This is interesting beyond the usual.
Double blind testing...and I am not a psychiatrist so don't believe what I'm about to say....wreaks havoc with the evaluative process of people...puts them in an almost paranoid state.
Example...we all know what pineapple tastes like, right?
Wrong...
Blindfold a group, and fool them with (you may have to mash it so the texture doesn't give it away)...oranges or some other fruit that can pass as similar.
Recently the movie, 'Hereafter' featured a cooking segment in which the 'chefs' were asked to, while blindfolded, identify various foods...they could not.
I started playing Alto Sax as a child of 7 years old...my parents bought an inexpensive Conn, as I recall...at 17...playing professionally, I bought a Selmer Mark VI, considered to be the 'best' of the day...the difference was, in a word, unbelieveable...not just in the way it played for me the musician, but for (and I realize that it's interactively related) those listening...'Wow, what did you do?' 'Gee, you sound like a different musician Larry, what's up?'
So, to say that the Strad sounds the same, or there's no difference only points to the lack of scientific safeguards that have to be taken during any experiment of this kind.
Jim Thiel, one time, many years ago said to me...'There's no such thing as a small difference Larry...it depends entirely on who's experiencing that difference.'
That stuck with me, resonated...some thirty years later, I'm remembering it and passing it on.
Good listening,
Larry
