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What Really Happened in that Double-Blind Violin Sound Test

violinist.com

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Re: What Really Happened in that Double-Blind Violin Sound Test

#61

Post by userbinator »

zw123456 wrote: post #52

This reminds me very much of some studies where audiophiles did double blind tests of various solid state amps against tube amps. Some audiophiles say that the tube amps sound "warmer", maybe they like 60hz hum. Whatever. Tube amps look cool and that is what is really important to them I think much in the same way that it is a huge status symbol to have an old violin. Same thing I think. Not that there is anything wr…

The difference between tubes and basic transistor amps is very noticeable if you know what to listen for, especially when they're used at volumes loud enough to cause distortion, and this is definitely measurable scientifically.

Some people do like the fuzzier, "warmer" sound (the hum is part of that) that tubes have.

Re: What Really Happened in that Double-Blind Violin Sound Test

#62

Post by dllthomas »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #54
dragonwriter wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Improper appeals to authority are not limited to appeals to false authority; appeal to authority to dismiss evidence are also fallacious.

This is not so; we rely on authorities because we can't judge everything ourselves. If you show me some new evidence on the role of free protons in the aging process or whatever, it's not a mistake for me to say "I'll ignore that until such time as addresses it". I might be wrong as to reality, but I can't avoid using that exact strategy in almost all of my life.

But that's not an appeal to authority, really, is it? That's your relying on an authority to inform yourself, rather than pointing to authority as why others should believe what you do. These strike me as subtly different, though there's clearly some overlap in considerations...

Re: What Really Happened in that Double-Blind Violin Sound Test

#63

Post by peeters »

I'm not a violin player, but to me the allure of hearing a violinist play on a 300 year old violin isn't that it's the best sounding violin on the planet. It's an opportunity to witness a small part of the history of an incredible piece of craftsmanship.

I mean, how cool is it to hear music come out of an instrument that spanned the lives of Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and Paganini?

Re: What Really Happened in that Double-Blind Violin Sound Test

#64

Post by analog31 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #56
sukuriant wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is fair; but, my assumption in this situation is that if the musician owned the instrument themselves, they would have been allowed to tune it. Not being allowed to change details may have been a way for the benefactors of the instruments to keep them from being harmed

With Stradivarius violins costing millions and millions of dollars, I always assumed that the people playing on them didn't, in the typical case, actually own them (much like how science is now mostly practiced by professionals funded by grants, instead of by the bored idle rich). But I'm not informed on that point; it could be very different.

I don't know the exact breakdown of numbers, but it's increasingly common for a Strad to be owned by a benefactor and loaned to the musician. I don't know of any other artifact that straddles such extremes of being a treasure but also a work horse. Even the owners of lesser instruments have to deal with the implications of taking a valuable and delicate instrument out of the house to play in a saloon.

For this reason, tweaking a Strad is unlikely to be done casually. Re-stringing? Sure, at the very least E strings, which break all the time. But a set of fiddle strings is damned expensive, and takes time to break in so they don't sound too harsh, so re-stringing has to be coordinated with one's performance schedule.

Online, one can find a list of every known Strad, its history of owners, etc. Interestingly enough, a couple of them are listed as missing or stolen.

Re: What Really Happened in that Double-Blind Violin Sound Test

#65

Post by Legion »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #25

Because the violinists were only allowed to try the violins for one minute, this study has the same flaw that the Pepsi Challenge had in 1975: "In his book, Blink, author Malcolm Gladwell presents evidence that suggests Pepsi's success over Coca-Cola in the "Pepsi Challenge" is a result of the flawed nature of the "sip test" method. His research shows that tasters will generally prefer the sweeter of two beverages ba…

I'm surprised that the Pepsi Challenge thing isn't more obvious to people. I mean, hasn't everyone experienced this themselves when it comes to those "healthier" versions of snack foods?

First bag: "Hey, these taste much better than I expected! They're just as good as my normal snack. Eating these instead of my old snacks will be easy."

Second bag: "They're pretty good, but I do taste the difference."

Third bag: "Oh god, get those away from me."

It's not just sip test versus can, but it's how things taste when you come back again and again.

Re: What Really Happened in that Double-Blind Violin Sound Test

#66

Post by Fishkins »

jeroen wrote: post #38
abalone wrote: post #29

Wait a minute. She claims: "Now a lot of you found it easy to pick the Strad... But it wasn't actually our task to pick the Italian in this study -- it was to pick our preference." But NPR directly quotes the guy who ran the study: "JOYCE: Curtin says of the 17 players who were asked to choose which were the old Italians... CURTIN: Seven said they couldn't. Seven got it wrong, and only three got it right." [1] Maybe…

The abstract [1] says: "We asked 21 experienced violinists to compare violins by Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesu with high-quality new instruments. The resulting preferences were …" It then goes on about preferences and says nothing about identifying them. So it's the abstract of the study, written (I assume) by the researchers, and one of the participants vs a journalist "quoting" one of the researchers. [1] http:/…

The abstract you linked does say something about identifying them: "most players seemed unable to tell whether their most-preferred instrument was new or old."

And in the full text of the study: "Asked about the making-school of their take-home instruments, 17 subjects responded: 7 said they had no idea, 7 guessed wrongly (i.e., that a new violin was old or vice-versa), and just 3 guessed correctly"

edit: the link to the full study is http://www.pnas.org/content/109/3/760.full in case anyone was having trouble finding it from the abstract.

Re: What Really Happened in that Double-Blind Violin Sound Test

#67

Post by Fishkins »

raverbashing wrote: post #5

The objective of this tests seems to be more to prove a point than to be fair, I'm not surprised. And the test looks like it's blind, but not double blind. It seems all rigour goes out of the window in order for the researchers to prove their point And of course taste is subjective, but a misadjusted violin will not sound great even if it's a good violin. (Same with a bad violin, modern or old) > "professional violin…

According to the abstract, the study was performed "under double-blind conditions"

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/3/760.full

Re: What Really Happened in that Double-Blind Violin Sound Test

#68

Post by Fishkins »

parfe wrote: post #2

From the study's abstract: Differences in taste among individual players, along with differences in playing qualities among individual instruments, appear more important than any general differences between new and old violins. Another case of science reporting failing miserably at understanding and conveying the results of studies. The three articles all come up short at even reading the abstract: Daily Mail "Concer…

I wouldn't call it "failing miserably." Although it doesn't appear to have been the main focus of the study, the antepenultimate paragraph of the results section does say most violinists couldn't identify whether their violin was new or old (3 got it right, 7 got it wrong, 7 said they didn't know) [0]. There aren't p-values provided for that result, though.

http://www.pnas.org/content/109/3/760.full

edit: Also, you criticize the publications for not reading the abstract, but I wonder if you read it closely. It says "most players seemed unable to tell whether their most-preferred instrument was new or old," which seems right in line with those headlines to me.

Re: What Really Happened in that Double-Blind Violin Sound Test

#69

Post by golergka »

Centigonal wrote: post #8
herge wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the Daily Mail; we should be just happy they aren't claiming playing a Stradivarius causes cancer.

Have you seen http://kill-or-cure.herokuapp.com/ ? I think you might get a kick out of it.

It is awesome. At least they don't claim that vaccines are causing cancer.

Re: What Really Happened in that Double-Blind Violin Sound Test

#70

Post by sjtrny »

noonespecial wrote: post #42
abalone wrote: post #32

I would love to see a study like this done with vinyl vs. digital. 1. Put some vinyl-loving DJs in a hotel room. 2. To factor out identifying pops & scratches, pre-record a vinyl song onto digital. Record it several times and use each digital recording only once. 3. Cover their eyes and randomly switch between vinyl & digital. See if they can tell the difference.

To factor out identifying pops & scratches, pre-record a vinyl song onto digital... This would simply be a digital reproduction of a vinyl recording. (Something I quite like BTW). Vinyl is a "thing" because the process plays a part in creating that sound people love and not just reproducing it.

It's more a "thing" because of other social status reasons.
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