarkable artifacts of history, hand-made to extreme precision, durable enough to stand the test of time and be selected for their quality. There's no point in adding an additional layer of BS about some magic, unattainable extra that can't possibly be reproduced. It doesn't diminish the instrument, nor does it make every hack a great musician. Great instruments and great musicians will continue to make great music; surely that should be enough without sullying it with gullibility.
have some play a few violins of different quality and record them.
See if there is even a scientifically measurable different in the sound. At that point you can determine if any change that may be there is within the optimal human range to detect.
Of course that's just sound, it could mechanically be better, or feel better when held.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm in my mid-thirties now, and have been playing since I was 5. I played 5 hours a week until high school, which rose to nearly 10 a week. I took a hiatus from playing in college. I play about twice a month now, having many other demands on my time. I'm not all that good, but I enjoy it and hope to pass some form of love of playing music to my children.
I can tell the difference between my crappy violin and nicer ones in the store. Do you know how much a top quality modern violin costs?
These things aren't remotely affordable. A crappy old one might cost $1,000. A top quality modern one will cost you what a decent house might. Saying that a modern violin is more affordable than a Strad is like saying that a Bugatti Veyron is more affordable than a F-16 fighter jet. I'm not buying either one.
nice.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Not surprised. This is a human thing where we place extra value on items based upon their history. So a five dollar bill is worth five dollars unless it was the bill that Elvis was holding when he died then it is suddenly worth some huge number of dollars. Why we think the history of an item is significant is what is so hard to understand.We feel some connection that doesn't really exist.
It's well known that many Stradivarius violins have only average sound quality- and there hundreds of them.
love is just extroverted narcissism
can distinguish sounds of a violine much better than I'm able to play a violine. .... nevertheless: I hvae not such a good ear for 'tunes' or tones ... why should a 45 year old violinist be better off than me?)
In fact: I cant play a violine at all.
Who came to the brain dead idea that an elitist violinist has perfect ears? (I have perfect ears, I'm 47 but on hearing tests I'm 14 year old
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
And it's the same with sound card vs on-board. Most people can't tell the difference, even so called "audiophiles", in a blind test.
Somehow so many other theories in the world of sociology go over the heads of Slashdot that I'm simply not surprised that most here don't understand why Stradivarius violins are worth so much. Perception matters more than facts when it comes to human beings. How do you think two parties with the same ultimate agenda have managed to take over a nation of 300+ million with wanna-be intellectuals thinking their party is the right one?
People have their heads stuck firmly up their own asses.
and it was worth it.
Don't hate me for that.
Hate me for being better than you.
Well, at least Stradivarius is as good as a top quality modern violin. Maybe they don't consider the Stradivarius as better. It could be something similar to a fancy dress: adding festivity and status. It can be the feeling that you're just playing with something very rare that used to be the top. And sometimes people just want the opportunity to find out if there is something special to a legendary instrument.
Sometimes period instruments and associated techniques add authenticity. I know that there used to be a technique with the bow in cello playing that was very different. I don't know if that's the case for violins.
The real conclusion that should have been drawn, is most people who claim they are experts, are not.
Much like how over 90% of Ivy league-educated economists were unable to see a bubble was forming in real estate nearly 10 years ago.
We live in a society where we act as if a person's credentials actually mean something, but most of the time, in reality, they mean absolutely nothing. It's just a placebo effect.
I do not understand why some people believe these instruments have something so powerful it cannot be replicated. If Antonio can do it, so can a good modern human.
We are all human and what one human can do, so can another. We need to look at our generation as no worse than generations past, and in some ways better.
I can't tell the difference between a signed first edition of On the Origin of Species and a regular seventh edition either if I'm only allowed to look at certain pages, but that doesn't mean they're of equal value. The value of a Stradivarius lies not in the sound it produces but in its provenance.
The actual study was about what violin they preferred; the listeners could easily identify which was which, but did not always think the Stradivarius violins sounded better.
It doesn't surprise me that there's no noticeable difference between Stradivarius and well-made modern violin. But I wonder if there are other intangible benefits owning a Stradivarius, like boosts to the player's confidence and drive to excel. At any high-level musical play the differences between "very good" and "great" musicians are often very subtle.
I would also be willing to bet that that professional violin judges have some unintended bias towards players they see have a Stradivarius. Maybe this data will level the playing field though...
New violins don't have cool names like Stradivarius though. That name is so epic, it could make anything look or sound high brow and expensive. Stradivarius Coffee, home of the $75 latte. Stradivarius Bounce House, let your kids bounce around for only $125/hr. Stradivarius Water, Anything less, will dehydrate you, only $49.99 per 8oz bottle made out of the finest Stradivarius plastics. With a name like that, people will pay anything.
One of the major differences between a truly fine instrument and a good is how easy for the musician to play well and express themselves Two instruments may sound similar, but the better one will be much easier for the musician to play on. It is interesting how the study didn't consider this...
They didn't use Monster(tm) cables!
3 years ago I had the privilege and pleasure of running sound mix for a piano (9 foot Steinway) and violin concert. The violinist played a borrowed Stradivarius. I expected it to be deeper, richer, fatter, fuller, etc., like a viola, but it was kind of bright. Turns out that's what makes them so good. The violinist commented that it's like playing an electric guitar- you get much more volume for the same bow effort and enables far more dynamics. He was almost giddy with excitement. It certainly made a lot more sound than I'm used to from one violin.
We now have the tools and tech to analyze the wood, finish, glues, bracing, etc., and people have, so I fully believe a well-made new violin could duplicate the Strad's sound. The $ value is, like any antique, based on who is willing to pay what.
We can finally produce violins as good as a guy did 300 years ago.
Yay us? I guess... Took us long enough.
What could he have made if had he electricity and the modern world?
I saw a documentary several years ago where they blind tested violins and came to the same conclusion and just now I checked out wikipedia and it seems there have been more tests as well.
There is a Wikipedia page on the original study conduct back in 2012. Edward Carlyss criticized the study by saying, "He said that what makes the older violins better is how they sound to an audience in a concert hall and that it is irrelevant whether a violinist prefers a certain violin in a hotel room. He felt the test was as valid as comparing a Ford and a Ferrari in a parking lot."
Many of the old strads have been modified to have a taller bridge
or this or that to improve on the voice.
The old strads that were less than wonderful have been used
as kindling or rebuilt and refitted to be playable. i.e. only the
instruments that stand the test of time made it to today.
One anomaly in the good ones that is almost impossible to measure
is the way the wood was dried. One supply had been submerged in
volcanic ash and was gently permeated with silica as well as it
was cured for decades before being sawn into boards and finally
dried. Should someone pull some Mt. St Hellen spruce out of Spirit
lake and slow cure the boards well we could have a modern fiddle
that in 700 years will prove to be a master.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
People impose value on something and then suddenly everyone has to have one.
If I had the world's greatest art at my fingertips... would I fill my home with it? No. I already have access to the same art. I can get prints or lithographs of any of it and really its close enough that would would care. And if you want to talk about the texture of the brush strokes... fine, there are some prints that exactly match the topography of the original work so closely that it takes a forensic art expert to suss it out.
I could have all of that and more. Why this fascination with getting your hands on the original work? Its a status symbol. As if you're less of a twit because you happen to own an artifact created by someone in the history books. Who cares. You aren't them and simply buying something expensive doesn't make you more sophisticated or special.
You could take the same money and invest it in a giant gold dildo statue and it would be about as meaningful.
Maybe I'm being unkind... but I do not understand collectors at all. Its right up there with gambling... I don't get the fascination with it.
Why am I flushing my money down the drain again? Why am I blowing an absurd amount of money on stuff that can't possibly be worth that to any individual?
All these things violins should just make their way into exhibits or something. By all means... lend them to musicians. But stop putting these stupid things up for auction.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Looks like thet did the test in someone's living room -- shouldn't they have rented a concert hall or someplace more appropriate to where the instruments would be played on tour?
Incidentally, sorry but I cannot resist: double-blind? Maybe we should say... double deaf! /ducks
My first program:
Hell Segmentation fault
The issues is the process.
Stradivarius did not document what he did to make his violins, it was a trade secret.
It also could have been something out of his control, like the weather during the years the trees matured for the wood.
These things are analog. You tune them by twisting a wooden peg. They don't even have frets! Each instrument is unique and so are we. Professional players really take their time searching for an instrument that suits them.
I play trumpet Thank God. Our instruments are MUCH cheaper. But most of the pro players I play with own several instruments because of all the little variations between them. Go to the home of any serious guitar player and ask how many guitars they own... It's quite common to find guys who own a dozen or more.
Are the Stravdivari and Guarneri violins worth the 8 figure prices? It's all a matter of supply and demand. There are only so many of the old instruments and if enough people want them, then the price goes up. The value of something is what someone is willing to pay for it, which in the case of violins, does not necessarily correlate to how well it plays.
My wife also plays baroque violin and has a French instrument, made in 1774, which cost her only $12k. She tried out nearly 20 baroque violins before she settled on this one and it's a gem. There aren't many people playing in the baroque style, so there isn't as much demand. Most of the old Italian instruments have been altered over the years from their original form. "Modern" violins (those made after about 1830 or so) have necks that are bent further back and put more tension on the strings. They are engineered to play louder than the older instruments. The bows are bigger and heavier as well. And the bows are concave instead of being convex and have more horse hair on them so they play louder.
Because there isn't as much demand, the prices for the old instruments are much lower. The old instruments are worth that much because people are willing to pay for it, not because they necessarily are "better".
Read an account about it here:http://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/20121/13039/
First of all, the violinists were able to tell the difference between old and new violins.
It was a double blind study about which violin the violinists preferred to play. And since musicians that play the same instrument have different ideas of what kind of sound they prefer, it should not be a surprise that some preferred newer models. Of course, no two violins are created equal, and some Stradivariuses sound better than others. There were some constraints to the study, however. The older violins are worth several million of dollars and they were loaned on the condition that they could not be tuned.
next thing you tell me is that i can't hear the improvement my $5k www.lossless.com power cable makes to my audiophile setup?
I suppose the real test was never which one sounds BETTER, since Stradivarius violin itself defined the sound that the best possible violin should have for more than a century. .. essentially making a better Stradivarius violin than the original authors themselves.
It was all about making a perfect copy, both sound, tactile qualities,
Once we get over that, we will see a plethora of new instruments suddenly get much higher ratings than the old ones. Just like it happened with pianos, guitars, etc.
Reminds me of the many blind studies show how 'experts' on wine are very often totally full of shit -- which is why my eyes begin to roll when I hear people throwing around their pretentious adjectives when describing their favorite Cabernet or whatever.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
There are more than enough examples of ridiculous amounts being spent on not much more than popularity or a whim. Why is it so surprising people are willing to spend a lot on legendary and very rare instruments from several hundreds of years ago?
Maybe our modern-day instruments can hold up to those legends simply because today violin makers are standing on the shoulders of giants like Stradivari? A brand-new violin still costs a fortune and the most famous violin-makers today still select their clients very strictly. You essentially have to apply to even be allowed to pay them all that money.
And without trying to be too "voodoo" about this but as a musician myself, I am wondering just what kind of effect this privilege of playing such a rare instrument could have on the violinist. Maybe part of the "myth" is simply that the feel-good knowledge of playing one of the most legendary instruments out there can slightly improve an artists performance to push it to where "magic" happens?
World-class athletes do all sorts of "magic" to push themselves beyond their limits, to get just a slightly better performance. Why should the same not be true for performing star musicians?
"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." - Mark Twain
Try listening on a stereo with wooden knobs... or a computer with wooden keys.
These violins are to be heard, not seen. They should have done a double deaf study not double blind study.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
There are people willing to pay several hundred dollars per pound for the coffee beans that have gone through the digestive system of some rodent because of the claimed superior flavor and taste. But these people need some certification and testing agency to confirm it was really rat-pooped coffee because they can't tell the difference on their own.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I think to really accentuate the difference between the two violins we need to commit them to vinyl. How else can we really appreciate the true richness and colour of the sound?
Just like Fermat's last theorum, what in antiquity was happened upon by luck or rare skill and irreproducable by contemporaries, eventually gets chipped away by decades of minor improvements, research, technique. Even if the study is found to fail *this time*, know that at some point a modern $300 instrument will sound as good as one from antiquity costing million$. One would even expect that modern pieces would *exceed* the tonal qualities of the old instruments. People aren't sitting on their hands. The old instruments can be studied, analysed in ways not possible even 30 years ago. Spectral analysis to a very high degree, chemical and structural analysis without doing any damage to the original instrument. I've heard of Chinese manufacturers building *hand-built* guitars to a very high quality (as expressed by virtuoso guitar players) whose sound either equals or bests instruments costing more than $20,000 for a retail price less than $1000. High quality is high quality. Digital scans, copying exact dimensions to less than 1 micron, structural analysis giving the same --or better-- harmonic response, and attention to fit and finish are all part of the game. You can do this on a production line. Its a long, detailed and exacting line, but its doable.
...not to include a couple of clunkers in the test; the sort of violins the average student may possess at high school.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
If they were truly elite, they could tell the difference. This wasn't a representative sample of elite violin players.
.. the violinists were asked which violin they *preferred*. Many could tell the old from the new - but the preferred the modern for many different reasons. One participant's experience documented here: http://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/20121/13039/
That people can't tell difference between cheap or expensive food or wine or that a $1000 audio cable sounds the same as 5 cent one?
I'd guess there were more person hours spent on classical music then vs. today.
Maybe per capita but not likely on an absolute basis. Populations now are just a LOT larger.
What I'm reading is that with 300 years between them, modern violins aren't *better* than a Stradivarius.
(Yet?)
ITT: A lot of people that have never played a string instrument commenting as if they some sort of authority on the issue.
Seriously, this thread has some of the most ignorant stuff I have ever seen /. produce.
Since when does listening to 3-minute, or 55-minute performances count as a valid listening test? How about listening to the same song for three hours, and then judging whether or not you have a headache the next day?
There are loads of elements to "quality" that aren't easily identified conciously. That doesn't mean that they don't exist. That doesn't mean that they aren't beneficial. That simply means that you can't measure them in a blind listening test in under an hour.
And, of course, none of this takes into account what the violin ought to sound like. What a performer "prefers" has absolutely nothing to do with how the composer wanted it to sound. There are plenty of benefits to things that you don't like, especially when paired with many other sounds concurrently.
But hey, I heard a tamborene last week that had no trouble competing with a tuba and a drummer, without being amplified. It meant that the three instruments could be played off-stage, in the audience. Maybe that's a quality tamborene. Maybe it's not. But that's certainly not the type of attribute that would have been captured by any listening study such as these.
I recall a magazine article from 15 or more years ago - might have
been in Scientific American - about comparisons of a Strad, a fine
modern concert violin, and a student-grade violin. Said the listeners
could not reliably distinguish among them, but the players could
tell the difference immediately. Which suggests that an expert player
can get great sound even with a so-so violin.
There was more recently a comment by a professional violinist
who went from a Strad to a modern violin. Asked why, he replied
that not every violin Stradivarius made was a winner.
I do not understand why some people believe these instruments have something so powerful it cannot be replicated. If Antonio can do it, so can a good modern human.
A significant part of the difference is supposed to come from the density of the wood that existed at the time, from the changes in climate. Hey, you think that maybe we can put that in something good for climate change? "Uh, guys, can you burn some more carbon? I need to make a better violin...."
There are two mutually exclusive sets of frequencies, "can hear" and "can't hear".
Max(can hear) = 20k.
Therefore 320k and uncompressed (above 20k) are both in the "can't hear" set
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
A lot of both production and handmade guitars are crap right out of the factory.
At least a quarter of his business is fretwork and setup on brand new guitars. Even 'custom shop' guitars are often not setup from the factory. And we're talking the big name places too. By the same note, many of the boutique and 'handmade' builders are doing sloppy work. Some due to lack of education, some simply because they don't care. The problem is especially prevalent among people who accept full payment up front rather than half up or some other down payment. Some of it is simple psychology: Now that I've got your money, who cares?
While it's sad, it's part of both the human aspect of the business as well as an example of how much American industry, be it corporate or private, is rotting from the inside.
And no, I won't be plugging who I know, because learning it by word of mouth provides much better props :)
I remember this discussion when I was playing violin in high school and college (quite a while back), but it seemed like professors and violin teachers talked about surpassing Strads as a goal that might be reached someday, and that people were working toward. It never seemed to me like something the music community thought could never be achieved, like there was something mystical about it. So I'd chalk it up to time, not gullibility.
Since at least the 80s, modern instrument makers have been trying to duplicate and reverse engineer the Strads and try and make a modern instrument that's equally good. And there were tests like this, but when they were performed, the Strads would win out consistently. But now it looks like they finally succeeded. And we're entering the age where even outside blind tests, performers are starting to recognize this, like Yo Yo Ma and his professed affinity for carbon fiber cellos (I think he appeared on "How it's Made" a couple of years ago when they were demonstrating their construction).
I think you're right that it's not amazing that we'd get here eventually. In any theoretically achievable goal, where you're not trying to break fundamental physical laws, time, effort, and innovation win out. It's just like building better computers and programming them to beat chessmasters. At first, the technology and the programming just wasn't there, and computers lost. Now it is, and they win.
What this test doesn't say, however, is that the best of the modern violins are cheap. They aren't. They may not be the historical artifacts that Strads are, but they aren't something your average highly ranked college student performer could afford to perform on. I remember how prices ran, even for decently good modern instruments. This may bring the cost down from the tens of millions to the tens or hundreds of thousands, but the instruments they're comparing with are still astronomically priced, from most people's perspectives. They're the product of decades of research and mastery of the craft by modern luthiers, where the work is one part art and one part science. Good progress, and a big milestone, but they're still probably decades from making the same kind of qualities common and affordable.
Looks like thet did the test in someone's living room -- shouldn't they have rented a concert hall or someplace more appropriate to where the instruments would be played on tour?
Oh if you had only read the article instead of spouting half-cocked. The *original* test like the second were double-blind studies, but the first only was done in a hotel room. So the second test was done is an acoustically perfect recording studio, *and* an additional test was done in a 300 seat concert hall (also with outstanding acoustics). There were 12 instruments including 6 old instruments and 6 new. There were a range of tests done, and the professional players were asked to assess each instrument based on what they heard based on the conditions (type of music, colors of each instrument, locale (concert hall colors vs recording studio colors), range, attack, clarity of notes, etc.). The old instruments came up the same as the new ones. Continue to pick it apart if you want, but most of *your* gripes were killed off by the second study. Now the only thing left is showing *exactly which* old instruments were used. So we went from "All old and rare instruments were worth their millions" to "a select group of old and rare instruments were worth millions", and if it gets down to it that they used "a select group of rare instruments that have been selected for their qualities", and still they can't be singled out, then the people listening will be chastized by critics, and when *they* can't tell the difference, then its just 'The name and the age of the instrument, and, and, and magic and nothing else'.
You should ask your synthesizer company why they have so much problems replicating the sound of a violin.
bash$
As with all artistic judgments, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The same applies to the sound of a Strad vs. a fine modern violin, or even another 17th or 18th century violin. I am not a violinist or not even that much of a musician but I know a good sounding violin when I hear it. The finest sounding one in my opinion is not a Strad, it's "David", the Guarneri that Jasha Heifetz owned and preferred. The rest of you may disagree.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
Modern instrument manufacturing is capable of making incredibly high quality instruments at very reasonable production costs. Higher end instruments require a lot more human hands-on intervention in the manufacturing process but the high precision manufacturing equipment means instruments can be built to exacting specifications and done repeatably. The human finishing and fine tuning process completes the process for high end instrument builds. I play guitar and love to play many of the Paganini pieces from Opus #1 and therefore I listen to violin virtuosos like Perlman, Heifetz, Midori, Mintz, etc. I think they deserve to own the classic instruments with incredible provenance. Much of the tremendous sound they produce though is also a product of having master luthiers perform expert restoration and maintenance to these older but very finely built instruments. As a guitar player I am constantly amazed by what guitar collectors will pay for "classic" guitars. I grew up in the 60's and I love classic Strats, Teles and Les Pauls too but the idea that the sound is worthy of 6 figure prices is rediculous. Many fine instruments are built in the far east, starting with great Japanese guitars built in the 70's and growing from there (South Korea, China, Indonesia). In general I believe today's high end violins are certainly comparable with the finest classic violin masterpieces from the Italian luthiers of the 18th century. But that does not mean that those instruments are not to be admired and sought out by the finest virtuoso violinists who relate to the importance and provenance of these instruments in addition to appreciating their stellar tone.
Any playable Stradivarius violin has had most of its parts replaced over the years. So in many ways they are quite similar to more modern violins. "...it is impossible that any Stradivarius violin actually remains in its complete original condition today. Maintenance results in incremental changes to the instrument. For example, only one Stradivarius still has its original neck (Barclay, 2011). The body of a violin is critical to the sound of the violin, yet the neck and fingerboard are also important to the instruments sound (Hall, 2001). As the different parts of the violin are replaced the sound that is produced changes."
from: http://badacoustics192.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/what-makes-a-stradivarius-so-special/
Monster Cables CEO found to have the Stradivarius family in his family tree! :P
Sure, the violinists may have preferred the modern violins in a double blind PLAYING test. Note that I emphasized PLAYING. The difference between speakers and violins, is that speakers are PASSIVE to the people in the study and the violins in this test were being ACTIVELY played.
I would expect that performing artists who are confident in their talent and the quality of their instruments perform better. So if a violinist *THINKS* their violin is a cut above the rest, it will help make their performance better because they are confident that their instrument is UNIQUELY SUPERB, rather than just great. So the artist's subjective feeling about the quality of their instrument *CAN* influence the quality of their performance.
Whereas, if one subjectively thinks ones speakers are better, it doesn't improve how it sounds to other people, but a better performance on a violin will sound better to everyone.
Kinda reminds me of arguments I've had with people who say they can't hear the difference between 48K & 96K sampling rates....but reminds me a lot more of many people not noticing the difference between MP3 and uncompressed... :-/
That is quite true. But to invoke the mandatory car analogy a well-heeled driving enthusiast might take several sports cars out for a test drive and choose the one that was immediately the most fun to drive, and a second just for variety. But after months of driving both might discover that, once having mastered the basics, the subtleties of the second actually make for a more enjoyable drive. This is actually not at all uncommon in driving games where players have massive fleets of different cars at their disposal.
A driver/player may well come to prefer a particular vehicle because the quirks of that vehicle are more suited towards his style of driving. Similarly, a violinist may prefer to play a particular instrument because the attributes of that particular violin suit his style of playing better.
In both these cases, it does not mean that the preferred car or violin is objectively superior to all other cars or violins. Subjectively, yes, but only for that particular driver or violinist who made that choice.
Not surprised, really!
Yesterday I was watching old episodes of Top Gear. Aston Martin DB 5, the famous 007 car was beaten by an average, awfully average modern Honda. Then it went around the track and it was the slowest car ever! Old tech is old...
I sometimes wonder [being quite the fan of Japan] - is really a 400 year old katana as good as the best modern metallurgy can offer? I doubt it...
I'll have to partially correct you on point 3. The paintings you're talking about were made by Rembrandt's students under his supervision. But point 4 absolutely captures it best. The other day, a guy at Dixon's tried to sell an hmdi cable with golden connectors to me. Dude, seriously, how is that gonna improve anything?
Bah the link was deleted entirely
Now try this same test with a pre-war Martin D-28 and the best modern guitar you can find.
The modern guitar wouldn't stand a goddam chance.
Its frightening how good those old martins sounded. Why they can't get them to sound like that anymore is beyond me (Even martins re-issue D-28s dont stack up, despite being exceptional guitars).
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
The problem with a really good music instrument is how and where it will make and help the musician grow. And he'll look for the qualities he has come to cherish also when playing another instrument, and he'll be able to evoke some of those qualities.
There is a reason that at music fairs you have excellent musicians show-casing run-of-the-mill instruments. And they get an impressive performance out of them. But they wouldn't have gotten to the state where they would have got an impressive performance out of them if they were their main instrument. Because they are fighting the instrument in order to get there. A beginner does not know how to fight a bad instrument.
Now we are not talking about bad and excellent in comparison, but excellent and very excellent. And the old instruments have been built for different string tension, flatter string arrangement and so on, but later refurbished. There are several layers of craftsmanship. Getting into the personality of an instrument takes a lot of time.
And if you get into the "where does it take the performer in the long run" aspect, you cannot double-blind this since you cannot use the same performer for more than one instrument he got to work with for more than a year. Worse, the "where does it take the performer" aspect is not independent from what the performer knows and feels about an instrument's history.
Everybody knows Stradivarius violins only sound better when the one who listens to it knows the violin is a Stradivarius. The same goes for french wine that tastes better only if you know where it comes from, etc.
There still hasen't been a single double blind study where anyone has actually heard the difference. However, there have been studies where people heard notable differences in the exact same speakers, and exact same music, while they thought the music came from different colored stereos. ( black was best quality, silver next, pink worst, if i recall correctly ) I've been interested in these things for a long while, and no matter what, these "gold ear" folks never ever agree to any double blind tests. They could setup the whole scene, choose familiar music, everything. Yet not a single one of tem cares enought to actually _prove_ they can hear the differences.
A double blind study was conducted that proved that IT professionals cant distinguish between playing games on nvidia and amd graphic card.
Apparently that means the hardware is equal.
I have it on good authority that Stradivarius violins are exceptionally hard to play at their best. The amount of skill and familiarity required to extract the best sound at all times is larger than for "easier" violins. Pro or no, it takes weeks or months to adjust your reflexes for a different instrument, and a really demanding one needs longer.
I would be not at all surprised if modern violins can be manufactured to produce equivalent tone with less capriciousness, making a short term test show them to be nicer. Longer term, who knows? I'm sure they're all excellent instruments.
Further down I saw mention of Steinway versus other high end pianos sounding indistinguishable. Like the violins, the point missed by most contributors to this discussion is that instruments affect you as you play them, by how hard they make you work to achieve what you want, and by how they shape your performance by not giving you what you want. The feel is what contributes to great music as much as the sound. Some instruments match your expectations perfectly, making your music effortless. Others challenge you and force you to grow around their character, producing a different performance. That can be good or bad, as it is said that one must suffer for one's art.
Could anyone distinguish any notes or tones? Classical music is played so -fast- these days it's like listening to music on fast forward. The only objective in classical music seems to be playing the piece as fast as possible. Who cares what instruments anyone uses?
Chinese violins are absolutely amazing at their pricepoint. For $1000 you can get a violin that sounds and plays as good as instruments in the 10k range.
Strands vary so much that it is meaningless to consider them as a class for music-quality tests.
They also vary considerably in how much of the original remains.
Show business. No content, just marketing. Vaporware.
I have made 14 guitars and one violin. I think there might be subtle ways an older instrument could be distinguished from a newer one, apart from the sound. Like the feel of the finish, the feel of the tuning pegs, or the smell. But this study does not surprise me. "Cork sniffing" is also very prevalent in the tube amplifier industry, much of what people hear must be in their head.
As a guitarist, however, I know what it is like to feel a bond with an instrument that is not easily explainable. I repaired a Gibson SG recently (I don't really care for them) but after fixing the high action and polishing the frets, I was unable to put it down, it was such a joy to play.
If you're ever in a music store, walk down the isle and briefly play each guitar or violin. It is amazing, the difference in feel and sound, and it does not correlate to price.
One quality I like about really old instruments (pre-Stradivarius), both actual specimens and reproductions, is that the sound often varies over the pitch range. The "feel" of the sound is inconsistent across it's spectrum, and this often makes them more interesting.
Modern instruments strive for consistency so that the conductor knows what he/she is getting and nothing stands out unless it was intended to stand out in the score. However, this makes old-style inconsistency sound refreshing in comparison.
Maybe if one heard the inconsistent sound all day, it would grow annoying, but in the age of generic-ness and mass production; the old ones provide a warm organic kind of feel as an alternative.
Table-ized A.I.
1. I keep hearing this statement about wines, but have never seen actual descriptions of good studies that support this claim. This "wine-snob" conspiracy story reeks of urban myth.
2. Utter nutty bullshit. I have practice tapes I made in college practice rooms the 1980s that, on which it is insanely easy to distinguish when I was playing a Steinway and when I was playing one of the other Japanese or American pianos. Steinways have always had a distinctive upper midrange (among other distinguishing characteristics). That doesn't mean that other manufacturers have lately succeeeded in copying that sound (and I have no idea if they have). But to claim that they're "indistisinguishable" is just ignorant. FWIW, other "high-end" pianos -- I'm thinking Bosendorfer here -- also have distinct personalities that many _prefer_ to the Steinway "sound." Choosing which one is "best" is open to debate. But only an idiot would claim that they're indistiguishable.
3. I don't know what the poster is referring to in order to support this statement, so I can't comment intelligently. And, to be honest, I really don't know what point the poster is even trying to make. Some forgers are great at copying another artist's original work or style. But so what?
4. Oh no, this one puts everything in perspective. Another no-nothing moron with an opinion who decides to bring up audio cables as an example of snake oil. All I can say here is that I've heard significant differences in audio cables in non-blind A-B's. And the reason why a blind comparison was not necessary is because the differences were so profound that there was no question in the mind of anybody in the room that confirmation error was not at play. To put it into perspective, the difference was on the order of turning a tone control from a 3 setting to a 9. I know that ShanghaiDickhead will give my personal account no probative value, because it appears that he's just a guy who like to feel important by making conclusory, unsupported statements about topics he knows nothing about. But being ignorant doesn't give you the right to assume that your ignorance is correct. All TVs look the same. All car stereos sound the same. All smartphones are indistinguishable if you hide the logos. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Their sample size was too small to draw any meaningful conclusions.
Additionally, if Stevie Wonder can't tell the difference, it doesn't matter. This is evident in modern electromechanical keyboard simulators. A "clonewheel" organ sounds different than a real Hammond organ. Put the clonewheel in a Hammond case, tweak up the parameters to make it sound like it's 60 years old, and those of us who have played the instruments know the difference. The sounds of real clavinets/Rhodes/Wurlitzers are vastly different than their electronic counterparts. Same with Leslie speaker simulators and solid state/tube amplifiers. I probably couldn't tell given a set of samples on a CD, but I guarantee I can tell the difference blindfolded in the presence of the actual instruments versus their electronic clones. There is a qualitative difference in sound and this is primarily due to the action of the keys. Nothing more, nothing less.
Moral of the story: a violin doesn't have much in regard to sound dynamics and the acoustic spectrum. Take a Rhodes Mark I, however, and you have frequencies all over the board... please pardon the unintentional pun.
As a reggae player, I found it funny that the captchya for my post was "chalice". Well played.
Do any of you know the music in the OP? The key is G-major, and most of the music would be played on the higher pitched strings. It is not at all the same as, say, the middle movement of the Tschaikovsky Violin Concerto, the movement in B-Minor, so I wonder at the quality of the test, or what if they used Bach unaccompanied Sonatas and Partitas or Beethoven String Quartets?
One needs to judge the tone of each range, so music that exercises the G-string, especially the open G-string, the lowest note a violin can make, the G below Middle C, is as significant at what can be played on the top E-string.I would much rather here the Bach C-major Partita than the Beethoven Concerto.
A good modern violin doesn't cost as much as a Stradivarius, but the price tag can reach into six figures. So this finding may ease the financial burdens of top violinists a bit but they're still going to need to take out loans to buy their instruments.
Look at the price tag.
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company -- Mark Twain
Or the Zealotry...
che devono dimostrare di essere più furbi
...it says that sometimes they found the new equaled or surpassed the old.
That's far from being "can't distinguish".
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Elite violinists may be the wrong test group. I remember a test of high tech tennis rackets, and the pros didn't find them much better than the regular designs, but the amateurs found them easier to use, less fatiguing, etc. Similarly, auto racing at the level where an amateur team has a professional driver on the team, is rife with stories of the pro bringing it in for a driver change and saying "it's perfect, don't change a thing" and the new guy takes it out and discovers it's missing a wheel or something. I suspect the elite violinists could do well with a plastic violin from the dollar store.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.