Blind-tested soloists unable to tell Stradivarius from modern violins
thestrad.com
thestrad.com
Ultimately these tests only reveal the biases of the players. They will prefer – and actually perform better with – that which they believe to be configured in a certain way, regardless of whether it is in reality or not. We had one prototype that us engineers hated to death because the only difference between it and the rest was that it was a different colour, but ALL the players hailed it as the golden standard.
The same goes for the famous 'Does Fuck All' button on recording mixing desks, which you can use to tell players that you've made the change that they wanted to satisfy them. And also when you're buying speakers it's very common to be shown the same set of speakers three times and have three opinions.
I just recently tour managed a friend and would set up her mic sound every night, and each time I would need to play some sort of subtle trick with her so that she felt things were just right. No amount of 'rational tweaking' could achieve the same.
I've noticed with sensory inputs in general that the things that impress you immediately, and the things that impress you once your brain has adjusted to the input and has settled in, are different. For the visual example, observe the difference between the settings on the TVs in the store vs. what the community will generally agree is the optimal long-term setting for your TV. Also, while the first ten minutes of a 3D movie may be pretty whiz-bang, I've generally stopped noticing it's in 3D by the end.
I think in both cases, our initial preferences are for something sharper and exaggerating the differences, but over the long term that becomes quite tiring. A case could probably be made even for smell; in the store the strong, unusual perfume may be very impressive but if you are going to use it all day long, I prefer to be around people who use something a lot more subtle.
On the other hand, I tend not to drink pop for long periods on end. My first pop in a long while always tastes incredibly syrupy, to the point where it's borderline unpalatable. If I have more than a couple of pops in a short period it starts tasting like what I 'remember' it tasting like.
I don't get why you say it has greater carbonation. The carbonation in Coke gives a harsher feel, which I tend to dislike other than when its hot and I'm very thirsty. Pepsi gets frothier, and is more mellow, but in overall levels of carbonation I don't think there's much difference.
The only other cola than Pepsi I'll sip is RC, which has a strong caramel undertone.
http://www.coca-colaproductfacts.com/en/coca-cola-products/c...
http://www.pepsicobeveragefacts.com/Home/Product?formula=350...
Be sure to click the 20 oz button on the Coke page (can't deep link to a particular size).
To me, for lack of a better word, Coke has "harsher" bubbles that somehow drown out the sweetness. Which is why a can of Coke that's been open for an hour is way too sweet to me.
Hayward Kiwi (the most common commercial variety in the US) are harvested fairly hard at about 6 Brix (approximately percent dissolved solids assuming those solids are sucrose) and ripen up to about 12-14 Brix.[1]
Strawberries are usually 8-10 Brix, but a peak of the season fully ripe (and delicious) modern variety like Seascape or Tristar might be 12-14 Brix[2], the same as a fully ripe kiwifruit.
[1] https://thebenjamin.wordpress.com/2013/11/15/harvesting-kiwi...
[2] Sorry, I'm not immediately finding a good cite for this one. I've personally measured a bunch, though.
Coke is bitter in the wrong ways. I can't describe it any better than that, I love IPAs so it's not like I'm against bitter drinks but give me a Pepsi any day.
I mean I truly don't care that much in the end, I'm definitely not one of those silly who will refuse one or the other, but it's not just about the initial sip being better.
I do it for two reasons:
I don't really like any Pepsi products, Sierra Mist is ok, I guess.
I shouldn't be having soda anyway. So on the very rare time I order a Coke and they say they only have Pepsi it's my excuse not to have it at all.
Dr. Pepper I think has a more distinctive taste but my point is that your experience may not line up with what most people expect and you may in fact have an above average sense of smell and/or taste.
I used to drink a ton of Coke and I guarantee I could tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. These days I rarely drink soda, and while I think I could tell the difference, I could probably be fooled.
Second, assuming you can indeed tell the difference, you're assuming smell and taste are one single axis. You might be good at differentiating only certain kinds of molecules.
> Second, assuming you can indeed tell the difference, you're assuming smell and taste are one single axis. You might be good at differentiating only certain kinds of molecules.
So possibly I'm a soda-only super-smeller/taster. Ha, there's a handy skill. :-(
In blind tests, people generally preferred the sweeter Pepsi. In unblinded tests, people preferred the incredibly brand-dominant Coke.
This whole thing is a case study on brand perception, not sensory perception.
[edit] typo
The second thing is that "proper experiment" I mentioned. It's one thing to tell someone they're getting Coke and Pepsi. It's another to tell them they get two new products (but actually Coke and Pepsi). Yet another to tell them they're getting Coke and Pepsi and give them generic-cola-1 and -2. All of those may tell you something interesting.
Check the paper "Blind Taste Test of Soft-drinks – A Comparison Study on Coke and Pepsi" - people actually can't identify the brand properly.
starts reading
Holy broken English Batman!
checks author names
Ah. Ok.
Interesting that respondents seem to be using "sweetness" as a stand-in for "how much I like it". I'd class Coke as a fair bit drier than Pepsi—still quite sweet, but noticeably less so than Pepsi. The "open" version of responses, though, rate Coke as much sweeter.
I don't get measuring the "caffeine" perception, but maybe I'm just unusual in not knowing what caffeine _per se_ tastes like? Possibly something's being lost in translation (so to speak) here.
I wonder what percentage identified _both_ drinks correctly. Perhaps it turns out that ~half+ of all people are really bad at differentiating flavors in colas.
Interesting that "can't identify" went up with Coca Cola. I definitely find both its nose and flavor to be milder than Pepsi, so I guess that makes sense.
(for the record, I go for Coke over Pepsi, which you'd have to pay me to drink, though even Coke wears out its welcome with me after a half-dozen ounces or so)
If you serve it cold enough most people can't tell the difference between coke and 7up.
Well, the point of the article is that there are many people who claim that they can do such things, but when they're put to the test...can't.
Have you actually tested yourself, or do you just assume you can do it?
It reminds me a lot of this:
http://tom-morrow-land.com/tests/ampchall/
In short: Richard Clarke, an audio guru, put his own money up to reward people who could tell the difference in sound quality, consistently, between two level-matched amplifiers of varying price. No one has passed. Audiophiles have been complaining about it for years.
Sure they made it to promote their product and I guess there is no money involved. But in the end they show your scores and the % of all tests. If you take out the "don't know" it is near 50/50.
[EDIT] if it helps, it seems to me that having a "Pepsi Challenge" is like having an "Orange Challenge" where the other contender is a lime. It's not exactly gonna be hard to tell which one you're dealing with, even if the sample's the same size and you're blindfolded. Throw in a half-dozen other citrus fruits and yeah, I could see getting a couple of them wrong but just those two? No. Judging from the reaction here, though, I'm starting to wonder if I need to re-evaluate my sense of smell/taste. Maybe it's not only farther from normal than I thought, but in the opposite direction.
One thing you might not be realizing is that many people have absolutely shot their palates with modern flavorings, sugar bombing, etc. (though these days, smoking at least is less of a thing). I too don't have trouble telling the difference between Coke and Pepsi (and have done it blind), but if you took away visual cues, I think you'd be surprised how many people would bilge even the orange/lime test.
It turns out that they are not the same, and there's a reason lots of people order whiskey and coke and nobody orders whiskey and pepsi.
It was not better.
To me at least, Coke has more citrus notes and is a bit more sour. RC, at least in the US is slightly more bitter and also seems to have a slightly sweet aftertaste, but not that different from Coke. Pepsi is more sweeter as well, and doesn't have the citrus hit.
The more interesting difference is Sugar cane Coke, like they have in Australia, and Corn Syrup. They are both equally sweet, IMO, but the corn syrup has a different aftertaste and texture. Still mostly identical.
So one night we decided to put his claims to test: he was summarily sent to basement with a few friends; while the remainder of us prepared the samples in the kitchen.
We (preparers) then left the room while he sampled and wrote down his choices - as double-blind as we can make it.
He was wrong even more than random guessing would've allowed; and the video of his confident, but entirely erroneous reports are still an amusing viewing amongst our group :)
Mind you, he still claims superiority of one product and his ability to tell. But time again, these claims don't bear testing...
> The results usually have Pepsi wiping the floor with Coke
That study says nothing about inability to differentiate tastes, only a disparity between taste preference and brand preference.
So that anecdote is bullshit. Everyone with refined tastebuds knows that Pepsi taste like sweetened dishwasher liquid and Coke is much more spiced and refined with notes of bitter vanilla, nutmeg, and pepper. Pepsi is what people who eat Doritos and Mountain Dew prefer, ie. they don't care what they consume.
I think I see what you did there.
I never really understood the point of the Pepsi Challenge until I went to the US and had HFCS Coke, which tastes much more like Pepsi. The same is true of Coke Zero, which the ads here loudly proclaim "tastes just like regular Coke". Yeah, regular HFCS Coke, not sugar Coke. Yuck.
I think a lot of it is just which taste you're accustomed to.
Once those differences have been normalised we stop feeling the same way about them, and become attracted to other things just because they are novel. This is why it's often better to call a mix 'done' before you start believing it's completely wrong and tearing it apart again, only to prefer the old version.
Anyway, my first impression of new music often doesn't match what my later opinion will be after listening more.
Also, very catchy albums that immediately grab me rarely prove to have long-term listenability for me. An example would be the Postal Service album, I remember thinking that was really catchy and great, but after a few listens I hated it.
Besides the novelty bias you've identified, I also think there's a context bias. Products that make a lasting impact on our lives do so by fitting into the context of our lives - they are well-adapted to the situation in which they will eventually be used. Products that demo well fit into the context of a demo - they look splashy and exciting when shown to a set of observers who are specifically judging the product. The set of qualities optimized for each of these situations differs.
Twilio's demos have always been fantastic and their product in actual use is as well.
I realised later, that most flat panels are optimized to look good on the brightly lighted stores, they have high brightness and saturation, and look brilliant. Even at home at first they look better than the old CRTs... until on daily usage I get annoyed with their poor contrast and colour reproduction.
Yes, on the store a red looking extra red looks good... but when you see on the screen a photo of a relative and their shamed pink face became a monstrous mess of bright yellow and red, then you realised it doesn't look so good...
EDIT: Fixed ortography
Factor in weight (that big old workstation monitor weighed something like 75 pounds, and I hurt my back bringing it down the stairs when I finally got rid of it) and LCD is a no-brainer improvement over CRT. I have no desire to go back to CRTs.
Going the other direction, the Acer Predator XB321HK is a 32" 16:9 (I'm not a fan of the ultra-wide stuff) 4K screen with great picture and GSync if you play games with Green Team's GPUs. It's over a grand and only does 60hz, but it's a big nice 4K panel and it's not a TV.
Lastly, you have things like the Dell P4317Q, which is targeted at stock traders. It's a 43" 4K screen for a relatively-affordable $1350 with a proper DisplayPort input. I nearly got this instead of my Vizio P55-C1 (which is the only IPS screen of all the 2016 Vizio P series), but I liked that the Vizio did 120hz, but I'm disappointed about the lack of real 4:4:4 chroma and the resultant blurry text. Still, if you want a huge desktop monitor, the Dell might be the way to go. The Philips BDM4350UC is about the same as the Dell, and has a lot of discussion here: https://hardforum.com/threads/philips-bdm4350uc-43-inch-4k-i...
This is classic. From [0]:
> When Florence’s mayor, Piero Sorderini told Michelangelo that the nose on his sculpture that he had been commissioned to do of a young David with sling in hand was too big, he did not argue that the nose was just right, Michelangelo merely took the mayor onto the scaffolding and gave the appearance of changing the nose. Sorderini was pleased and no one was offended.
http://48laws-of-power.blogspot.com/2011/05/law-9-win-throug...
That's an important distinction. There is something to valuing a tool that makes you use it better. My first version of Visual Studio I paid for out of pocket and I made sure to get my money's worth. My bicycles, probably don't actually make me that much faster, but when I enjoy riding them and like them, I am faster.
I.e. as long as the bikes have two wheels etc, you will choose the one that makes you feel good.
I prefer my metal bikes, steel most of all. Carbon is so harsh.
I think the reputation for harshness is undeserved. I rode an aluminum frame (the gold standard of harsh and rigid) for a long time and IMO the difference between frame materials is way smaller than say 23 vs 25mm tires.
That said, I also have a 70s era steel frame as my commuter. It's a fun, springy ride that is respectably quick, and I enjoy riding it to work. I would not want to do thousands of feet of climbing on it though.
The supersix is what software should try to be. Better than it's competitors when released, and it's been refined year over year, ignoring fads, to become a phenomenal machine.
The first time I rode carbon, I knew it had to be all carbon. It's so smooth, like butter. Not even a contest vs aluminum. I haven't ridden steel in ages, but based on weight alone, yeah, carbon.
Could she have been responding to the acoustics in the new room?
Very curious of about this one weird trick that you did. What did you do for it to sound right to her? Are you sure you weren't just tuning parameters in a way that allowed her to best identify resonance in a venue?
So for soundcheck it was important for it to sound right for an empty room, whereas we were also somewhat covertly tuning parameters in anticipation of the crowd's effect on the acoustics.
So the key point is that we were building two sounds; one to fit her psychoacoustic perception in an empty room to make for a comfortable soundcheck, and another for the actual acoustic scenario of the performance. The latter was offputting for the performer despite being 'correct'.
Levelling the playing field in 'amateur sound tech' (mostly good craftspeople who are just doing what they can with limited time/resources) is an active area of research in acoustics and DSP. I recommend Dr Josh Reiss of QMUL (where I'm based) for more on this. Check out his work on automatic audio engineering. Machine learning is very appropriate to this area of work:
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=fVlS_EgAAA...
We're all gonna be killed by the machines.
Unless they grow a sense of humor, and I very much doubt the machine learning guys are doing diddly squat on that front. We're scrod.
Out of curiosity, which colour was it?
Contrast with, say, athletes. The very best runners from a century ago wouldn't qualify for the olympics today.
It does say that the extra value in a Stradivarius is in the history or mystique (or more cynically, the branding) as opposed to the sound.
But the sound is there as well, just it can be matched by a modern top quality instrument.
High tech IMO imply's more. For example: http://www.industrial-lasers.com/articles/2008/03/ornamental...
I agree making things reproducible is a big deal, but that's mostly a question of cost not capability. 3d printing or computer control in general allows for beyond human levels of accuracy. Or even just computer modeling to find new and adventitious shapes.
Though I think it's important to remember it was a high tech process for the time. At the time few things required that level of precision or complexity. And considering the size and physical effort involved few things have that kind of volume.
I wonder when the computer emulation will be so good as to be indistinguishable from the original. And I don't mean just a synthesiser, that's probably not going to be perfect ever, I mean a simulation of the friction of the strings, taking into account the propagation of the sound in the resonance chamber and its material proprieties, the characteristics of the array of speakers and the relative position of the listener.
http://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/building-better-violin...
This view that high tech produces instruments that sound an play like machines is highly reductionistic. If we understand how things work, we can improve it through that understanding.
https://www.facebook.com/660guitars/
Granted, I've not put one in my hands but I doubt it would have any catastrophic effect on my ability to play or get those thick toanz.
"It must be remembered that the violin is a cultural icon as well as a working tool, and iconoclasts – those who smash of icons – cannot expect a warm welcome at the temple gates."
He won a MacArthur grant. More articles: http://josephcurtinstudios.com/article-category/innovation/
If it was possible for a violin to objectively sound better than a Strad, would listeners interpret necessarily it as better?
Every other instrument in the orchestra has been modernized as well.
Violin manufacture strives to "replicate the past" because that is where most of the music played with them comes from (on HN I have to point this out!). However, there are plenty of compositions for modern alternatives like electric violins.
Of course inventing new instruments is a welcome avenue of musical exploration. But it's not without tradeoffs. At the very least, the musician will be set back by having to develop new technique and familiarity with the capabilities of a new instrument -- getting your ears, brain, and hands, to work together perfectly in real time. Composers also have to wrap their heads around the capabilities of a new instrument, in order to take an interest in writing for it.
Double blind recorded audio tests often produce the same result: Listeners can't tell the difference between two DACs, two codecs, two amplifier mains cables(!) but as soon as the difference[s] are audible above a threshold, preference comes into play.
However a modern violin is produced, and however it is objectively 'better' than a Strad (if that's even possible to quantify) it will never be subjectively better for all players or listeners, if there is an audible difference - and therefore Strads will always be seen as the 'best'.
I agree with your point, but this isn't true at all [1]. The rules have changed so dramatically that you get a completely false idea. E.g. Jesse Owens ran on cinders, started without blocks, and did not have a training regimen anything like today's pros.
Perhaps a better argument is that the Stradivarius instruments which survive are not the best few, selected over centuries, but ~60% of all the instruments Stradivari ever made. I.e. he was consistently great.
[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/david_epstein_are_athletes_really_...
I don't think anyone is saying modern runners are genetically different than historical ones. Of course the difference is in how they're trained.
The other thing that I think is very interesting is that Stradivari really developed his own pattern for violins, while modern makers have a lot of knowledge to build upon.
He may not have been the first to copy Strads (or he may have been, I'm just not sure) but Vuillaume became very famous for making masterful copies of some Strads. In 1855 he purchased 144 instruments by Stradivari and some other of the "great Italian masters", I think mostly as a dealer but he also set out making great copies of Le Messie (a Strad), Il Cannone (a Guarneri, which belonged to Paganini), and some others.
I think Vuillaume's violins then became patterns for other instrument makers to use, and we have this legacy now where most modern violins are patterned after a Strad or a Guarneri.
They cite the same 2012 Indianapolis study mentioned in this article. The researchers have an amazing eye for detail. A perfume was applied to all violin's chin rests so that musicians would not be able to tell them apart based on smell. Tells you a lot about brand perception using all our senses.
This is the Planet Money episode: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/06/22/482936331/episo...
One of the main things I remember taking away from the podcast was that the soloists in the study were not the most famous "best" violinists in the world (they may not even have been professionals?). One of the violin makers they interviewed thought this was the biggest weakness of the study, and he was confident he could tell the difference (not that that means too much).
I always thought it'd be depressing to be a Ferrari engineer or in a similar position of making things great when you know the most of them will never be used anywhere near their potential, or worst-case never used and hoarded for profit by rich investors collecting trinkets they know little about. You're also undoubtedly aware of the types of buyers who e.g. Get a LaFerrari crash it on the turn exiting the dealership ( http://m.sfgate.com/world/article/1-5-million-Ferrari-wrecke... ) . IMO that would make it hard to care about my work, knowing that wholly-underserving drivers are smashing these functional works of art. Just because you can afford one of the fastest vehicles out there doesn't mean you're at all qualified to drive it.
Cave Story has a Japanese author, and Japan more generally seems to think quite a bit about how tools are treated over their "lives." I'm not sure if there's a specific term in Japanese for the particular sensation of "knowing that your craftsmanship is being put to use." But there is the concept of a tsukumogami—a tool that has had so much use put into it for so long that it has become imbued with its own soul. Such objects are sometimes given funerals when they break, etc.
I don't think old guitars are inherently better, and I have gotten my hands on some rather amazing pieces (1914 Gibson Loar F5, 1959 Les Paul, 1955 Telecaster, etc) and they were really fun. I've also played some guitars that people like collecting that were absolute garbage instruments, including a 1966 Gibson 330 that was just horrid.
But here's the weird thing that I do not understand, the hallmark of a great guitar to me isn't the sound, it's the "songs stored in it". Yea, that's some hippie-woo-bullshit, but almost every guitar I pick up that I like has me instantly playing something that I've never played before in my life. Some guitars, despite being technically excellent, just don't have them in there. Other guitars, if I pick them up in the studio I've suddenly written some really interesting pieces.
This probably actually just comes down to comfort, feedback loop response of sound, weight, small details, etc. I don't think there's any memory to an instrument that stores these; but at the same time, I can go through a wall of guitars and pick out my favorite ones this way. There is only a slight correlation to price/age on these.
I'm actually second generation and my Dad worked in a music shop & as a guitar teacher back in the 65-70 period of time. He routinely commented to me that some instruments were just horrible quality to deal with. Low tech and low standards of production. He could understand the "rarity" or "scarcity" value (though hated the inflated prices non-playing collectors did to guitars) but told me time and again that better construction techniques of today are worth appreciating.
And, honest to goodness, I've got a similar voodoo-like relationship regarding one particular guitar of his. It's a 1981 Fender Strat Elite, an un-loved high-end thing he picked up and just kept around. It's got this weird triangular 'V' cut to the neck, a hard ebony fretboard, and when the garbage floating trem is locked down, it plays like nothing else. I've written more riffs, ideas, and can do so again and again without fail every time I touch it. The strangest thing, and while I don't care to put a technical description on why it's magic (I do like the Washburn Dime Custom Shop necks, which also had a pronounced 'V'), I can't deny there's just something to the relationship. Cool to see it's not just me.
A poor craftsman might blame his tools, but the best tools do have history and lineage to them.
Strangely, I then moved to my favorite acoustic (Maton 1973 CW80) and discovered that it loves being played in the same style! I'd never assumed that a piece that relies so heavily on dissonant electric reverb would translate so well to a clean acoustic sound. I now tend to improvise on my Maton in a completely different style as I've discovered that it has a whole new family of "songs stored in it"!
Regarding price/age to quality, one of my most played guitars is actually a cheap nylon Martinez (around $150) that I bought so I could take it camping etc. and not worry about it being broken or stolen. It's got a great sound, and is incredibly playable.
I understand that this test proves that modern violins sound just as good as Stradivarius, but how do you tell which sounds better? I guess you make a blind test where you ask people which of the two things they like best...
The test says that they couldn't distinguish if the violins were old or new, but they got 31/33 guesses wrong, which is a 93% failure rate, a.k.a. 93% success rate, far higher than the 50% you'd expect by chance.
They seem to be conflating two tests, one being "Can you tell which violin is new?" and one being "Which one do you prefer?"
Maybe the title should be "blind-tested soloists overwhelmingly prefer modern violins to Stradivarius".
/rambling
> this test proves that modern violins sound just as good as Stradivarius
> how do you tell which sounds better?
The test just proved that neither sounds better, that modern ones sound just as good. The same level of sounding good means neither one is better than the other, right?
Edit: also, FTA -- "In total, 33 of the soloists’ guesses were wrong and 31 right, with 5 indeterminate." That's about 50/50 not 93%. They are the same. There is no difference except lore.
But I think pointing out that musicians can't distinguish between these instruments is essential to debunking this notion that Strads are somehow uniquely better than anything else.
Turns out, Strads are high end violins that sound great after two hundred years. If you're a professional violinist, don't waste your money to "further your career."
Likewise owning one.
It wont make you sound better but it will almost certainly make peope enjoy listening to you more... You know unless they percieve you as a pretentious snot at least.
There were two tests, one to distinguish strad from modern, one to score which instrument musicians liked best. In the first, they didn't get 31 of 33 wrong, they got 33 wrong and 31 right, virtually a 50/50 split. In the preference test, modern violins placed first and second, with the top place substantially above the others, though the article doesn't give the full score breakdown.
>The results revealed the two most-preferred instruments to be modern, while in third place was a violin from Stradivari’s ‘golden period’. At the opposite end of the scale a Stradivari drew the poorest result and a modern instrument was placed second-last.
But they couldn't distinguish which instruments were which reliably. Suggesting that even if there is a preference, it's very weak and probably doesn't matter very much.
Supposing that a performer does not in fact know what a Stradivarius sounds like and is unable to determine which violin is the Stradivarius does not mean that the Stradivarius does not in fact sound different from a modern instrument never mind which one of those sounds "better".
(I believe there was also a problem with the original test that I don't know if they addressed this time around, which is that it's pretty hard to get permission even to do things like change the strings on a very old violin. So, if they're testing a Stradivarius with old strings against a modern violin with new strings, that's not exactly a fair test.)
As my teacher put it, "Modern instruments may have a voice that's as good as an antique's, but they only have the one voice. Due to how age works with violins, antique violins have many beautiful voices. In a couple hundred years a 21st century instrument with the same craftsmanship and material quality as Strads and del Gesus—and these instruments do exist—will be as good as a the Strads and del Gesus do now. But right now that's not the case."
And I've found this to be true myself. When I pick up a modern violin it might take some time to figure out how to make it sound best, but then I'm done. With an antique instrument, it turns into this indefinitely-long relationship where I continuously learn new things and find new voices and tone colors in the instrument. When I returned the aforementioned Gagliano after three months of heavy use, I felt like I'd only just begun to discover the range it had available.
And it really is about age for age's sake, not quality. I own a good-but-not-great Edinburgh-made violin from 1807 appraised at $15K, and I've seriously played a modern-made violin appraised for $60K. The "default voice" of the $60K violin is better, but the antique instrument is definitely the more versatile one.
I know we like to be objective and scientific here on HN, but don't discard the fuzzy talk of "forming a relationship with the violin" too soon. Even if we don't understand the science behind it yet, it seems that there's something to it.
A better experiment that'll never happen because of logistics:
Present a professional violinist with ten antique violins, ten modern violins, and a range of high-quality bows (the bow plays a HUGE role in how the violin sounds and responds). Give him/her a few hours to choose the favorite of each type of violin and a complementing bow. Let him/her play both violins for a year and then report back on which was preferred. Repeat for a statistically-significant number of violinists.
Not definitely. Only subjectively with an n=1 and botched experimental design. Please repeat blinded, a statistically-significant number of times with different violonists.
Double-blind trials aren't necessarily the gold standard when there are so many different variables across individuals that can't be controlled and the entire mental process for such a complex idea is not even close to being completely understood.
That is an important part of what constitutes a good instrument.
If a modern violin has tighter tolerances maybe it is less sensitive to moisture / temperature changes, making it sound 'the same' under a larger set of conditions than the antique instrument.
The antique instrument being less 'perfect' could be more sensitive to day-to-day environmental changes, making it more challenging to play (as you have to learn to compensate for these) but not necessarily because it is a better instrument, but possibly because it is a worse one technically speaking.
Now of course having an instrument that you have to 'figure out' all the time likely makes you a much better player, able to adapt to other instruments more easily and so on, so it might well be that a 'less perfect' instrument is the superior one, but just wondering about this
Anyone can fire up youtube and immediately peer into the workshops of master luthiers. I bet you could take a couple million and build a top class violin workshop from scratch in just a few years.
Imagine how cool it would be if the big SV aristocracy instead of spending millions on building sailboats, they'd invest in developing musical instruments? As much faster the USA-17 is than any hundred year old yacht, as much more beautiful a violin could be than a stradivarius.. perhaps.
Turns out it's none of that and just branding (albeit branding around having a great product at that point in history).
If I could sit down at Da Vinci's desk, in his library...don't you think the importance of that would be the history behind it, and absolutely not that somehow the lighting in the library made reading better, or the sound of the birds outside made retaining information easier or some silliness like that?
Strads, like really anything else related to art, are about context.
I'd be interested in knowing how the lower priced new violins do, maybe into the $15,000 range, $5,000, sub $1,000.
Who were these "experts" really? Restaurant critics? Even some wine critics I could believe, but not wine experts.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.227...
"A white wine artificially colored red with an odorless dye was olfactory described as a red wine by a panel of 54 tasters."
I'd say, without reading the paper, that seems more like an experiment in psychology than in man's ability to perceive tastes. Can you trick your brain into believing something is something else by making it look like that? Seems like you can.
"A white wine .. colored red.. was described as a red wine.."
Were they wrong?
There's a reason the Stradivarius testers are blindfolded.
Aren't red vs white wines different things? I'm not at all a regular wine drinker with a sophisticated appreciation of the nuances, but I can pick up lots of different tastes between different wines.
Red and white wines are both made from red grapes, the difference is that for red wines the juice is steeped in the grape skins which causes it to absorb tannins. If you learn to taste tannins you should be reasonably good at picking red from white, but the flavor from wood in young barrels is similar.
I believe the subjects where students studying wine rather than industry experts and a common criticism of the study is that the subjects where afraid of saying something 'stupid' (like "this red wine tastes like white") in front their professor, and instead went for the safe answer.
Still looking like an idiot in front of your professor's PhD students (and suspecting they'll be laughing about you over drinks later that evening) probably isn't much better.
You can find a link to the study there https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-ta...
It does make me hope for more investigation: the white/red study was fascinating, but we really need more work to narrow down in which cases wine experts can be accurate or inaccurate.
Luthier is definitely a skilled trade like any wood working, and I think it's easy for me to buy that an entirely hand-crafted product will have some "signatures" in tone and -- especially -- playability that, especially for the professional, might be worth paying for. (I know I definitely have some preferences in acoustic grands that boils down mostly to the nice playability of certain high end models, and I'm hardly a professional piano player!)
I also imagine that above a certain quality level, much lower costing products will often be entirely acceptable. Actually, like wines, I imagine in some cases people might actually prefer the tone of the cheaper product.
On the other hand, there's definitely a "too cheap" instrument level that's mostly for students / beginners.
One additional point concerning the violin market, too, I know that if you change the name of "violin" to "fiddle", you'll find very few bluegrass shops selling fiddles over $1K. :)
I think so. "Modern instruments" is a very wide span, and leaving it off lets people conclude what they want about the instruments. See, for instance, other commenters concluding that this proves they're junk, or comparing them to $2000 cables equivalent in effectiveness to $5 cables. Instead, these are $million instruments, with hundreds of years of history, and also sound as good as very expensive modern instruments.
The follow-up study seemed to ask a similar question.
So these studies tried to find out which violins are most popular among high class violin players, not (primarily) whether they were able to tell the difference.
I've read elsewhere about the first study that the the participants were quite surprised that people thought they couldn't identify the Stradivarius, because they were never asked to.
"Next they were presented with a series of violins (one at a time, in random order) and given 30 s to play each one before guessing what kind of instrument it was. If a soloist was unclear about the meaning of the question, he/she was prompted to guess whether the violin was new or old. The series consisted of (i) that player’s favorite old violin; (ii) the player’s favorite new violin; (iii) an old and a new violin the player found unsuitable; (iv) the old violin and the new violin that, in session 1, were most often included in top-four lists and that were on average most highly ranked within those lists; and (v) the old and the new violin that were most often rejected as unsuitable in session 1."
Conversely, a Yehudi Menhuin or a Joshua Bell need a good instrument. At their level of playing, little things affect their performance.
I am guessing they didn't compare cheap student violins against the Stradivarius, otherwise I am sure any reasonably competent violinist could tell immediately.
Modern construction method, including CNC machines can certainly make instruments a lot better than they did 'back in the day'. Check out Youtube for videos of the first guitars made at the Fender factory - those workers were freehand cutting the body shapes on a jig saw. No consistency at all. As much as a '56 Strat or a '59 Les Paul is in demand today, I bet there were a lot of dogs among the ones made back then.
I am sure there are thousands of violin makers today who can make a violin as good as a Strad. However, I've heard rumours that Stradivarius made his from wood that was thousands of years old that was extracted from a glacier - perhaps that is the special 'magic' that no one else can replicate?!?
Most of them are awful - construction-wise. (But to some, that's the lure.) I would much rather own an electric guitar or a tube amp made in the last 15 years than one from 1974.
Every small improvement in technique was matched by an immediate response from the instrument, giving me much better feedback on what to do right. I imagine the same is true when learning to race cars. You can learn a lot driving an Escort, but you'll learn a lot faster driving a Corvette.
This is a common thing to say, but it's untrue. A cheap and nasty instrument will have bad features that are noticeable even to beginners. Things like poor quality finishing, hardware that rattles, sharp edges on the edge of the fretboard where the frets haven't been smoothed off properly, etc, etc, and it's really uninspiring if your guitar isn't enjoyable to hold. Even more "advanced" things like having the right action or a comfortable neck radius are noticeable early on. Tuning heads are another big one, cheap tuning heads are awful (the difference between good and bad ones is like night and day), and if your guitar is constantly going out of tune due to that or something else, and if you're not completely tone deaf, you will notice and it will annoy you.
One situation that highlights my argument is: I was talking to my guitar teacher the other day, who is a monster player. He had a well known maker build him a Les Paul style guitar, but when he received it, he had a hard time getting used to playing it - something seemed off. He sat down with the builder and went over the guitar with a fine tooth comb (literally - the used a set of calipers), and discovered that the 'B' string slot on the bridge was out of place about one string width. One millimetre out, and he could feel that something was wrong.
To an intermediate player like me, I probably would never have detected that - my playing style and speed is not at the level where that would even make a difference to me.
But to an electric guitar player, the amps and effects are as much part of the gear as the guitar itself. His "rock gear" really came together in 1966-67.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ7DZ7HPXck
He also talks about the magic of "fighting" and "wrestling" the instrument into his control and what that means for the music.
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/frontal-cortex/does-all-wine-t...
Some notes. The study started with a pool of 13 new and 9 old instruments, and pre-selected down to the test set of the best 6 new and 6 old among these.
Among the test set, new instruments had a slightly higher average score than old ones, and the top two instruments were new. But all soloists picked a mix of new and old instruments in their top 4, and in the overall rankings new and old are well mixed. From high to low based on combined session scores, the list goes NNOONNOONONO.
Of the soloists, 7 prefer an old instrument for their performances, 2 a new one, and 1 switches between an old and new.
As a sort of proof of concept, aurally, I've noticed that there are several popular songs which have very distinctive audio glitches in them (typically high pitched beeps). The thing is, these glitches are not noticeable by most people when casually listening (testified by the fact that the songs are out in public release with such glitches) but once you notice them you begin to notice them every time, and it detracts from the enjoyment of the song. Similar effects on a subtler level surely exist for almost all music, so I wouldn't take the idea that listening to two separate samples of music and being forced to express a preference in the moment is at all a reasonable measurement except in more pronounced cases.
But what is that measuring? That we can't sense the difference? That information from our senses is lost when encoding it in our nervous system? That our conscious minds cannot introspect or report the difference? We know our conscious minds are unreliable reporters of what our subconscious is doing or deciding. On the other hand it is easy to show that the scene we think we are seeing is created in the mind. It is easy to trick a person into thinking identical shading is different, and different shading identical. What does that actually tell us about how to compress video?
I would prefer to go with physiology. If our sense organs can resolve it, and the nervous system can delivery the sensory information, the information is important, no matter what words our unreliable consciousness says.
There is no better, there is only what's so. Measure that and if YOU like one better, make another one that produces the same sound.
Probably not as easy as it sounds (pun intended).
Interestingly, not even the maker of the top instrument (which garnered 26 points against the Stradivarius) knows about the result. It was deliberately kept hidden.
I really hope they let the world know - something this good needs to be celebrated and rewarded. It is unfair otherwise.
"Audiophile speaker cables" carry the stigma that they do because the luxury versions aren't better than the "minimum viable product" versions in appreciable ways. Instruments, violins included, see a massive range in quality between the things you would consider functional violins and very well-made violins.
The complaint about audiophile speaker cables is that they don't produce a difference in result that even trained sound engineers would be able to reliably identify. Whereas any reasonably experienced violinist or even any reasonably experienced musician would be able to tell you about the difference between a bad and a good violin by listening to them. The differences between the best violins might be hard to identify, but there's still a substantial range of quality levels.
Those guys had no microphones, amplifiers, oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, ... just their ears and woodworking tools.
Perhaps. What we don't need to accept are the claims of Stradivarius fanbois that insist there is some unquantifiable aural superiority to their favorite instrument that only they have been blessed with the ability to perceive. It's bunk, and this study has been a small victory for rational thinking. So feel free to cling to whatever intangible you wish, but I feel no loss here; I celebrate whenever we can finally dispense with yet another fetid accumulation of nonsense and its purveyors.