Telling musicians to evaluate and choose their instruments in a “scientific” way?

To your (the OP's) point:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202105252

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/study-confirms-superior-sound-of-a-stradivari-is-due-to-the-...

“It's the actual musician that makes an instrument sing, not how exclusive the instrument is. A better sounding instrument will however, inspire the musician to play better.

A good player with a cheap guitar vs a hack with a very nice guitar will always draw more attention.”

Just like the best possible system you could put together with an unlimited budget wouldn’t be very appealing if you didn’t have any good music to play through it.

Tone is in your fingers. And your cables. And your fuses. And your amp. And your microphone. And the room conditions. And your equipment. And the stability of the power, cords and connections. And what media your using.....

As a guitar player myself, I like my tone to ooze from the speakers like liquid lava.

Where does it all end, man?!?!?!?!?!?

For those who don’t get what this is about, I’m trying to point out how ridiculous the things some people keep saying about how we should evaluate our equipment are, when applied to the music we love, and the instruments it is played on/through.

No one questions when a craftsman chooses materials for, and builds, an instrument guided by his ears, or a musician chooses an instrument the same way. Dare to say you build your home music reproduction system this way, though, and you will get all kinds of grief.

There is a terrific movie, The Red Violin. Fabulous movie. With a scene that makes this point in the most poignant way I can imagine.

The Red Violin is a sort of Stradivarius among Stradivariuses. The movie follows the life of this violin as it passes from one owner to another. A passionate performer. A band of gypsies. An activist in China. Each one building a bond with this wondrous violin. This all reaches a climax with the Red Violin being sold at an auction where all the various families are bidding to have it back.

But not only the descendants who have their own powerful emotional attachment. The world’s foremost authority has been searching his whole life for it as well. He has his own reasons for wanting it. He knows his violins, he is after all the world expert, but he has to be sure. Spoiler alert, the emotional climax of the movie comes when we learn just how the Red Violin came to have its special rare red hue.

The violin is being tested on a bench. The technician pronounces it a perfect acoustical instrument. Everyone else in the whole movie handles the violin like the precious gift that it is. Now it is bolted to a bench, and instead of being played it is being subjected to machines vibrating it. You have to see the movie to appreciate how this is intercut with scenes of the craftsman using his dead wife’s blood in the varnish. She died in childbirth. He had lost both his wife and the son for whom he had created his masterpiece. The contrast between the craftsman and his love of music and the technician and his abominable numbers has never been more clear.