Audiophiles are not alone


In the current (May 13th-19th, 2017) edition of the Economist there is a short piece entitled "Violins" that I want to bring to your attention.  It is about new violins and old violins, specifically Cremonese (Guarneri, Stradivari, Amati) vs. Joseph Curtin (modern violin maker in Michigan).  With Dr. Claudia Fritz of the University of Paris, presiding, experiments were held in Paris and New York that proved to the majority of both musicians and listeners (other musicians, critics, composers etc.) that new fiddles out performed old ones.  There were some sort of goggles used so that the players could not tell what instrument they were playing.  The audience was also prevented from seeing the instruments somehow.  All this done without inhibiting sound transmission.  Both solo and orchestrated works were performed.  You can read the whole story in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  And this is only the latest evidence of this apparent reality, as according to the article, similar experiments have reached similar conclusions prior to this.  The article concluded with the observation that these results notwithstanding, world class players are not about to give up their preference for their Cremonese fiddles.

This reminds me very much of some of our dilemmas and debates such as the ever popular: analog vs. digital, tube vs. transistor, and subjective listening vs. measured performance parameters.  If it has taken a couple of hundred years and counting for the debate on fiddles to remain unresolved, what hope have we to ever reach resolutions to some of our most cherished and strongly held preferences?  This is asked while hugging my turntables and tube electronics.
billstevenson
Going to rock concerts is, eye, ear and throat is a good way to get rich as a doc .
Good to know. Too bad classical music cannot attain high sound pressure levels.

In my world this is more analogous to a Gibson Les Paul vs. Fender Stratocaster. Duane Allman played the Les Paul and David Gilmore a Fender Strat. Which do I like more? I guess it depends on my mood I suppose. I don’t think either instrument can be declared "better" and I challenge anyone to choose between the two.
I think the trouble here, with all due respect, is that there is no real connection between the sound of a violin and its market value. So there won't be any collectors or foundation heads who read this article and start regretting their purchase of an old Strad. Violins are valued in the market as art objects, which means that their price is determined mainly by their provenance. And this is not just with super-expensive violins. If you try a series of 5k instruments you'll find that some are terrible and some are great. A $10k fiddle might come from a well known 19th century maker but sound nowhere near as good as a $1k chinese model.  Annoying but true.

Which leads me to another contrarian point: audiophiles actually have it better than violinists. Generally speaking, you get what you pay for in the audio world. Yes of course there are exceptions like overpriced tweaks that don't really work or 'giant killer' components that sound better than they should. But in general, whether it's SS or tubes, analog or digital, spending more money gets you a better sounding system. IMHO. 


In a society that worships money there are connections to everything's market value and none to anything's real value .