On Jan 5, 5:07=A0pm, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Jenn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/sc...ween-old-and.=
...
As the stories go it is said they have acutely trained ears for hearin=
g
subtle variations in sound. =A0Here is a test of violins and those who=
play
them that is also a test of that notion.
No, it's not.
A hotel room? =A0Not an appropriate place to test what it is that makes=
a
Strad a Strad: =A0subtle tonal differences in a performance hall, and t=
he
projection power across all frequency ranges and timbres in such a hall=
..
Which one would you rather take home? =A0This brings into question the
issue of playability, set up, strings, familiarity, etc.
Then there is the issue of which specific instruments are used. =A0Not =
all
Strads or Guarneris or Costcos are equal, obviously.
I'm surprised that those here who preach about biased tests in audio
aren't all over this.
I've been lurking because I've had bigger fish to fry.
I love stories about big fish. ;-)
Jennifer, we've trained you well. ;-) =A0 You know that this evaluation l=
acks
sufficient controls!
There certainly is a big problem with calling this a double blind
test.
This becomes an issue because of the claims that Science was being done. =
The
article says: "But Dr. Fritz said that to her knowledge, no one had
conducted a well-controlled study putting the same question to the real
experts: violinists."
The idea that instrumentalists are the real experts as to how their
instruments sound is bogus. In general instrumentalists have no really ex=
act
idea about how their playing sounds to the audience because they can't be=
in
the audience and playing their instrument on stage at the same time.
It is ironic that outside of some organists, musicians never actually
get to hear themselves live as do the audience. However there is far
more to the picture. Musicians are far more exposed to live music
played by other musicians than just about any other people on earth.
So they are, generally speaking, very familiar with the sound of live
instruments if not the sound of themselves playing their instrument
live. They do however listen to themselves played back quite a bit and
that is something they can compare to other musicians played back. All
in all there is a vast sphere of experience of listening that makes
the assertion that musicians are the best judge of the sound of
musical instruments very reasonable on it's face.
Good
instruments know how what they hear translates into what the audience hea=
r,
but that is still very inexact as compared to what a person in the audien=
ce
actually hears.
"Good instruments?" I'm sure you meant to say something different
here. But I'm not sure what it was.
If I were going to pick sensitive listeners, I might get
some audiophiles and have them lectured by conductors, instrumentalists, =
and
instrument technicians, with demos.
That does not sound like such a bad idea on it's face. One thing we
have to consider with musicians, particularly older ones is hearing
loss.
There's also the issue of the differences in instrument timbre that suits=
a
large venue versus the timbre that suits a small one.
IME all other things being equal the larger and or the more reverberant t=
he
hall, the less sensitive the evaluation.
I am concerned about the limitations of your experience with concert
halls. 1. Size per se is not a dominant issue except when we are
talking about the room simply being to small as is likely the case
with this experiment. Some larger halls are quite dead, to dead. there
is a set of objective measurements by which any venue can be judged
for it's acoustic excellence. In the most excellent halls the balance
between direct and reverberant sound is such that one can hear very
easily the nuance and subtlety of the performer and the instrument.
The hotel room evaluation will
probably focus more on small details and less on the big room picture. Th=
e
hotel room might be more like near field monitoring.
The analogy doesn't work. The hotel room severely limits the dynamics
of the performance. the room is to easily overloaded. This is a huge
problem, especially when comparing Strads with modern instruments. One
of the things Strads are most noted for is their ability to cut
through and be heard in concerto in a large concert hall. That just
isn't going to be put to the test in a hotel room playing solo. I am
surprised that they would go through so much trouble to test Strads
against modern instruments and make the mistake of using a hotel
room.
Technically speaking, the instrument and the instrumentalist are in a
feedback loop. The instrumentalist usually has in mind some sonic target,
and he alters how he plays the instrument to suit. If he isn't comfortabl=
e
with the instrument, odds are that his playing is going to be less than h=
is
best.
A very valid and important point. this was not a test of violin sounds
per se but a test of particular violins being played by particular
musicians under somewhat convoluted conditions in a hotel room. And
the musicians may or may not have been influenced by what they may or
may not have thought they were playing on. (this test simply was not
double blind and there is no way to account for what biases the
musicians brought to the performances) It is pretty hard to draw any
global conclusions based on this one test.