Dbcooper,
Its an interesting question, about testing a material to try and determine its sonic properties. Let me relate an anecdote which might be appropriate.
A couple of years ago, I was invited to one of the "jam" sessions held at Gregory Singer's violin shop on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Singer has a small performance space inside his wonderful shop, filled with some of the world's finest stringed instruments. Not only do Juilliard students often come to play, but so do some of the world's finest concert musicians. On the night I came, cellist Nicholas Anderson brought his Gofriller Count Marcello cello, made by Gofriller in Venice is 1697. The group played the Brandenberg Concerto, which was written a couple of decades after this cello was made. To say that I have NEVER heard anything like this instrument is an understatement. Even better was that I got to sit about 5 feet away from it, and I also had a chance to see the cello's back. Which is the point of this response- this cello has a bookmatched knot, not a small knot, but a really big, ugly knot, in butterfly fashion, on the upper section of the cello's rear.
I would think that in 1697 there was not a shortage of wood to use for making cellos. Its extremely rare to see even one knot in a Strad, Guarneri, etc. Yet this cello had not one, but two knots. As an aside, Pablo Casals and Jacqueline du Pre both played Gofriller instruments, but the real issue is, why did Gofriller use this material?
I don't think he did any "tests" in the sense you mean. There were no labs back then.
I'm not suggesting tests are not worthwhile, but you would have to know what you are testing for. Would it be transmission speed of sound through the material, and of what frequencies? And what thicknesses? In the case of Albert, since he is using a kind of clamping system to drain vibrations from his SP10 chassis, this would certainly affect the range of vibrations or resonances being transmitted into the plinth, so then how would you test that?
Furthermore, you would need to know what parameters actually make for the "best" sound. Given this thread, with people like Raul saying they know what the best sound is, I really doubt that there would be a lot of agreement on that score.
Jonathan Weiss
OMA