[HN Gopher] Study confirms superior sound of a Stradivari is due...
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Study confirms superior sound of a Stradivari is due to the varnish
(2021)
Author : Tomte
Score : 87 points
Date : 2022-05-28 16:32 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| fargle wrote:
| That title is misleading. This article is actually titled "Study
| confirms superior sound of Stradivari is due to _how wood was
| treated_ ".
|
| It's a report about a new study that claims that it is NOT the
| varnish. Rather it was a secret recipe of wood preservative used
| by the Cremonese makers Stradivari and Guarneri to impregnate the
| spruce.
|
| The linked papers are much better than the article.
|
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.202105252
| Tomte wrote:
| Title has changed from last time I submitted it.
| isaacfrond wrote:
| Yup, title is now 'Study confirms superior sound of
| Stradivari is due to how wood was treated'
| thomasjudge wrote:
| So you periodically resubmit the same articles to HN?
| Tomte wrote:
| Yes.
| causi wrote:
| Ars Technica regularly does A/B testing with radically
| different titles. You'll note from the URL that the submitter
| did use the first title.
| rjzzleep wrote:
| I'm still following Ars Technica on Facebook, but it's only
| clickbait these days. I feel like I remember it being a
| quality publication at some point in the past ... What
| happened?
| causi wrote:
| Fully agree. It was incredible when the tagline was "Ars
| Technica, the PC Enthusiast's Resource." It's become
| increasingly clickbaity. One wonders how a tech news site
| manages to justify using a school shooting to generate
| pageviews. In recent months they've been reposting stories
| from their "partner sites", most of which are spectacularly
| terrible. I think the decline began a few years ago when
| they starting amplifying Twitter drama about game
| developers. That's about the same time the rumors started
| flying about Peter Bright, which site admins continued to
| stomp on right up until he was arrested for pedophilia.
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| They sold out to Conde Nast in 2008.
| rjzzleep wrote:
| I've heard that before, but I'm not sure what it means in
| practice.
| Jenk wrote:
| The URL usually contains the original title. In this case it
| is ".. varnish"
| Semaphor wrote:
| Note that the "superior sound" is also very probably pure
| imagination
|
| > In fact, a 2012 double-blind study of 21 experienced violinists
| found that most of the subjects preferred playing the newer
| instruments; the Stradivarius ranked last in their preferences.
| Most of them couldn't tell the difference between the old and new
| instruments, with no significant correlation between an
| instrument's age and its monetary value.
|
| FTA
| matjet wrote:
| To add a datapoint:
|
| In this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8q3zrCYMRw, they
| managed to differentiate most high end violins (4/5 tests - 10
| Violins).
|
| Incidentally, the only mistake was with one of the two
| Stradivari examples.
| edbaskerville wrote:
| I worry that the takeaway for people that only read clickbait
| headlines about the 2012 Stradivarius study was: expert
| violinists can't tell the difference between cheap and
| expensive violins.
|
| All the new violins in that study were high-end instruments
| by trained artisans, which can easily be $100,000 or more. So
| really the takeaway is: modern players like violins from
| today's masters of violinmaking as much as or more than those
| by Stradivarius.
| Semaphor wrote:
| AFAIK there were also cheaper ones, but the more important
| takeaway, IMO, is that Stradivarius isn't something magical
| (like this article also claims in the headline), but simply
| a very well crafted violin. Which is great, but no lost
| art.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| They are master quality violins for the time period and
| they pretty much set the standard for modern violins.
|
| If they were being made today they would be considered
| very good quality violins and fetch in the $10,000+ range
| or more most likely, especially considering the location
| they are made in, the materials, and the methods employed
| to build them.
| chmod600 wrote:
| "They are master quality violins for the time period and
| they pretty much set the standard for modern violins."
|
| Classic literature is the same way. It's classic because
| of its influence, not just quality.
| EricE wrote:
| I dunno - the blind test results sort of prove that they
| are the gold plated monster cables of violins :p
| BizarroLand wrote:
| That test compares them to modern violins. Maybe
| comparing them with their contemporaries would provide
| more accurate results? I know I prefer the sound of a
| Guarneri violin, but Strads are reputed to have better
| piercing power for carrying to the back of a concert
| hall, which was definitely an advantage in the days
| before electric amplification and computationally modeled
| and strategically baffled reverberant chambers for
| maximum audio enjoyment over the widest possible range of
| listeners.
| edbaskerville wrote:
| Looks like it was only 3 Strads and 3 new violins, which
| were selected from a pool of 15 submitted by
| violinmakers. So only really good violins. (But also a
| very small sample.)
|
| 8 players chose a Strad as their favorite, so it's not as
| clear-cut as "new violins are better." It's more like,
| Strads are in a similar league, but do not outclass, new
| violins, despite costing an order of magnitude+ more. But
| then again, they are pieces of rare collectible art that
| are hundreds of year old-it's kind of amazing that you
| can play them at all!
|
| So it's more like: imagine if there were a handful of
| surviving vintage audio cables from the 1600s (okay, the
| 1800s?) that performed almost as well as modern ones. I
| imagine they'd cost more money. And that wouldn't be so
| crazy, given their history.
|
| Here's the original study & NYT coverage for reference:
|
| https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1619443114
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/science/in-play-off-
| betwe...
| barkingcat wrote:
| Technique for play violins like Strads needs to change. (almost
| every violin needs slightly different technique)
|
| As quoted, this isn't a test for superior sound, but rather
| whether a violinist preferred playing a certain instrument.
| randomcarbloke wrote:
| iirc there were two studies that included audience preference
| and performer preference, and the truth is the sound is
| typically average for a high end violin, there are much better
| contemporary offerings.
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| Stradivarius violins are known for being very difficult to
| play, so that result is not entirely surprising.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I think that goes for all violins. I had two years worth of
| lessons and never managed to get to a point that I felt that
| it was time well spent. Compared to other instruments which
| are much more rewarding initially I found the violin to be
| absolutely beautiful to listen to when played by an
| accomplished violinist but a total horror to actually master.
| coward123 wrote:
| May I ask - did you have a previous background in music?
| When I think of my own experiences and those of not only my
| kids but other musicians I've observed, two years is really
| just a starting point (IE: you should not have expected to
| have any degree of proficiency unless you already have
| considerable musical background)
| jacquesm wrote:
| No, I started out with violin, then moved to piano, did
| nothing for 5 years, then played saxophone for 17 years
| and then stopped for a couple of decades.
|
| The big difference between violin and say piano is that
| with a piano if you hit a key with a certain velocity it
| will make a certain sound. Over and over again. On the
| violin it isn't nearly that simple and just forming the
| tone will take a long time (in a way you never stop
| getting better at that).
| tzs wrote:
| A fun illustration of this with violin is this
| TwoSetViolin video [1] where they and 8 non-violinist
| musician friends play a game similar to "Telephone". They
| split into two teams each consisting of one of the
| TwoSetViolin violinists and 4 of the others.
|
| Each round one of the violinists plays a simple melody
| for one non-violinist member of the other team. Then that
| person takes the violin and tries to play it for another
| non-violinist member of their team and so until the last
| non-violinist plays it for the violinist on their team.
| If the violinist can identify the piece their team gets a
| point.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJYaYHmCmAE
| coward123 wrote:
| That's a really interesting observation you make, and one
| where I'll have to think on it for a bit. One of my
| thought exercises on this is to think about Glen Gould
| vs. Simone Dinnerstein's interpretation of Bach's
| Goldberg Variations. There's something I like about the
| way Dinnerstein hits those keys that is different to my
| ear than Gould.
| coward123 wrote:
| Can you expand on this? Would love more information about
| what makes it "difficult" relative to another instrument.
|
| (Orchestra supporter and string player dad over here, so
| genuinely curious)
| graycat wrote:
| Indiana University has long had an excellent music school. E.g.,
| one of the violin professors was J. Gingold, long Concert Master
| at Cleveland. A cello professor was J. Starker, long a well
| known, good recording artist.
|
| I liked music a LOT, had recordings of dozens of the most famous
| pieces from Bach through Tchaikovsky.
|
| And I was a math grad student, but my dorm building was next to
| the music school with a lot of music majors. One of the violin
| students put his old Italian violin under my left chin and gave
| me a first lesson. So, I signed up for a course in violin, just
| me and one teacher, a violin student in the school. He was
| terrific, far ahead of what I as a beginner, deserved! E.g.,
| after the semester was over, he played the Brahms concerto in
| Toronto!
|
| But I did get a start. I continued, and took some more lessons
| off and on. Eventually I made it through a few pages of some of
| the famous music, e.g., the Bach _Chaconne_.
|
| The student there at Indiana University I met again later, and he
| had swapped his old Italian violin for one made in NYC. His
| statement was that what he got new was as good as any of the old
| Italian instruments. That is, net, somehow some modern violin
| makers have learned how to make violins that are among the best
| ever.
|
| Just how to do that? Uh, instead of what is in the OP, just talk
| to some such violin makers!
| DannyBee wrote:
| Woodworker here. Yeah, the title is literally wrong - someone
| pointed out that they a/b test titles, etc. So just ars being ars
| i guess.
|
| The paper doesn't claim it's the varnish, it claims it's the wood
| treatment and its effect on density. That would make some sense.
|
| The varnish is the finishing layer that is on top. That layer is
| also, fwiw, about 3-5 mils most of the time (IE 0.003-0.005
| inches). Depends obviously on what and why (IE marine finishes
| are thicker, etc). It's affect on sound is almost certainly near
| nil.
|
| If you could produce serious damping effects with 0.003-0.005 of
| a coating, we'd use it on walls, etc.
|
| In reality, mass is much more important, which is why the
| treatment affecting the moisture content and density of wood
| would make more sense.
| Maursault wrote:
| I think that if Stadivari were alive today making violins using
| the same materials and techniques, the instrument would not
| sound the same as those cherished over the centuries.
|
| New wood stringed instruments do not sound as good as old,
| well-played instruments. I think the reason Stradivari violins
| sound so good is that they are so old and have been played for
| centuries.
|
| Over time, vibrating wood with oscillating strings, it changes
| the wood, the atoms in the wood will literally eventually align
| in such a way that the wooden pieces themselves become tuned to
| specific complimentary frequencies, increasing sustain and
| improving timbre.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > The varnish is the finishing layer that is on top. That layer
| is also, fwiw, about 3-5 mils most of the time
|
| Are you saying the varnish is that thick, or the layer the
| varnish is on is that thick?
|
| Painting on a 3-5mm thick layer of varnish sounds like a lot of
| coats.
|
| The below link is from someone who makes violins and they make
| the top 2.7-2.8mm total thickness.
|
| https://www.violincellomaker.com/2021/03/17/how-the-thicknes...
|
| Edit: rereading your comment makes me think that you're saying
| the total top thickness is usually 3-5mm.
| drifkin wrote:
| "mils" often means 1/1000th of an inch
| layer8 wrote:
| Hence 3-5 mils are only roughly 1/10th of a millimeter.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| I thought the reason they sounded so good was they were made
| from reclaimed church timber, old beams and such, and were thus
| touched by the angels.
|
| Wouldn't the older wood just be lighter, dryer and less dense?
| shuckles wrote:
| Wood's quality don't change much once it's harvested. Old
| wood is more often from natural forests where trees grow
| slowly due to resource competition and therefore have tighter
| growth rings. New wood is usually from lumber farms where
| trees are planted and managed such that they grow quickly and
| end up being less dense.
| soperj wrote:
| And yet there are a bunch of Japanese instruments that are
| made from Paulownia which is one of the fastest growing
| trees around, and not dense at all.
| tzs wrote:
| Doesn't the moisture content change over time after the
| wood is harvested, leading to small changes in size of the
| wood?
|
| I recall seeing instrument making videos where they
| mentioned the importance of using wood that had aged long
| enough to stabilize so that dimensions would not change
| after it was on the instrument. Some instruments have parts
| whose dimensions are critical.
| DannyBee wrote:
| Moisture content changes to equilibrium with environment.
| The rate at which this happens is dependent on how well
| sealed it is, but as there is permeability, and time, it
| will happen ;)
|
| The only exception is if the wood is transformed in a way
| that does not enable it to absorb water (or as much of
| it), such as petrification, etc.
| singron wrote:
| Wood used for this purpose is almost definitely dried
| (either naturally or with a kiln) and will thenceforth
| seek equilibrium with its environment.
|
| It's pretty unusual to use green/undried wood for
| anything, although I've heard of using it for log-cabin
| type things.
| bergenty wrote:
| itronitron wrote:
| I stopped reading Ars regularly when they started replacing
| articles with videos. Apparently that was a commandment to them
| from on high, so I expect the authors don't have a lot of
| control on the final form of their articles.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| Nagyvary has made different claims about the "secret of
| Stradivari" over the last thirty? forty? years, and they're all
| authoritative, and none of them explain why Stradivari's
| instruments are so valued. I'm confident that the real secret of
| Stradivari is a lot of things, all working together, that he
| learned by being an excellent craftsman with a good ear and
| analytical mind, and by being trained by the greatest violin
| maker before Stradivari, Nicolo Amati, who was likewise trained
| by previous great makers of his own family.
|
| There's no one change that, applied indiscriminately to an
| instrument, will reliably improve it. There are lots of things
| that work together to make a great instrument, and a great maker
| knows how to balance them.
|
| (Side note: I'm also confident that there are instruments being
| made today that will equal Stradivari's given time enough. In my
| own experience, one viola made by Michael Darnton of Chicago was
| markedly better than any of the old Italian instruments I've
| played, though they were not of the first rank. That was an
| instrument fit for any use, and if I could have afforded it, I
| would never have let it go.)
| jacquesm wrote:
| How much did it cost?
| JasonFruit wrote:
| About $16K, 20 years ago when I was leaving grad school. It
| was really magnificent, and the price was not too high at
| all, but it was beyond anything I could raise at the time.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I am always amazed at how much these old instruments go
| for, one of my uncles was an extremely good violinist and I
| remember that as a kid I wasn't even allowed to go near his
| instrument. (To be fair, I had a bit of a reputation...)
| acadapter wrote:
| None of the Stradivarius violins are in their original condition
| (not even the "almost never been played" Messiah Stradivarius).
|
| There was a time where Baroque violins would get their neck
| removed and re-glued at a larger angle, along with a bridge
| replacement. This happened to every single Stradivarius ever
| made.
|
| And then, there's the shift to modern steel strings.
|
| And most of them have been opened multiple times to seal cracks
| in the wood.
| sabujp wrote:
| violinist here, you can make a $100 amazon violin sound much
| better by getting more expensive strings (e.g. Dominant) and also
| by practicing more.
| [deleted]
| hbarka wrote:
| Host of the PBS show Great Performances goes to Bergamo Italy and
| gets to play a $15M Stradivari violin
| https://youtu.be/QObnfS29lKo
| snowwrestler wrote:
| "The Red Violin" is a late 90's movie about a famous and
| beautiful-sounding violin (clearly based on a Strad) that is
| passed down through the ages, which has a unique varnish on it.
| asiachick wrote:
| Wasn't this a solved problem like 40 years ago?
|
| Here's an episode of NOVA (PBS, WGBH) from 1982 all about it
|
| https://archive.org/details/GreatViolinMystery
| buescher wrote:
| I saw an article a while back about how, much like counterfeits
| that fool all the experts look amateurish after a few decades,
| the violins that compare well to Stradivariuses in these double
| blind studies eventually get considered inferior to new violins
| or at least go out of style. Something really funny is going on
| with how we perceive these old Italian violins and it's not all
| reputation-based placebo effect.
|
| Somebody also discovers a different "secret of the Stradivari"
| every decade or so. Thirty years ago people were going to make
| carbon-fiber composite violins that imitated the mechanical
| properties of the wood used in them, for example.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Off-topic here but it does have to do with top-end musical
| instruments, and having the big name.
|
| Bosendorfer [1] is trying (IMHO, without total success) to
| displace Steinway as the premier piano for concerts.
|
| A couple items in the Wikipedia article made me LOL:
|
| > In his memoirs, Arthur Rubinstein recounts having insisted on a
| Bechstein instead of the hall's Bosendorfer before a recital in
| Austria.
|
| When my teacher moved away, she gave me her Bechstein on
| indefinite loan. It had a cracked soundboard, but she felt that
| it should nonetheless be worth $20,000 or so. A piano tech looked
| at it and said, "Maybe $2,000."
|
| > Jazz pianist Keith Jarrett performed the solo improvisations
| (his Koln Concert) at the Cologne Opera House in Cologne, Germany
| on 24 January 1975 on a Bosendorfer and became a Steinway & Sons
| artist in 1981.
|
| [1] https://www.boesendorfer.com/en/pianos/pianos
| Cenk wrote:
| OA.mg has the link to the PDF of the paper:
| https://oa.mg/work/10.1002/anie.202105252
| danielvaughn wrote:
| Makes me wonder if the same kind of treatment, applied to
| acoustic guitars, would have the same effect.
| ghastmaster wrote:
| While not infused with borax and sulfates(that I'm aware of)
| Martin guitars is doing treatments to their VTS line to speed
| up the aging process to create the sound of vintage guitars on
| a brand new one.
|
| http://onemanz.com/guitar/articles-2/torrefication/
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