Strangelove424
500+ Head-Fier
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I ran across this video about Stradivarius violins on YouTube and couldn't help but be reminded of themes native to Hi-Fi audio reproduction:
That is a great video thank you.
In this excellent thread:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/486598/testing-audiophile-claims-and-myths
I noticed:
http://www.westerlunds.se/blindtesteng.htm
a report on blind testing of violins.
Stradivarius didn't do so well in the test
Often classical music discussion can sound a bit like Hi Fi discussion and all the same issues with suggestion and autosuggestion exist there imho.
I do listen to classical music these days, almost exclusively, but it contains its own brand of "BS" just as all things do!
Interesting link. I was curious if they had ever done an ABX test with a Stradivarius. This article examined other scientific reasons for the Stradivarius sound signature, but they never got around to pinning it down, and the last section of the article entitled "the psycho in acoustics" is very telling, as was the writer's decision to conclude the article with it. The final sentence reads: "Perhaps that ability to capture our imagination 300 years later is the true magic of Stradivari." This all kind of reminds me of the film The Red Violin, which I really enjoyed.
1 wood instrument that has been through many hands does not draw a universal conclusion. There's another way to look at this as well. Most of us could drive a go cart around a track faster than an F1 car. If we played Jeff Beck's guitar we'd think it out of tune. Could be it needs the right guy pulling the strings to sing in a way others can't.
I'm not claiming that's the case and this particular instrument may be a dog or even all strads over rated but I wouldn't paint with a broad brush from one test. Like any acoustic instrument, the musician should try the individual piece before deciding.
Of course it's no solice and I never doubted the result. It still doesn't mean all strads are worse than these other violins. Perhaps this is not a great example, perhaps it is. It's hand a made old world item weathered for hundreds of years. Buyer beware. The F1 reference was to show that the player is part of this equation. You can't take the human out of this particular ABX. I've found that items that offer more in performance often perform worse when not used or setup with a deft or even accustomed hand.
Chill. I never said the results were skewed. Only that the universal statements of absolutes of quality were ridiculous based on this one test. I thought this was the forum where subjective evaluation was useless unless you don't hear something yet here one subjective test of an individual instrument is an absolute determination of a 100 different strads out there. LMAO
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_preferences_among_new_and_old_violins
http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2012/01/02/144482863/double-blind-violin-test-can-you-pick-the-strad
Would be better to find the original paper rather than secondhand reporting, but I didn't find it with a quick search.