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
Dear @frogman : Kewy points here?, well please enligth me because if not then we are talking of different issues and then unproductive.

Regards and enjoy the MUSIC not DISTORTIONS,
R.
It seems to me that anyone who claims that a violin is worth millions because of its superior sound should be able to identify it with a blindfold (or goggles) on.  I just don't understand the absolute resistance to blind tests.  It seriously weakens their case.
If you don’t understand you don’t understand . Simple as that .
Nobody understands everything .
Thank you rcprince and frogman. You have explained why the so-called 'scientific' test was probably not, in fact, scientific.

Science is a method of knowing, and it requires not only a knowledge of scientific practice, but of the subject matter (in this case, violins and violinists and institutional owners of violins).

And just like this research appears to be pseudo-science, the OP refers to another pet peeve, digital audio, which is often justified with pseudo-mathematics. For example, to see that the Shannon Information Theorem does not actually apply to digital media, one has only to read that theorem. (Hint: inspect the premises.)
Terry
....pseudo-science, the OP refers to another pet peeve, digital audio, which is often justified with pseudo-mathematics. For example, to see that the Shannon Information Theorem does not actually apply to digital media, one has only to read that theorem. (Hint: inspect the premises.)

Whoa! Back up! Beep, beep! Shannon's Theorem? When was that ever used to justify digital audio? Why would you think it needs to be justified?