[Audio Empire]

On Tue, 3 Jan 2012 19:05:11 -0800, bob wrote
(in article ):

On Jan 3, 9:10=A0pm, Audio Empire wrote:

who were likewise blessed. Anyway, at one point, some wealthy friend of the
kid's parents who was, apparently, a collector of rare violins had loaned the
boy (he was about 18 at the time) a Stradivarius, an Amati, and a Guarneri.
He brought all three to this stereo salon one Saturday morning, and I
happened to be there (this was probably 25-30 years ago?). He played each
instrument for us in turn. The boy was a world-class violinist even then and
he really made these instruments sing. The thing that impressed me was how
incredibly DIFFERENT they all sounded even though they looked somewhat
similar! The difference wasn't subtle at all and could be heard by anybody
instantly! I recall that the Amati was light and airy sounding with somewhat
steely top and the Strad sounded rather dark and resinous by comparison. The
Guarneri, on the other hand sounded more like a good, modern, violin. I.E.
neither light not dark but rather somewhere in the middle.

That may be true, but you are drawing a conclusion that isn't
supported by your evidence. It's possible that they really sounded
that different. It's also possible that your expectation of difference
influenced your perception. And it is very definitely possible that
the kid played the three violins very differently--and in fact played
them (perhaps just subconsciously) to emphasize the differences he
thought were inherent in the instruments. Note, by the way, that the
researcher cited in the Times article specifically made it impossible
for the violinists to know which violin he or she was playing.

I'm not arguing that they all really sounded the same. As analog
devices, I would assume they do not. But how an instrument is played
has an awful lot to do with how it sounds. Unless you can get a robot
to play all three exactly the same, you can't be sure that the
differences you hear are entirely, or even predominantly, inherent in
the instruments.

I was amused, in the Times article, by the rationalizations offered by
some musicians for why the reported test was flawed. They sounded an
awful lot like subjectivist audiophiles.

bob


Yes, the article certainly did sound like an audio gear shoot-out, didn't it?
I agree with you, after all, it was a long time ago and like I said, just
because those three violins had different characters from one another does
not mean that I or anyone else could tell which was which in a blind testing
or tell which one we were listening to if we heard one of those violins in a
recording, for instance.

I know that they had different characters on that day, played by that
violinist. Other than that, I cannot say much more. there are so many
variables. I've heard that even changing a violin string set from cat-gut to
nylon or some other material will significantly alter the sound of a violin.
It makes sense, but I don't know it to be true.