On Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:08:07 -0500, Mike Benveniste
wrote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012...t-stradivarius

See also
http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptiveca...ad?sc=fb&cc=fp
or http://tinyurl.com/7jg8mpn

After listening to the sound tracks I found that I could hear a
difference between the violins but I didn't know enough to know which
was which. The Strad had a slightly deeper, richer (darker chocolate)
tone than the modern one.

Reminds of the double-blind test Peter Walker of Quad amplifier fame
ran about 40 years ago. All the gurus were saying that the Linn
amplifier sounded more 'musical' than the Quad. Peter Walker
challenged them to a double blind test to see whether or not they
really could tell the difference between the two.

For some strange reason all the #1 critics found reasons to be
somewhere else that day. However a sufficient range of the #2 critics
were 'volunteered' to enable the tests to be run. Guess what? The
ability of the listeners to tell a Quad from a Linn was found to be no
better than selecting the amplifiers by random chance.

Then, to top all this off, Peter Walker told the critics that a Quad
did sound different from a Linn and showed them why by displaying wave
forms on oscilloscope.

He went on and explained why there should be this difference. It all
depended on the placement of a capacitor in the
amplifier's output circuit. Quad and Linn used two different
arrangements. He then showed that by changing over the way this
component was installed he could make a Quad sound like a Linn and
vice versa.

Finally, he explained why the Quad arrangement gave more accurate
sound and why the Linn added enhancements to the music which weren't
actually there in the original. At this point he allowed the critics
to exit under the door.

Regards,

Eric Stevens