dguitarnut,
Seriously, there are many violinists who obsess over many things. The materials used to make strings all have different sound. We have all experimented with different brands of strings. The position of the bridge, and the soundpost inside, in relation to the bridge feet. The height of the bridge, which affects the tension on the strings and the comfort of the player when pressing the left fingers on the fingerboard. Also, the springiness of the bow on the strings. How tight the bow hair is, affects the ability to make a smooth sound or play fast pyrotechnics. Some violinists have subjected their instruments to major surgery like taking off the neck and re-angling it, or thinning out the top plate undersides to alter the tonality. Even with optimal adjustment of all these factors, it is interesting that the resonance of the bow interacts with the resonance of the violin, so that there are slightly different tonalities with each bow/violin combination.
As a guitar enthusiast, you probably know about all these things. But despite everything I just mentioned, the difference between one violin/bow combination well set up, and another violin/bow combination well set up, is far greater than any single combo with all the variable setups. This is analogous to how the speaker in an audio system is the dominant factor which makes the sound.
My perceptions of the sound of an instrument vary tremendously depending on how far my ears are from the instrument. I hear the sound of someone 3 feet away playing his instrument, but when I ask to try his violin, I am amazed at how much more I hear under my ear and its radically different character than I heard from just a few feet away.
Relating to how the monetary value of an instrument has little relationship to its quality and sound, when heard from a reasonable distance, I'll tell of an experience I had. I went to the shop of a famous modern violin maker named Sam Z, to try out some of his recently made violins. The price for his new violin was $30K, when the typical price for a typical Chinese or Polish maker was $3-5K, and $10K for most American makers. I did think that Sam's violin had better tone than typical new violins, but it was still no match for many of the great 18th Century violins I have played. But I have also played many mediocre sounding $100K old instruments which were inferior to Sam's. Some time later, I went to a concert of a string quartet, sat close in the 1st row, and listened to the sound of the 2 violinists in the group. I thought they were both of excellent comparable quality. After the performance, I asked them each what violin they played. One played a great old violin, and the other played a new Sam Z violin. Boy was I surprised and fooled! From even a close distance of 10 feet, the Sam Z violin sounded much different than when I played a similar Sam violin. And this $30K violin had similar quality of sound when heard from 10 feet to the $300K violin.
There are a few morals of this story for the audiophile. One, don't judge a live concert sound from a distance of 50-100 feet, proclaim it is the ideal, then go home and adjust your system to make it sound like that. The recording was made with close mike distances, so the live reference sound is the same close distance, roughly the 1st row at a distance of 10 feet or so. Second, understand that money has little relation to the quality of sound. There are cheap speakers and electronics that sound better than many expensive units, and there are also expensive items that sound better than many cheap items. As mrdecibel just said, even cheap amps are readily capable of revealing differences in cables, etc.
Seriously, there are many violinists who obsess over many things. The materials used to make strings all have different sound. We have all experimented with different brands of strings. The position of the bridge, and the soundpost inside, in relation to the bridge feet. The height of the bridge, which affects the tension on the strings and the comfort of the player when pressing the left fingers on the fingerboard. Also, the springiness of the bow on the strings. How tight the bow hair is, affects the ability to make a smooth sound or play fast pyrotechnics. Some violinists have subjected their instruments to major surgery like taking off the neck and re-angling it, or thinning out the top plate undersides to alter the tonality. Even with optimal adjustment of all these factors, it is interesting that the resonance of the bow interacts with the resonance of the violin, so that there are slightly different tonalities with each bow/violin combination.
As a guitar enthusiast, you probably know about all these things. But despite everything I just mentioned, the difference between one violin/bow combination well set up, and another violin/bow combination well set up, is far greater than any single combo with all the variable setups. This is analogous to how the speaker in an audio system is the dominant factor which makes the sound.
My perceptions of the sound of an instrument vary tremendously depending on how far my ears are from the instrument. I hear the sound of someone 3 feet away playing his instrument, but when I ask to try his violin, I am amazed at how much more I hear under my ear and its radically different character than I heard from just a few feet away.
Relating to how the monetary value of an instrument has little relationship to its quality and sound, when heard from a reasonable distance, I'll tell of an experience I had. I went to the shop of a famous modern violin maker named Sam Z, to try out some of his recently made violins. The price for his new violin was $30K, when the typical price for a typical Chinese or Polish maker was $3-5K, and $10K for most American makers. I did think that Sam's violin had better tone than typical new violins, but it was still no match for many of the great 18th Century violins I have played. But I have also played many mediocre sounding $100K old instruments which were inferior to Sam's. Some time later, I went to a concert of a string quartet, sat close in the 1st row, and listened to the sound of the 2 violinists in the group. I thought they were both of excellent comparable quality. After the performance, I asked them each what violin they played. One played a great old violin, and the other played a new Sam Z violin. Boy was I surprised and fooled! From even a close distance of 10 feet, the Sam Z violin sounded much different than when I played a similar Sam violin. And this $30K violin had similar quality of sound when heard from 10 feet to the $300K violin.
There are a few morals of this story for the audiophile. One, don't judge a live concert sound from a distance of 50-100 feet, proclaim it is the ideal, then go home and adjust your system to make it sound like that. The recording was made with close mike distances, so the live reference sound is the same close distance, roughly the 1st row at a distance of 10 feet or so. Second, understand that money has little relation to the quality of sound. There are cheap speakers and electronics that sound better than many expensive units, and there are also expensive items that sound better than many cheap items. As mrdecibel just said, even cheap amps are readily capable of revealing differences in cables, etc.