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Once again new violins chosen over Strads in blind test

Purité Audio

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There is an interview with the conductor of the test on BBC's radio 4 'Inside Science' it is available as a pod cast.
Keith
 

RayDunzl

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Jakob1863

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There was a study years ago (I cannot find reference, it was linked on a musician's forum) showing listeners could clearly pick out a Stradivarius from a modern violin. Further research revealed that the player actually played the selection better on the Strad, perhaps knowing the instrument was that revered old fiddle. They took the same player blindfolded and repeated the exercise, again requesting identical performances. The second time nobody could reliably tell Strad from modern. I don't know if it was the same study or even relevant, but wanted to relate a tale showing how hard it is to account for all the variables.

Chances are if I have a Blackburn (very nice, expensive) trumpet in my hand, and know it, I am going to try my best to play up to it whereas I might just blow through the selection on a student horn just because my mind "knows" what to expect from each horn.

When I was in college studying pre-med stuff one of the courses highlighted the Driver's Ed Effect. A bug study was done showing students with Driver's Education were better drivers and also had better grades and such. Later studies revealed that the student's who took driver's education were generally better students to begin with, and with or without driver's education the students with better grades were better drivers.

Over the years i´ve often pointed to the nearly endless list of potential bias effects that still exist after a test was "blinded" , but people usually do not want to believe in such things as they seem to prefer to trust in the "magic" of "blind tests" .

The probably unconscious different playing habit in your example nevertheless enlightens why "blinding" still is a useful/mandatory thing.
But the reason why i thought the result (i.e. most picking correctly the stradivari at that website event) is interesting was that i took that test too and was correct in my answer, although beeing not a violin player and not having further experience with the typical sound of a "stradivari" (if that exists). I possess quite a lot of violin music, but didn´t care about the specific violin used beside noticing sometimes that for barock chamber music contemporary instruments were used.
So obviously i was only judging due to the things i´ve read about what other people did say about the "typical" sound of a stradivari and in that particular case one of the violins was sort of "biting" in the heights while the other did not.
 
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Blumlein 88

Blumlein 88

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Yup. Perceptual bias works in many areas outside listening tests.

Alas, the best trumpet in the world in my hands still won't make me play like Wynton Marsalis or Adolph Herseth...

Saw a documentary of sorts with Wynton Marsalis in it. Part of it covered his teaching at Julliard. It was recorded reasonably well. One of the students played the trumpet part of a classical piece. I was thinking wow that sounds awfully good and this kid is like 17. Wynton stops the kid shaking his head no, no, no. He says, "you don't listen to this music do you. Other than for class here you don't listen to it." The kid admitted that was so. Mr. Maralis went on to explain you have to spend time, listen to and live with music like this to have a chance to play it in a way worthy of the music. He then picked up his own trumpet and played the same bit. Wow wasn't enough to get across how much better that was. How much better someone like Wynton Marsalis played such music compared to a talented teenager. Now I am no trumpet player and somehow it was obvious the difference though I couldn't describe how.
 

Cosmik

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Saw a documentary of sorts with Wynton Marsalis in it. Part of it covered his teaching at Julliard. It was recorded reasonably well. One of the students played the trumpet part of a classical piece. I was thinking wow that sounds awfully good and this kid is like 17. Wynton stops the kid shaking his head no, no, no. He says, "you don't listen to this music do you. Other than for class here you don't listen to it." The kid admitted that was so. Mr. Maralis went on to explain you have to spend time, listen to and live with music like this to have a chance to play it in a way worthy of the music. He then picked up his own trumpet and played the same bit. Wow wasn't enough to get across how much better that was. How much better someone like Wynton Marsalis played such music compared to a talented teenager. Now I am no trumpet player and somehow it was obvious the difference though I couldn't describe how.
That's interesting. I think I respond more to 'the notes on the page' than the performance. I know that there are certain chord progressions, intervals etc. that really get to the heart of me. I suspect that in the example you give above, I would prefer the kid's version because it would be clean, fresh and less 'theatrical'.

I can listen to covers of the Beatles from Blue Grass through Electro to Funk (to pick just a few genres) and 'the tune' shines through so that I enjoy them all. The same performers covering, say, Prince would leave me utterly unmoved - his 'notes' never did anything for me at all.
 

Jakob1863

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I finally remembered who did the survey among violinists about their assessment of quality; 100 mostly professional german violonists were asked :

Fragebogen-Ergebnis.gif


the numbers in brackets show the amount of attributes used by the group overall to describe the respective feature. With 38% "timbre" was in this survey the most important feature followed by "response" and "projection" . A bit more information is given in this:

Geissler et al.; Psychoacoustic Investigations on the Possibility of Aurally identical Violins. Proceedings of the Stockholm Music Acoustics Coference, August 6-9, 2003 (SMAC03), Stockholm, Sweden
http://www.schleske.de/fileadmin/user_upload/doc/SMAC03.pdf

The mentioned example of a weak projecting violin was found in one of Schleske´s publications:

Schleske, Martin; On making Tonal Copies of a Violin, CAS Journal Vol.3, No.2, (Series II), November 1996.
http://www.schleske.de/fileadmin/user_upload/doc/CAS_Tonal_Copies.pdf

The swedish luthier Terry Borman provides a comparison of Stradivari vs. Borman:
http://www.bormanviolins.com/stradcomp.html

additional pages contain a lot of information, including a list of comparable blind tests.
 

RayDunzl

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Sort of a time-lapse here:


Wow.
5,890,629 views
 

oivavoi

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I finally remembered who did the survey among violinists about their assessment of quality; 100 mostly professional german violonists were asked :

Fragebogen-Ergebnis.gif


the numbers in brackets show the amount of attributes used by the group overall to describe the respective feature. With 38% "timbre" was in this survey the most important feature followed by "response" and "projection" . A bit more information is given in this:

Geissler et al.; Psychoacoustic Investigations on the Possibility of Aurally identical Violins. Proceedings of the Stockholm Music Acoustics Coference, August 6-9, 2003 (SMAC03), Stockholm, Sweden
http://www.schleske.de/fileadmin/user_upload/doc/SMAC03.pdf

The mentioned example of a weak projecting violin was found in one of Schleske´s publications:

Schleske, Martin; On making Tonal Copies of a Violin, CAS Journal Vol.3, No.2, (Series II), November 1996.
http://www.schleske.de/fileadmin/user_upload/doc/CAS_Tonal_Copies.pdf

The swedish luthier Terry Borman provides a comparison of Stradivari vs. Borman:
http://www.bormanviolins.com/stradcomp.html

additional pages contain a lot of information, including a list of comparable blind tests.

Cool. Will read up on these links.
 

Sal1950

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FrantzM

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Seems that at the bottom of the Stad vs modern violins things is a deep rooted need for Humans to look for an Absolute, something that can't be challenged.
I remember my reactions after I heard a PA system in a Birmingham, Alabama auditorium... It sounded as good or better than anything audiophile I've heard. I dismissed it ... I was in a good mood , I was happy but it wasn't live music that was playing on it it was recorded ...and it sounded fabulous.. It bothered more when I went back home and listened to some of the cuts they were playing ... good but it wasn't the same thing ... I learned later it was an installation by Danley Sound Labs , from the mind of Tom Danley, one of the most innovative and fertile mind in the business. These installations sometimes sound better than many audiophile system one is likely to encounter ... and cost much less on top of that ...
I have no doubt that some modern violins can be better and proven better than any Stads ever made but ... This is a tough pill to swallow for many... that the Emperor cloth ... can be surpassed ;)
 

davidB

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In 1979 0r so, I was 'gofering' at an early Red Seal digital recording session of Dikran Atamian, who has recently retired but then was not famous enough to have his choice of pianos provided. Baldwin had provided a piano for the session, but there was a problem. According to everyone of the professionals there, the Baldwin sounded great, but lacked a mechanical detail of the Steinway, and could not play the 'Hammerklavier' at full speed without a problem. Eight years later, I heard that the patent involved had run out, and the improvement involved was incorporated into most modern pianos. Apparently just a detail of geometry in the mechanism, not a different schema. My mother, a piano player, said her old Steinway lacked the feature, her later Yamaha had it, but it only mattered to her when a friend who could play the HK at full speed visited(she would make him play it for her). She couldn't play it full speed, and cared more about the tone of the piano.
She said a funny thing, though. In tune, she preferred the Yamaha, but if out of tune the Steinway. I asked, but she could not say why. This world is a funny place.
 

DonH56

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Pianos have special tuning considerations. Several (2-3 IIRC) strings are used for each note and each string may be individually tuned to make it sound "bigger" but putting them slightly different in pitch. The lowermost and uppermost octaves are also often "stretched" so the lows are a little lower and highs a little higher than purely equal (vs. just or other tuning) intonation would dictate. And of course equal tuning does not sound as good in chords as other tunings... It gets complicated and different makers and tuners may have their own preferences.
 

davidB

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Yes, the tuner my mother used said that each piano needed different things to get the best out of it. I figure the iron among specimens of the same model is more alike than different parts of different trees(dried by different people, built,etc,etc).
 

watchnerd

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Apparently just a detail of geometry in the mechanism, not a different schema. My mother, a piano player, said her old Steinway lacked the feature, her later Yamaha had it, but it only mattered to her when a friend who could play the HK at full speed visited(she would make him play it for her). She couldn't play it full speed, and cared more about the tone of the piano.

"appropriate tempo"

 

RayDunzl

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That piano above has the usual gas/brake/clutch pedals, but there are two more that I'm not accustomed to seeing...
 

DonH56

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Disclaimer: I do not play piano (my wife does)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_pedals
http://antiquepianoshop.com/online-museum/wing-son/

On the pianos I (actually my wife) have seen, the extra pedals have either dampened certain strings to change the timbre, or provided an intermediate soft or sustain function (sort of a half-sustain or half-soft). One of the most novel sustained only the lower or upper notes (I forget which) when pressed. Note different types of strings are used in combination or alone to help create the sound when a hammer strikes them.

HTH - Don
 

ChrisH

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Actually, that's a Forte piano. They work much better for this era of music. IMHO.
 

Palladium

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Seems that at the bottom of the Stad vs modern violins things is a deep rooted need for Humans to look for an Absolute, something that can't be challenged.
I remember my reactions after I heard a PA system in a Birmingham, Alabama auditorium... It sounded as good or better than anything audiophile I've heard. I dismissed it ... I was in a good mood , I was happy but it wasn't live music that was playing on it it was recorded ...and it sounded fabulous.. It bothered more when I went back home and listened to some of the cuts they were playing ... good but it wasn't the same thing ... I learned later it was an installation by Danley Sound Labs , from the mind of Tom Danley, one of the most innovative and fertile mind in the business. These installations sometimes sound better than many audiophile system one is likely to encounter ... and cost much less on top of that ...
I have no doubt that some modern violins can be better and proven better than any Stads ever made but ... This is a tough pill to swallow for many... that the Emperor cloth ... can be surpassed ;)

Besides, composition and skill >>>>>>>>>>>> instruments.

People great in the former can make anything sound wonderful, even with cheap tools.
 

Analog Scott

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an interesting subject to be sure but one that is far more complicated and entwined than the subject of audio. Much of what a musician looks for in a string instrument isn't just the inherent sonic character of the instrument but the playability. The ease with which a musician can create the desired sonic character. This becomes much much more difficult to quantify and measure objectively because it always involves the intereaction of a human that has to be in a "performance" mind set. Even the uncontrolled variables will vary in unpredictable ways. No way this doesn't always end up being messy.
 
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