Quote:
Originally Posted by Brenyaman
You probably don't mean that...
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I think the Stradivarius Trial highlights one of the dangers of science. Can you imagine the headlines; 'Scientist Proves that Stradivarius Violins are Superior to Modern Counterparts' ......not exactly compelling reading. The opposite however stands 300 years of expert opinion on its head by supposedly proving that there's actually nothing really special with these 300year old Cremona masterpieces and that its all hype. Now there's a headline....
The thing is that only truly surprising science make the headlines....if the researcher had found the Stradivarius violins superior, you'd never have heard about it.....indeed it would hardly merit publishing in even an obscure Acoustics journal, given that we've known about it for 300 years.
But lets look a little more closely at the experiment. The thing that sets a Stradivarius apart from its counterparts young and old is its ability to energise a large reverberant space with a richness and power way beyond its diminutive size. The video clip I posted above demonstrates this perfectly.
So where was this test conducted? In a hotel room, described in the commentary as having a 'dry' acoustic. Translated, this means non-reverberant. Take a typical hotel room....fairly small, low ceiling, curtains, carpet, sofa, large bed and a duvet. A room full of absorbent materials, all perfect at soaking up high frequencies. So you take a violin renowned for its ability to energise large reverberant spaces and make them 'sing' and test it in a small over damped room, with enough absorbent material to suck the life out of any frequency above 400hz (most violin fundamentals and all the harmonics). Its no wonder it did not distinguish itself; how could it when the room is removing the very thing that differentiates it....namely its reverberant qualities?
As a parallel, Imagine I took half a dozen food and wine journalists out to dinner, gave them prime Angus beef fillet mignon and salad vinaigrette, then reported the fact they couldn't reliably tell Chateau Laffite-Rothschild from Woolloomoolloo Carbernet. Admittedly most wine experts would know not to mix vinegar and wine....but the parallel holds.