Are there any Violin or Cello players out there?

If you believe that piffle then you'll probably believe any nonsense...

Shadorne - I believe it after watching "Red Violin". I pretty much believe "any nonsense" as you stated (with exception of shadow government, black helicopters and area 51).

Ms. Choi seems to be a sad representative of the typical follower of New Age science 'curriculum'. . . If the ideal pine no longer can be found on the Northern slope of the Southern Alps, all she would need is to fell timber from slopes from the more Northern Alp ranges. . . besides, who said that there is no perfectly good pine outside the Great Alps region?
Stradivari and the old Cremonese masters limited themselves to Italian timber because the local supply was most available and least expensive. . . and that is why certain instruments by such luthiers as testori--and even Antonio Stradivari I so believe--featured backs made from supremely inexpensive poplar, which could be felled from their respective backyards. . . or just a few kilometers down the road, along the banks of the river Adda and Ticino.
But of course. . . New Age explanations have so much more Romantic alure. G.

Guido - The oak floor you walk on is different in color and hardness from northern and southern states. Woods suitable for making instruments such as guitar have the highest ratio of strength to weight (cedar, spruce). Origin of the spruce, for instance, attributes for different sound of the instrument. Type of the spruce and origin is often listed with instrument advertising (German Sitka spruce etc.)

Thank you Kijanki. My point exactly, I am sure that if needed, appropriately dense spruce could be sourced from as north as the Arctic circle. BTW, I stand corrected, the latin name of genus Picea used to fabricate the top of violins translates to the English term spruce, not pine as I erroneously implied above. Guido

I recently purchased a Loreena McKennitt CD/DVD called "Nights from the Alhambra". Very very nice by the way. Loreena has a Cello player and doing one of her solos (the Cello play) you could see it was made from fiber glass. Sounded good to me but then I don't play an instrument.
When I said $5000 would be good price for an instrument for a beginner I was wrong. I should have said the might be a good price for a serious syphonys student or musician. I do know that some of the orchestras only want traditional instruments. That I can understand.

I think a Stradivarius could be made today if only Antonio was still alive and even then it might take 200 years for the Violin to ripen.

I have had a number of speakers that might be taking that long. Either that or they will just never sound good.