I used to work at a musical instruments startup and we tried blind tests of prototypes to assess which combination of materials recipes/sensor design/firmware algorithms etc were 'the best'.
Ultimately these tests only reveal the biases of the players. They will prefer – and actually perform better with – that which they believe to be configured in a certain way, regardless of whether it is in reality or not. We had one prototype that us engineers hated to death because the only difference between it and the rest was that it was a different colour, but ALL the players hailed it as the golden standard.
The same goes for the famous 'Does Fuck All' button on recording mixing desks, which you can use to tell players that you've made the change that they wanted to satisfy them. And also when you're buying speakers it's very common to be shown the same set of speakers three times and have three opinions.
I just recently tour managed a friend and would set up her mic sound every night, and each time I would need to play some sort of subtle trick with her so that she felt things were just right. No amount of 'rational tweaking' could achieve the same.
"And also when you're buying speakers it's very common to be shown the same set of speakers three times and have three opinions."
I've noticed with sensory inputs in general that the things that impress you immediately, and the things that impress you once your brain has adjusted to the input and has settled in, are different. For the visual example, observe the difference between the settings on the TVs in the store vs. what the community will generally agree is the optimal long-term setting for your TV. Also, while the first ten minutes of a 3D movie may be pretty whiz-bang, I've generally stopped noticing it's in 3D by the end.
I think in both cases, our initial preferences are for something sharper and exaggerating the differences, but over the long term that becomes quite tiring. A case could probably be made even for smell; in the store the strong, unusual perfume may be very impressive but if you are going to use it all day long, I prefer to be around people who use something a lot more subtle.
I've also noticed that there's a difference between products that demo well and products that serve well. Oftentimes the products I most rely on in daily life are really unimpressive when first introduced, and conversely, the products that make a huge splash in a demo are kinda annoying to use. I suspect this is behind many hyped-up, venture-funded startups that fail to get lasting traction in the marketplace.
Besides the novelty bias you've identified, I also think there's a context bias. Products that make a lasting impact on our lives do so by fitting into the context of our lives - they are well-adapted to the situation in which they will eventually be used. Products that demo well fit into the context of a demo - they look splashy and exciting when shown to a set of observers who are specifically judging the product. The set of qualities optimized for each of these situations differs.
After some years using flat panels, I decided to grab old CRTs from my storage, and I am loving them.
I realised later, that most flat panels are optimized to look good on the brightly lighted stores, they have high brightness and saturation, and look brilliant. Even at home at first they look better than the old CRTs... until on daily usage I get annoyed with their poor contrast and colour reproduction.
Yes, on the store a red looking extra red looks good... but when you see on the screen a photo of a relative and their shamed pink face became a monstrous mess of bright yellow and red, then you realised it doesn't look so good...
I was a hold out for CRTs for many years; I had an old UNIX workstation CRT. I'd bought it for $25 from a computer garage sale because the company had switched to Windows desktops from the workstations, and these weren't plug-and-play with PC graphics cards. It was big and beautiful for the time, and remained beautiful for a while beyond when LCD monitors started coming along. But, eventually, LCD surpassed that (very nice, originally very expensive) professional CRT. My current 4k LCD display on my laptop is miles away from even the best CRTs. No flicker, no ghosting, and extremely precise color adjustment capability, make even mid-range LCDs a better looking display than the best CRTs of the past.
Factor in weight (that big old workstation monitor weighed something like 75 pounds, and I hurt my back bringing it down the stairs when I finally got rid of it) and LCD is a no-brainer improvement over CRT. I have no desire to go back to CRTs.
My only 4k device is my laptop, which is a Dell with a "TrueLife" display (it's also a touchscreen, which I wasn't looking for, but it came with the lappy mode I wanted, and I've grown to like it in a short time). I've been kinda on the look out for a super good deal on a 4k monitor, but haven't pulled the trigger on that yet...I'm leaning toward a Samsung, but I would guess the higher end Dell monitors are fine...I've always liked my Dell monitors in the past. I used to always buy Viewsonic, but my last Viewsonic monitor was garbage in nearly every regard, so I don't consider them anymore.
I'd second Dell for monitors. You can also get a 4K TV, but do your homework on 4:4:4 chroma, since not having this results in basically JPEG compression on the image, which results in things like red pixels around text making it blurry. Note also that the Vizio 2016 P series claims to do 4:4:4 chroma at 60hx at 4K over HDMI, and it connects at that rate, but the actual displayed image is 4:2:2 or 4:2:0 in the low-latency gaming mode. http://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-usage/pc-monitor/best has a good list, but in general, if you want DisplayPort, you won't find it on a TV. There are also things like the Wasabi Mango, Seiki, LeTv, modded freesync firmwares, etc. I just wanted something that worked, and for gaming at 120hz@1080p on a 55" IPS screen, I'm not disappointed.
Going the other direction, the Acer Predator XB321HK is a 32" 16:9 (I'm not a fan of the ultra-wide stuff) 4K screen with great picture and GSync if you play games with Green Team's GPUs. It's over a grand and only does 60hz, but it's a big nice 4K panel and it's not a TV.
Lastly, you have things like the Dell P4317Q, which is targeted at stock traders. It's a 43" 4K screen for a relatively-affordable $1350 with a proper DisplayPort input. I nearly got this instead of my Vizio P55-C1 (which is the only IPS screen of all the 2016 Vizio P series), but I liked that the Vizio did 120hz, but I'm disappointed about the lack of real 4:4:4 chroma and the resultant blurry text. Still, if you want a huge desktop monitor, the Dell might be the way to go. The Philips BDM4350UC is about the same as the Dell, and has a lot of discussion here: https://hardforum.com/threads/philips-bdm4350uc-43-inch-4k-i...
As an avid gamer: that's why you keep your distance from the "AAAAAAA GIGAHITZ" currently steaming on the hype train ^^ There are tons of amazing, enthralling games out there so full of substance - Factorio for the latest example I came across
This reminds me of the Pepsi challenge. They blindfold you and have you take a sip of Pepsi then a sip of Coke. The results usually have Pepsi wiping the floor with Coke, despite Coke outselling them everywhere. It turns out the reason for the disparity it that they only test the initial sip. Pepsi is sweeter than Coke which seems better to most people when just sipping rather than drinking a whole can.
I've never understood this. I'm not a huge soda drinker, but I can tell the difference between at least Pepsi, Coke, and Dr. Pepper, by smell alone, no tasting required. One sip and I can tell you Diet or Regular, on top of the brand. I have not observed that I've got an above-average sense of smell or taste. What good does the blindfold do?
Few of us got a free dinner out of an unfortunate friend of ours who claimed, for years, superiority of one product over another and his ability to taste the difference easily.
So one night we decided to put his claims to test: he was summarily sent to basement with a few friends; while the remainder of us prepared the samples in the kitchen.
We (preparers) then left the room while he sampled and wrote down his choices - as double-blind as we can make it.
He was wrong even more than random guessing would've allowed; and the video of his confident, but entirely erroneous reports are still an amusing viewing amongst our group :)
Mind you, he still claims superiority of one product and his ability to tell. But time again, these claims don't bear testing...
>but I can tell the difference between at least Pepsi, Coke, and Dr. Pepper, by smell alone, no tasting required. One sip and I can tell you Diet or Regular, on top of the brand
Well, the point of the article is that there are many people who claim that they can do such things, but when they're put to the test...can't.
Have you actually tested yourself, or do you just assume you can do it?
In short: Richard Clarke, an audio guru, put his own money up to reward people who could tell the difference in sound quality, consistently, between two level-matched amplifiers of varying price. No one has passed. Audiophiles have been complaining about it for years.
This reminds me of the Line6 Helix Challenge[1], where you have to decided between the Real amp vs Simulated amp.
Sure they made it to promote their product and I guess there is no money involved. But in the end they show your scores and the % of all tests. If you take out the "don't know" it is near 50/50.
Yeah, but I'd certainly know which brand I was drinking after a sip, and likely before, hence the confusion. That doesn't seem "blind", aside from in the most literal sense. How can there be a big reveal of "you chose Pepsi!" and the surprised reaction when they'd (I thought—this thread is making me reconsider) have to be entirely unfamiliar with mainstream sodas or have suffered some kind of nerve/brain damage not to be able to tell which they were drinking from taste and smell alone. I don't find the differences between the two to be subtle, but maybe it's just me after all.
There are two important things here. One is that until you do a blind test, I wouldn't bet on your abilities. People think they can tell things and effects apart if they have a lot of experience. But it takes a proper experiment and they find out they just relied on their biases.
The second thing is that "proper experiment" I mentioned. It's one thing to tell someone they're getting Coke and Pepsi. It's another to tell them they get two new products (but actually Coke and Pepsi). Yet another to tell them they're getting Coke and Pepsi and give them generic-cola-1 and -2. All of those may tell you something interesting.
Check the paper "Blind Taste Test of Soft-drinks – A Comparison Study on Coke and Pepsi" - people actually can't identify the brand properly.
Interesting that respondents seem to be using "sweetness" as a stand-in for "how much I like it". I'd class Coke as a fair bit drier than Pepsi—still quite sweet, but noticeably less so than Pepsi. The "open" version of responses, though, rate Coke as much sweeter.
I don't get measuring the "caffeine" perception, but maybe I'm just unusual in not knowing what caffeine _per se_ tastes like? Possibly something's being lost in translation (so to speak) here.
I wonder what percentage identified _both_ drinks correctly. Perhaps it turns out that ~half+ of all people are really bad at differentiating flavors in colas.
Interesting that "can't identify" went up with Coca Cola. I definitely find both its nose and flavor to be milder than Pepsi, so I guess that makes sense.
(for the record, I go for Coke over Pepsi, which you'd have to pay me to drink, though even Coke wears out its welcome with me after a half-dozen ounces or so)
> I wonder what percentage identified _both_ drinks correctly. Perhaps it turns out that ~half+ of all people are really bad at differentiating flavors in colas.
If you serve it cold enough most people can't tell the difference between coke and 7up.
I used to drink a ton of Coke and I guarantee I could tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. These days I rarely drink soda, and while I think I could tell the difference, I could probably be fooled.
You might then be surprised to learn that many people cannot tell the difference, even from taste, between coke and pepsi.
Dr. Pepper I think has a more distinctive taste but my point is that your experience may not line up with what most people expect and you may in fact have an above average sense of smell and/or taste.
That would certainly surprise me. Coke tastes sour to me and Pepsi sweet. I can't imagine confusing them. (If you couldn't tell, I hate the taste of Coke.)
First, have you actually tried it blindfolded? If you know what you're smelling the test is completely invalid.
Second, assuming you can indeed tell the difference, you're assuming smell and taste are one single axis. You might be good at differentiating only certain kinds of molecules.
Not literally blindfolded, but with cups of soda with no information about which was which. Not something I've practiced, but I've tried it out a couple times after I noticed by chance I could do it. Definitely works, not even difficult. And I say "what?" to the question "do you smell that?" often enough that I doubt I've got any general special ability in that department.
> Second, assuming you can indeed tell the difference, you're assuming smell and taste are one single axis. You might be good at differentiating only certain kinds of molecules.
So possibly I'm a soda-only super-smeller/taster. Ha, there's a handy skill. :-(
Out of curiosity, have you actually tested your ability to tell the difference? You know, someone other than you puts, say, 10 samples in identical cups, randomly makes 2 coke, 3 pepsi, 1 Dr Pepper, and 4 from another brand unfamiliar to you, and you're able to identify each by smell each time?
That could get tough if the unfamiliar ones were carefully-chosen to smell similar to the three main ones, for instance. I picked out those three because they're so easy to tell from one another (which is why the Pepsi Challenge things strikes me as silly) and because "blind" Pepsi/Coke taste-tests were the topic. I'd guess something like RC thrown in the mix could make me confuse it for Pepsi, and some of the closer Dr. Pepper clones might get me, especially on a smell-only trial. Coke'd be tricky since its got the mildest odor of those three and I'd have mainly picked it out by process of elimination. With the other brands thrown in I could well miss a few.
[EDIT] if it helps, it seems to me that having a "Pepsi Challenge" is like having an "Orange Challenge" where the other contender is a lime. It's not exactly gonna be hard to tell which one you're dealing with, even if the sample's the same size and you're blindfolded. Throw in a half-dozen other citrus fruits and yeah, I could see getting a couple of them wrong but just those two? No. Judging from the reaction here, though, I'm starting to wonder if I need to re-evaluate my sense of smell/taste. Maybe it's not only farther from normal than I thought, but in the opposite direction.
> if it helps, it seems to me that having a "Pepsi Challenge" is like having an "Orange Challenge" where the other contender is a lime.
One thing you might not be realizing is that many people have absolutely shot their palates with modern flavorings, sugar bombing, etc. (though these days, smoking at least is less of a thing). I too don't have trouble telling the difference between Coke and Pepsi (and have done it blind), but if you took away visual cues, I think you'd be surprised how many people would bilge even the orange/lime test.
Once when I was in college, I could get Pepsi from the nearby vending machine but no coke. I figured, "pepsi and coke are basically the same, this will be fine!" and proceeded to pour some bourbon into my pepsi.
It turns out that they are not the same, and there's a reason lots of people order whiskey and coke and nobody orders whiskey and pepsi.
I've tested coke/pepsi/RC by random identical cups and I was able to tell, but it was more difficult than I expected it to be. I believe some of that is the way your brain works to where, if you believe you know what you are about to eat/drink, it primes you with your memory of the flavors. Going in blind makes it more difficult to do so.
To me at least, Coke has more citrus notes and is a bit more sour. RC, at least in the US is slightly more bitter and also seems to have a slightly sweet aftertaste, but not that different from Coke. Pepsi is more sweeter as well, and doesn't have the citrus hit.
The more interesting difference is Sugar cane Coke, like they have in Australia, and Corn Syrup. They are both equally sweet, IMO, but the corn syrup has a different aftertaste and texture. Still mostly identical.
The Pepsi Challenge doesn't really work in Australia, because Pepsi here tastes like the HFCS Pepsi in the US (yergh), whereas Coke here is made with sugar and is much nicer.
I never really understood the point of the Pepsi Challenge until I went to the US and had HFCS Coke, which tastes much more like Pepsi. The same is true of Coke Zero, which the ads here loudly proclaim "tastes just like regular Coke". Yeah, regular HFCS Coke, not sugar Coke. Yuck.
Interestingly enough, when I used to drink Coke Classic, and tried a Mexican Coke which uses real sugar I did not like the taste compared to HFCS coke. Now I prefer Coke Zero, which tastes very similar, but when I would go back to Coke Classic I would find it too sweet.
I think a lot of it is just which taste you're accustomed to.
The Matrix kind of did this, with the switch in color saturation & tint between "inside" the matrix and "outside." Inside was desaturated and tinted green; outside was desaturated and tinted blue. At the time it was considered a nuanced way of exaggerating the difference between the two.
The Wizard of Oz used this in the sense that they saved the change (from black and white to color) for a later point I the movie (about 7 minutes in, iirc). Rather than the movie starting in color the transition was used to ad splendor to the world of oz.
No Pepsi just tastes better. The whole people prefer coke when drinking a whole can comes from Blink where a Pepsi scientist throws out three or four different reasons why kiosk testing might not reflected by consumer purchasing. It ends with both the scientist and gladwell saying "brands are powerful".
Coke has a slight vanilla flavor that Pepsi doesn't have. I generally prefer Pepsi to Coke, but sometimes I have a taste for Coke because of that slight vanilla flavor.
On the other hand, I tend not to drink pop for long periods on end. My first pop in a long while always tastes incredibly syrupy, to the point where it's borderline unpalatable. If I have more than a couple of pops in a short period it starts tasting like what I 'remember' it tasting like.
Right, Pepsi is kids' soda. It's a candy pop. There's no point in sipping it chilled, because there's no complex flavor to appreciate. Coke on the other hand, goes well with alcohol, and also has a very nice mix of spices like nutmeg, vanilla, and bitters, with greater carbonation, for a very nice slow sippable drink when chilled at the right temp. Coke is a mans' drink. Pepsi is for slobs who drink soda, period. For someone who rarely drinks soda, a coke is acceptable whereas a pepsi is just gross.
I'm exactly the opposite. I'll sip Pepsi chilled, but when I drink Coke, I'll chug it to satisfy a thirst, never stop to sip it - if I do, I generally don't enjoy the taste, while with Pepsi I enjoy the nuances of the flavour.
I don't get why you say it has greater carbonation. The carbonation in Coke gives a harsher feel, which I tend to dislike other than when its hot and I'm very thirsty. Pepsi gets frothier, and is more mellow, but in overall levels of carbonation I don't think there's much difference.
The only other cola than Pepsi I'll sip is RC, which has a strong caramel undertone.
Wow, I don't think I've ever seen someone analyse Coke to such a degree, and it's pretty fascinating. I've drunk probably gallons of the stuff in my life and I couldn't tell you what it tastes of other than Coke.
A nice coke from a glass bottle is really enjoyable. But I rarely indulge. Soda is just a way to tax ones pancreas far too hard. I guess my lack of drinking it often makes me admire it more.
I only drink glass-bottle Coke sans corn syrup, and I only get to do that when visiting the Philippines (I don't go to Mexico very often—have only been there once). There, they use cane sugar to sweeten it instead of high fructose corn syrup. It tastes different, and to me, better. It seems more refreshing, especially when chilled and drinking it in a tropical setting.
I have the mexican cokes but strangely enough I actually prefer the glass bottled regular coke. The mexican coke taste very sticky. I am crazy arent I?
Whoops.. thank you for pointing that out. I have in fact read Blink, so that is probably where I picked up this dubious factoid. I need to read it again to refresh my memory so I don't find myself unknowingly quoting it.
It's one of those things I tracked down after seeing one to many people say it as if it was a settled fact (never mind of course that there isn't really reason to assume people wouldn't prefer an entire can of the sweeter cola)
To me, Diet Coke tastes "crisp", while Diet Pepsi tastes "slimey". I can tell the difference in a heartbeat and I dislike Diet Pepsi (while I drink a lot of Diet Coke).
...and then it's still better when drinking the whole can.
Coke is bitter in the wrong ways. I can't describe it any better than that, I love IPAs so it's not like I'm against bitter drinks but give me a Pepsi any day.
I mean I truly don't care that much in the end, I'm definitely not one of those silly who will refuse one or the other, but it's not just about the initial sip being better.
I prefer them in different instances. I can enjoy Pepsi at any point - the sweetness lets me sip it and enjoy it whether or not I'm particularly thirsty or feel a particular desire for something sweet. While with coke I tend to need to be thirsty or really have an urge for something sweet to enjoy it, but in that situation I tend to prefer it. I'll chug Coke but sip Pepsi. It's very possible that's down to brand presentation - e.g. the Coke association to the "bottle opening sound" is very real - their marketing is so extremely ingrained in modern culture.
"Sweeter" is also a subjective term. They might have the same amount of sugar, but Pepsi definitely tastes sweeter than Coke when just opened.
To me, for lack of a better word, Coke has "harsher" bubbles that somehow drown out the sweetness. Which is why a can of Coke that's been open for an hour is way too sweet to me.
The bite from the carbonation is the flavor of carbonic acid, which is unstable and will resolve back to H2O and CO2 when not under pressure. A heavier carbonation ends up having a higher concentration of carbonic acid when you first open it up, but as the bubbles burst the concentration goes down.
While it differs for different cultivars, I don't think "a lot more" is true in general. For the best tasting commercial varieties, I think they are roughly comparable.
Hayward Kiwi (the most common commercial variety in the US) are harvested fairly hard at about 6 Brix (approximately percent dissolved solids assuming those solids are sucrose) and ripen up to about 12-14 Brix.[1]
Strawberries are usually 8-10 Brix, but a peak of the season fully ripe (and delicious) modern variety like Seascape or Tristar might be 12-14 Brix[2], the same as a fully ripe kiwifruit.
I suppose it depends strongly on the particular cultivar. I know I was surprised by the difference when I looked it up a couple of years ago. I was doing a keto diet at the time, so you read a lot of nutrient tables.
According to these claims, Pepsi was served chilled, while Coca-Cola was served at room temperature, thus making the Pepsi more appealing.
So that anecdote is bullshit. Everyone with refined tastebuds knows that Pepsi taste like sweetened dishwasher liquid and Coke is much more spiced and refined with notes of bitter vanilla, nutmeg, and pepper. Pepsi is what people who eat Doritos and Mountain Dew prefer, ie. they don't care what they consume.
If you are already eating junk, soda is not appreciated, it's consumed rapidly. All soda is going to be similar in that vain. The point of coke is that you can put a glass on ice, and drink it very slowly for the flavor. Drinking soda in any other capacity doesn't make much sense, and is poor decision healthwise.
Once those differences have been normalised we stop feeling the same way about them, and become attracted to other things just because they are novel. This is why it's often better to call a mix 'done' before you start believing it's completely wrong and tearing it apart again, only to prefer the old version.
Interesting. I find the same thing with music itself. I often hate the albums I end up liking the most the first few times I listen to them. Possibly it's because those artists I make the effort to listen to when I don't like their new albums at first are evolving their sound rather than trying to rehash old successes.
Anyway, my first impression of new music often doesn't match what my later opinion will be after listening more.
This is the same for me. I've also learned how to recognize an album that I WILL like after more listening, which feels really weird, but it works.
Also, very catchy albums that immediately grab me rarely prove to have long-term listenability for me. An example would be the Postal Service album, I remember thinking that was really catchy and great, but after a few listens I hated it.
I can relate to food (supplement) products. That taste panel only test the product once, while the user eats it every day for years. So the test panel will prefer sweet tasty while the user would want a more natural taste.
> The same goes for the famous 'Does Fuck All' button on recording mixing desks, which you can use to tell players that you've made the change that they wanted to satisfy them.
This is classic. From [0]:
> When Florence’s mayor, Piero Sorderini told Michelangelo that the nose on his sculpture that he had been commissioned to do of a young David with sling in hand was too big, he did not argue that the nose was just right, Michelangelo merely took the mayor onto the scaffolding and gave the appearance of changing the nose. Sorderini was pleased and no one was offended.
>They will prefer – and actually perform better with...
That's an important distinction. There is something to valuing a tool that makes you use it better. My first version of Visual Studio I paid for out of pocket and I made sure to get my money's worth. My bicycles, probably don't actually make me that much faster, but when I enjoy riding them and like them, I am faster.
I spent double my budget on my last road bike when I decided to go all-carbon, and my rationale was I'd be more likely to ride it if I spent way too much money on it. That was CERTAINLY the case, at least for the first few years.
Depends on what you like. I ride a Cannondale Supersix for sport and love it. I used to race and still enjoy training hard, so my priorities are lightness, rigidity, and handling. A carbon frame beats steel in all of those.
I think the reputation for harshness is undeserved. I rode an aluminum frame (the gold standard of harsh and rigid) for a long time and IMO the difference between frame materials is way smaller than say 23 vs 25mm tires.
That said, I also have a 70s era steel frame as my commuter. It's a fun, springy ride that is respectably quick, and I enjoy riding it to work. I would not want to do thousands of feet of climbing on it though.
Heh, all the arguments over frame materials, and what do people actually feel when riding? Their tires, and whether or not the cables slap and vibrate depending on how they are routed.
The supersix is what software should try to be. Better than it's competitors when released, and it's been refined year over year, ignoring fads, to become a phenomenal machine.
Also, frame geometry and tubing size plays a larger factor in how the frame bends moreso than just the materials. Granted, to a certain extent, frame materials will dictate the geometry (e.g. skinny aluminum tubes would be a horrible idea).
Harsh? You're kidding. I love my bike (2008 Trek Madone 5.7, I think? The one with the integrated bottom bracket, the 'lowest' model with that but is made in the US).
The first time I rode carbon, I knew it had to be all carbon. It's so smooth, like butter. Not even a contest vs aluminum. I haven't ridden steel in ages, but based on weight alone, yeah, carbon.
You don't really need one (despite the obvious danger if taking this in the literal sense). There are tests that can determine pretty much every metric a bike is trying to nail. It becomes more of a "what's the best choice for X purpose" than trying to pick the best overall.
There's an important qualifier here, which is that the tools in question have to be nearly as good as each other, for their user's arbitrary decision making to become more important than the actual differences themselves.
I.e. as long as the bikes have two wheels etc, you will choose the one that makes you feel good.
> each time I would need to play some sort of subtle trick with her so that she felt things were just right. No amount of 'rational tweaking' could achieve the same.
Very curious of about this one weird trick that you did. What did you do for it to sound right to her? Are you sure you weren't just tuning parameters in a way that allowed her to best identify resonance in a venue?
The main variables were volume (onstage and in the venue, separately), delay and reverb. We would start with a dry (no effects) sound and get the volume right first. This would already be kinda stressful for her as a dry sound is raw and unkind! We would then bring up the effects to a normal level which would sound way too extreme in soundcheck, as there is no crowd to absorb the sound - so again it wouldn't sound good to her. Then we would bring the effects down in order for it to sound right for an empty room, which felt more comfortable to her. Then for the performance the volume and effects levels would be higher to account for the crowd absorbing the sound.
So for soundcheck it was important for it to sound right for an empty room, whereas we were also somewhat covertly tuning parameters in anticipation of the crowd's effect on the acoustics.
So the key point is that we were building two sounds; one to fit her psychoacoustic perception in an empty room to make for a comfortable soundcheck, and another for the actual acoustic scenario of the performance. The latter was offputting for the performer despite being 'correct'.
Very interesting! Thank you for the detailed reply. I have always wondered about the detail that went into soundcheck. Sound often seems too loud in a bar venue. I don't know if that's where you are more likely to have an amateur sound tech or it is just difficult to get a loud enough sound in a small space. Or maybe I'm just a little baby when it comes to sound.
To get a good sound, or particularly a good loudness, in a small place is a lot to do with the proportionality of the speaker power output relative to the room size. You can have huge speakers sound awful in a small room and vice versa.
Levelling the playing field in 'amateur sound tech' (mostly good craftspeople who are just doing what they can with limited time/resources) is an active area of research in acoustics and DSP. I recommend Dr Josh Reiss of QMUL (where I'm based) for more on this. Check out his work on automatic audio engineering. Machine learning is very appropriate to this area of work:
>I just recently tour managed a friend and would set up her mic sound every night, and each time I would need to play some sort of subtle trick with her so that she felt things were just right. No amount of 'rational tweaking' could achieve the same.
Could she have been responding to the acoustics in the new room?
During soundcheck there is no crowd around, so the acoustics sound super boomy which is not good for the vocalist. So one trick is to almost have a soundcheck sound that accounts for that, and then switch it up later once the venue packs out.
> We had one prototype that us engineers hated to death because the only difference between it and the rest was that it was a different colour, but ALL the players hailed it as the golden standard.
The products were black, this one was grey to trial alternative materials processes. So it was even more infamous for being a one-off, and we tried to hide it as much as possible as it confounded our usability test variables. No one could adequately explain why it was rated the best, so we dubbed it The Phantom.
Take that as a proof that Stradivari really was VERY good. Compared to the very best that can be produced centuries later, with much better technology available, his instruments hold their own.
Contrast with, say, athletes. The very best runners from a century ago wouldn't qualify for the olympics today.
It does say that the extra value in a Stradivarius is in the history or mystique (or more cynically, the branding) as opposed to the sound.
But the sound is there as well, just it can be matched by a modern top quality instrument.
I understand your point of the "best of the past" still holding up to the best now, but considering that the violin is a "classical instrument", are contemporary violin manufacturers trying to replicate the past because that's the template to follow?
If it was possible for a violin to objectively sound better than a Strad, would listeners interpret necessarily it as better?
I don't know what it means to "objectively" sound better, but most of the strads in performance use today have been modified over the years, and are fitted with modern strings. Nobody is copying the classical designs except for specialized "period" instruments.
Every other instrument in the orchestra has been modernized as well.
Violin manufacture strives to "replicate the past" because that is where most of the music played with them comes from (on HN I have to point this out!). However, there are plenty of compositions for modern alternatives like electric violins.
Another factor is that violinists haven't run out of ways to express new musical ideas on old instruments. The need to design a new instrument, in order to come up with new music, isn't immediately evident. The modern alternative to the violin, could be a violin in the hands of someone with a modern approach. I'm seeing this happening in contemporary fiddle music, for instance. As a jazz bassist, my instrument is of ancient design, but my playing is driven by ideas that are mostly less than a century old.
Of course inventing new instruments is a welcome avenue of musical exploration. But it's not without tradeoffs. At the very least, the musician will be set back by having to develop new technique and familiarity with the capabilities of a new instrument -- getting your ears, brain, and hands, to work together perfectly in real time. Composers also have to wrap their heads around the capabilities of a new instrument, in order to take an interest in writing for it.
Not to mention alternate fret positioning, partial frets, and things like New Standard Tuning. You still have the same scale, but new shapes change composition.
> Take that as a proof that Stradivari really was VERY good
The other thing that I think is very interesting is that Stradivari really developed his own pattern for violins, while modern makers have a lot of knowledge to build upon.
He may not have been the first to copy Strads (or he may have been, I'm just not sure) but Vuillaume became very famous for making masterful copies of some Strads. In 1855 he purchased 144 instruments by Stradivari and some other of the "great Italian masters", I think mostly as a dealer but he also set out making great copies of Le Messie (a Strad), Il Cannone (a Guarneri, which belonged to Paganini), and some others.
I think Vuillaume's violins then became patterns for other instrument makers to use, and we have this legacy now where most modern violins are patterned after a Strad or a Guarneri.
> Contrast with, say, athletes. The very best runners from a century ago wouldn't qualify for the olympics today.
I agree with your point, but this isn't true at all [1]. The rules have changed so dramatically that you get a completely false idea. E.g. Jesse Owens ran on cinders, started without blocks, and did not have a training regimen anything like today's pros.
Perhaps a better argument is that the Stradivarius instruments which survive are not the best few, selected over centuries, but ~60% of all the instruments Stradivari ever made. I.e. he was consistently great.
On the contrary, modern runners are genetically different. Not that the population as a whole is genetically different. Rather because society today casts a much broader net in finding and training individuals who have a strong genetic fitness for running to become competitive runners.
We don't use high tech manufacturing because people assume violins should be made to look and sound like Stradivarius. That and it's also a tiny market.
The technology suite available today makes a big difference even for a largely by-hand process. Things like temperature and humidity control, digital micrometers, strain gauges, magnifying imagery. And having reliable supply chains for reproducably formulated lacquers, varnishes, glues, etc. There is a ton of technology helping in the background even if it isn't front and center.
Most of which was available in 1950, and a surprising amount could be found in the 1800's. EX: For cooling, Spring house, cave, imported ice, or just location. The first thermometer dates back to ~1612.
I agree making things reproducible is a big deal, but that's mostly a question of cost not capability. 3d printing or computer control in general allows for beyond human levels of accuracy. Or even just computer modeling to find new and adventitious shapes.
While the technologies to do some of those things may have been available I wonder how many of those things the instrument makers of the time actually knew mattered, and to what extent did they understand it?
Temperature and humidity are very obvious and important if your doing woodworking so I would assume that quickly become common knowledge. But, it would be interesting to research it.
Though I think it's important to remember it was a high tech process for the time. At the time few things required that level of precision or complexity. And considering the size and physical effort involved few things have that kind of volume.
Yeah, but in the end, we are just replicating a 400 hundred years old process. The main difference this technological advances have produced is that the replication is reproducible and we can churn out Stradivarius like there is no tomorrow.
I wonder when the computer emulation will be so good as to be indistinguishable from the original. And I don't mean just a synthesiser, that's probably not going to be perfect ever, I mean a simulation of the friction of the strings, taking into account the propagation of the sound in the resonance chamber and its material proprieties, the characteristics of the array of speakers and the relative position of the listener.
Given that manufacturing and design also advance when computer technology advances, I suspect that the agglomerations of atoms will also get better, and better agglomerations of atoms will often be more economical than simulations of said atoms.
"It must be remembered that the violin is a cultural icon as well as a working tool, and iconoclasts – those who smash of icons – cannot expect a warm welcome at the temple gates."
We don't use high tech manufacturing to make high-quality instruments because high tech manufacturing produces instruments that sound and play like they were made by machines.
This view that high tech produces instruments that sound an play like machines is highly reductionistic. If we understand how things work, we can improve it through that understanding.
You're missing my point completely. I'm not talking about an aluminum guitar that's good enough to run through a triple rectifier and effects chain on stage and look cool for the crowd. You may consider these high-quality, but I don't. This isn't a bad thing, there's obviously a lot of benefit to having cheaper alternatives on the market. I myself have owned a mid-market Ibanez for almost 10 years now that I absolutely love, but I don't pretend it can stand next to Steve Vai's Flo. I've had the fortune to play a few high-quality instruments in my lifetime, the most notable being a silver-plated Selmer Mk 6 alto sax produced in 1953, if I remember correctly. Most probably wouldn't understand the differences between that and even the next horn off the line, but there is a difference. High-tech manufacturing techniques are designed for consistency, which entirely ignores the fact that no 2 instruments will sound the same. When you're talking about instruments of this caliber it becomes much more complicated than just 'better' or 'worse', because they each have their own unique characteristics. A good instrument maker is able to craft an instrument whose unique subtleties complement each other. A machine is not capable of doing this yet; when you buy an instrument made by a machine, you get an instrument that sounds like whatever the machine happened to spit out. It might sound good, but it's more likely going to be a mess. When we can build a machine with good taste, things might change.
And you're missing my point completely too. The nature of the production, to me, is nearly irrelevant to the finished product. You're putting arbitrary parameters on the discussion, which is fine for your own points to be made, but I simply don't share the purist angle that you're going for, which, I must say, kind of rambles and doesn't make a lot of sense, other than "I know the difference and most people don't" which is a fallacy I don't care to engage.
This isn't a better/worse comparison. It's a differentiation-on-feel-and-sound comparison. The only thing this proves is that it's now possible to replicate the feel and sound of a Stradivarius to an impressive degree.
Double blind recorded audio tests often produce the same result: Listeners can't tell the difference between two DACs, two codecs, two amplifier mains cables(!) but as soon as the difference[s] are audible above a threshold, preference comes into play.
However a modern violin is produced, and however it is objectively 'better' than a Strad (if that's even possible to quantify) it will never be subjectively better for all players or listeners, if there is an audible difference - and therefore Strads will always be seen as the 'best'.
There is a great episode on Planet Money about Strads and other objects that have a high perceived value due to the history and branding that come with them.
They cite the same 2012 Indianapolis study mentioned in this article. The researchers have an amazing eye for detail. A perfume was applied to all violin's chin rests so that musicians would not be able to tell them apart based on smell. Tells you a lot about brand perception using all our senses.
Planet money's coverage is great; I think a bunch of the posts below would be answered by listening to the podcast.
One of the main things I remember taking away from the podcast was that the soloists in the study were not the most famous "best" violinists in the world (they may not even have been professionals?). One of the violin makers they interviewed thought this was the biggest weakness of the study, and he was confident he could tell the difference (not that that means too much).
similar to say katanas - best hand-made today are probably better than best of the past (after few hundred centuries steel is not the same, even if blade was very well taken care of).
yet old preserved blades are priced as luxury collectibles, not only due to interest of various anime watchers. and all they do is to collect dust on somebody's wall
Yep, just like all the most-capable and beautiful cars in the world which sit in private collections not being driven. At least violins get played for the most part :)
I always thought it'd be depressing to be a Ferrari engineer or in a similar position of making things great when you know the most of them will never be used anywhere near their potential, or worst-case never used and hoarded for profit by rich investors collecting trinkets they know little about. You're also undoubtedly aware of the types of buyers who e.g. Get a LaFerrari crash it on the turn exiting the dealership ( http://m.sfgate.com/world/article/1-5-million-Ferrari-wrecke... ) . IMO that would make it hard to care about my work, knowing that wholly-underserving drivers are smashing these functional works of art. Just because you can afford one of the fastest vehicles out there doesn't mean you're at all qualified to drive it.
There's a certain moment in the game Cave Story where you can come back to the gunsmith who you stole your initial weapon from. He begins by being irritated at you, but then notices that the weapon has collected obvious signs of being extremely thoroughly-used. This cheers him up, and he repairs/upgrades the gun and returns it to you.
Cave Story has a Japanese author, and Japan more generally seems to think quite a bit about how tools are treated over their "lives." I'm not sure if there's a specific term in Japanese for the particular sensation of "knowing that your craftsmanship is being put to use." But there is the concept of a tsukumogami—a tool that has had so much use put into it for so long that it has become imbued with its own soul. Such objects are sometimes given funerals when they break, etc.
I've been playing guitar (and other stringed && fretted instruments) for around 23 years (including a music major in college).
I don't think old guitars are inherently better, and I have gotten my hands on some rather amazing pieces (1914 Gibson Loar F5, 1959 Les Paul, 1955 Telecaster, etc) and they were really fun. I've also played some guitars that people like collecting that were absolute garbage instruments, including a 1966 Gibson 330 that was just horrid.
But here's the weird thing that I do not understand, the hallmark of a great guitar to me isn't the sound, it's the "songs stored in it". Yea, that's some hippie-woo-bullshit, but almost every guitar I pick up that I like has me instantly playing something that I've never played before in my life. Some guitars, despite being technically excellent, just don't have them in there. Other guitars, if I pick them up in the studio I've suddenly written some really interesting pieces.
This probably actually just comes down to comfort, feedback loop response of sound, weight, small details, etc. I don't think there's any memory to an instrument that stores these; but at the same time, I can go through a wall of guitars and pick out my favorite ones this way. There is only a slight correlation to price/age on these.
I was in a music store six months ago buying strings for my old squire electric. I was planning on actually sitting down and learning guitar -finally- after years of procrastination. As I approached the register I saw an old Danelectro convertible from 1966 hanging by the counter. Now I hadn't really any chops at all, I could bang on G C F progressions but not much else. But when I picked up that guitar I immediately played a beautiful country twanging melody and I was able to ride it into a nice satisfying ending. The guy behind the desk was surprised and starting asking me if I played in any bands / made musician small talk. I didn't know what to say, but I bought that guitar and have been playing on it so much since. Before that, I had been unable to concentrate and maintain a practice regimen past two weeks.
A poor craftsman might blame his tools, but the best tools do have history and lineage to them.
I like how you act as though I don't know what a good melody sounds like. I've been playing piano for years, just never was good with guitar. Also linking to post-season 12 simpsons? ew
Hi there fellow picker, I'm in about the same range of time with a guitar in my hands. Extensive bouts of hours upon hours in the woodshed. Bought & sold my fair share of different types. Just love playing more than anything.
I'm actually second generation and my Dad worked in a music shop & as a guitar teacher back in the 65-70 period of time. He routinely commented to me that some instruments were just horrible quality to deal with. Low tech and low standards of production. He could understand the "rarity" or "scarcity" value (though hated the inflated prices non-playing collectors did to guitars) but told me time and again that better construction techniques of today are worth appreciating.
And, honest to goodness, I've got a similar voodoo-like relationship regarding one particular guitar of his. It's a 1981 Fender Strat Elite, an un-loved high-end thing he picked up and just kept around. It's got this weird triangular 'V' cut to the neck, a hard ebony fretboard, and when the garbage floating trem is locked down, it plays like nothing else. I've written more riffs, ideas, and can do so again and again without fail every time I touch it. The strangest thing, and while I don't care to put a technical description on why it's magic (I do like the Washburn Dime Custom Shop necks, which also had a pronounced 'V'), I can't deny there's just something to the relationship. Cool to see it's not just me.
Regarding "songs stored in it", I've also found that certain guitars, as well as certain amp / head / mic combos inspire certain styles. For instance, I was fiddling around a few months ago and somehow managed to replicate very closely the sound that Neil Young used for a lot of the Dead Man soundtrack (I was messing around with a Gibson LP Junior, Marshall JTM45 re-issue amp, Marshall MX112 cab, Rode NT3 off-axis mic). This inspired me to improvise for hours around the main theme from Dead Man.
Strangely, I then moved to my favorite acoustic (Maton 1973 CW80) and discovered that it loves being played in the same style! I'd never assumed that a piece that relies so heavily on dissonant electric reverb would translate so well to a clean acoustic sound. I now tend to improvise on my Maton in a completely different style as I've discovered that it has a whole new family of "songs stored in it"!
Regarding price/age to quality, one of my most played guitars is actually a cheap nylon Martinez (around $150) that I bought so I could take it camping etc. and not worry about it being broken or stolen. It's got a great sound, and is incredibly playable.
One of my pet theories is that the 'vintage era' guitars were mostly made with old growth timber. These days, unless you're dealing with extremely specialist woods (like ash that's sat under a swamp for centuries), that's just not the case.
Funnily enough, that has come up in the history of replicating the Stradivarius. One theory I remember was that there was a mold or fungus in the wood he used that trees don't have anymore.
That's a good story. Personally I always figured Slash could play an Epi as well as a Gibson. But my modest abilities probably need a more expensive guitar as a talisman. This is good news for the makers of expensive guitars.
I've never understood the mismatch in this test. Inability to distinguish isn't the same as "being better" (strictly speaking, it's pretty much the opposite). What if people could tell Stradivarius from modern violins, because modern violins sounded better?
I understand that this test proves that modern violins sound just as good as Stradivarius, but how do you tell which sounds better? I guess you make a blind test where you ask people which of the two things they like best...
The test says that they couldn't distinguish if the violins were old or new, but they got 31/33 guesses wrong, which is a 93% failure rate, a.k.a. 93% success rate, far higher than the 50% you'd expect by chance.
They seem to be conflating two tests, one being "Can you tell which violin is new?" and one being "Which one do you prefer?"
Maybe the title should be "blind-tested soloists overwhelmingly prefer modern violins to Stradivarius".
> I understand that this test proves that modern violins sound just as good as Stradivarius, but how do you tell which sounds better?
> this test proves that modern violins sound just as good as Stradivarius
> how do you tell which sounds better?
The test just proved that neither sounds better, that modern ones sound just as good. The same level of sounding good means neither one is better than the other, right?
Edit: also, FTA -- "In total, 33 of the soloists’ guesses were wrong and 31 right, with 5 indeterminate." That's about 50/50 not 93%. They are the same. There is no difference except lore.
There were two tests, one to distinguish strad from modern, one to score which instrument musicians liked best. In the first, they didn't get 31 of 33 wrong, they got 33 wrong and 31 right, virtually a 50/50 split. In the preference test, modern violins placed first and second, with the top place substantially above the others, though the article doesn't give the full score breakdown.
Yeah, I misread the 31/33 thing as a ratio, thanks for clarifying. Good breakdown of the rest of the article as well, it makes more sense the way you present it, the article was going back and forth between the tests a bit.
I'd prefer your title. It seems more honest, and there's no reason to say that's not the case.
But I think pointing out that musicians can't distinguish between these instruments is essential to debunking this notion that Strads are somehow uniquely better than anything else.
Turns out, Strads are high end violins that sound great after two hundred years. If you're a professional violinist, don't waste your money to "further your career."
Since people are irrational, playing, or listening to music on a Stradivarius might create a more pleasurable experience, despite sounding qualitatively equivalent.
Likewise owning one.
It wont make you sound better but it will almost certainly make peope enjoy listening to you more... You know unless they percieve you as a pretentious snot at least.
There's also a distinction to be made between the questions "does a Stradivarius sound different than a modern violin" and "can a performer successfully identify a Stradivarius?"
Supposing that a performer does not in fact know what a Stradivarius sounds like and is unable to determine which violin is the Stradivarius does not mean that the Stradivarius does not in fact sound different from a modern instrument never mind which one of those sounds "better".
(I believe there was also a problem with the original test that I don't know if they addressed this time around, which is that it's pretty hard to get permission even to do things like change the strings on a very old violin. So, if they're testing a Stradivarius with old strings against a modern violin with new strings, that's not exactly a fair test.)
According to the article they really did prefer modern instruments.
>The results revealed the two most-preferred instruments to be modern, while in third place was a violin from Stradivari’s ‘golden period’. At the opposite end of the scale a Stradivari drew the poorest result and a modern instrument was placed second-last.
But they couldn't distinguish which instruments were which reliably. Suggesting that even if there is a preference, it's very weak and probably doesn't matter very much.
As a professional violinist who's played both a Strad and a del Gesu (and who spent several months with a 1770 Nicolo Gagliano), and who studies with someone whose daily driver is a del Gesu (and who's been playing antique Cremonese instruments for the past 25 years), I always have problems with this sort of study.
As my teacher put it, "Modern instruments may have a voice that's as good as an antique's, but they only have the one voice. Due to how age works with violins, antique violins have many beautiful voices. In a couple hundred years a 21st century instrument with the same craftsmanship and material quality as Strads and del Gesus—and these instruments do exist—will be as good as a the Strads and del Gesus do now. But right now that's not the case."
And I've found this to be true myself. When I pick up a modern violin it might take some time to figure out how to make it sound best, but then I'm done. With an antique instrument, it turns into this indefinitely-long relationship where I continuously learn new things and find new voices and tone colors in the instrument. When I returned the aforementioned Gagliano after three months of heavy use, I felt like I'd only just begun to discover the range it had available.
And it really is about age for age's sake, not quality. I own a good-but-not-great Edinburgh-made violin from 1807 appraised at $15K, and I've seriously played a modern-made violin appraised for $60K. The "default voice" of the $60K violin is better, but the antique instrument is definitely the more versatile one.
I know we like to be objective and scientific here on HN, but don't discard the fuzzy talk of "forming a relationship with the violin" too soon. Even if we don't understand the science behind it yet, it seems that there's something to it.
A better experiment that'll never happen because of logistics:
Present a professional violinist with ten antique violins, ten modern violins, and a range of high-quality bows (the bow plays a HUGE role in how the violin sounds and responds). Give him/her a few hours to choose the favorite of each type of violin and a complementing bow. Let him/her play both violins for a year and then report back on which was preferred. Repeat for a statistically-significant number of violinists.
> the antique instrument is definitely the more versatile
Not definitely. Only subjectively with an n=1 and botched experimental design. Please repeat blinded, a statistically-significant number of times with different violonists.
What I think your comment is missing is that the placebo effect is real even if it isn't useful in all cases. Music playing requires a large amount of mental activity across many centers of the brain as well as training and practice to improve muscle memory.
Double-blind trials aren't necessarily the gold standard when there are so many different variables across individuals that can't be controlled and the entire mental process for such a complex idea is not even close to being completely understood.
I suspect there might be something to that. I worked as a professional musician in an orchestra for a while before tinnitus ended my career. I played a professional bassoon by Fox (an american company that makes good bassoons) and switched to the "original" bassoon maker - Heckel. Even though both instruments were new, and even though the "base sound" of the fox was good - if not even better than my heckel - I very much preferred the Heckel. Even though the basic sound was maybe a bit worse on the heckel, the posibilities were greater.
That is an important part of what constitutes a good instrument.
So essentially the only difference between the test that you proposed and what was conducted is that yours is longer and the conducted test was double blind?
if you allow me a devil's advocate comment, don't you think the fact that playing a modern violin and figuring out how to making it sound the best and being 'done' could be because the modern violin is constructed better?
If a modern violin has tighter tolerances maybe it is less sensitive to moisture / temperature changes, making it sound 'the same' under a larger set of conditions than the antique instrument.
The antique instrument being less 'perfect' could be more sensitive to day-to-day environmental changes, making it more challenging to play (as you have to learn to compensate for these) but not necessarily because it is a better instrument, but possibly because it is a worse one technically speaking.
Now of course having an instrument that you have to 'figure out' all the time likely makes you a much better player, able to adapt to other instruments more easily and so on, so it might well be that a 'less perfect' instrument is the superior one, but just wondering about this
What were the circumstances around your playing of a Strad? Are there special protocols for handling it, traveling with it? That sounds pretty interesting.
In truth it would be rather embarrassing if a top of the line modern violin could not at least equal a Stradivarius. Besides the world economy being much stronger, the technological advancements and the sheer degree of knowledge transfer makes it almost inevitable.
Anyone can fire up youtube and immediately peer into the workshops of master luthiers. I bet you could take a couple million and build a top class violin workshop from scratch in just a few years.
Imagine how cool it would be if the big SV aristocracy instead of spending millions on building sailboats, they'd invest in developing musical instruments? As much faster the USA-17 is than any hundred year old yacht, as much more beautiful a violin could be than a stradivarius.. perhaps.
Growing up, I still remember articles about the "lost art of making violins" and how there was all this speculation about what made them so special. Was it a chemical or fungus in the river the logs were floated in? Some lost technique? A particular sequence of aging, resting, bending the wood?
Turns out it's none of that and just branding (albeit branding around having a great product at that point in history).
Isn't the appeal of a strad much more "I am playing an instrument which was built in the 17th century, one that has been played by hundreds of years worth of masters, played for kings and queens, played almost exclusively by people who have dedicated their lives to the same thing I have dedicated my life to", and not "sure sounds better than the other ones!"?
If I could sit down at Da Vinci's desk, in his library...don't you think the importance of that would be the history behind it, and absolutely not that somehow the lighting in the library made reading better, or the sound of the birds outside made retaining information easier or some silliness like that?
Strads, like really anything else related to art, are about context.
In Man in the High Castle, Philip K Dick calls this historicity. A shopkeeper shows two necklaces, indistinguishable from each ither but one was worn by Sitting Bull and the other is a fake. One has historicity and the other is basically worthless. But the knowledge of the historicity is inspiring and makes it valuable. The power of human perspective.
I like the idea that if you took both necklaces and shuffled them around in a way that neither you nor the shopkeeper knew which was which and then gave them both back to him, you would have essentially robbed him without taking anything from him.
Something I don't see mentioned here, that I remember from when this first came out, was that the modern violins were $100,000+ instruments, not just run-of-the-mill violins.
I do wonder how much this effect extends down to more moderately priced violins. I remember reading about a similar experiment where wine experts couldn't distinguish between wines at different price points very accurately (and some couldn't even distinguish between reds and whites!).
I am a little suspicious of those wine studies given that master sommeliers can identify vineyard and vintage in blind tastings with reasonable accuracy. Different wines taste fundamentally different. Saying people can't distinguish between red and white is like saying people can't distinguish between Bud Lite and Guinness.
Who were these "experts" really? Restaurant critics? Even some wine critics I could believe, but not wine experts.
I believe the subjects where students studying wine rather than industry experts and a common criticism of the study is that the subjects where afraid of saying something 'stupid' (like "this red wine tastes like white") in front their professor, and instead went for the safe answer.
Good point, but a well conducted study should be anonymous and shouldn't include the professor inside the room. I doubt that the professor conducted the study (his phd students more likely did)
The second study had random students (not trained ones)
I doubt that the professor conducted the study (his phd students more likely did)
Still looking like an idiot in front of your professor's PhD students (and suspecting they'll be laughing about you over drinks later that evening) probably isn't much better.
I remember reading about this study. They conducted the study at the oenology school that was right next to my engineering school. I vaguely remember that they used the student from the same oenology school for one of the study.
I read similar studies conducted with wine experts, the conclusions were similar, it's about expectation. Maybe few people with extraordinary taste buds could tell the difference, but the general population won't.
Here was a video I found interesting, of some sommeliers who seem to have really good accuracy with regard to the wine they are tasting. It's not adequately double blinded, so I hope someone replicates this as a study: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBi9PfZve84.
It does make me hope for more investigation: the white/red study was fascinating, but we really need more work to narrow down in which cases wine experts can be accurate or inaccurate.
This study used oenology undergraduates at the University of Bordeaux. I guess I would consider them wine experts (relative to me) but the industry would not.
"CHEMICAL OBJECT REPRESENTATION IN THE FIELD OF CONSCIOUSNESS"
I'd say, without reading the paper, that seems more like an experiment in psychology than in man's ability to perceive tastes. Can you trick your brain into believing something is something else by making it look like that? Seems like you can.
"A white wine .. colored red.. was described as a red wine.."
Were they wrong?
There's a reason the Stradivarius testers are blindfolded.
Also reminds me of the McGurk effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGurk_effect). If you present a stimuli outside the usual sample space, it's not clear that the responses are "wrong".
That may be pointing out the lack of expertise of the tasters.
Aren't red vs white wines different things? I'm not at all a regular wine drinker with a sophisticated appreciation of the nuances, but I can pick up lots of different tastes between different wines.
There's a huge difference in taste between heavily wooded wines (e.g. Many reds and most Chardonnays) and wines made in stainless steel containers (e.g. most Sauvignon blancs) and it would be easy for anyone to tell them apart. But the taste difference between two wooded wines is far subtler.
Red and white wines are both made from red grapes, the difference is that for red wines the juice is steeped in the grape skins which causes it to absorb tannins. If you learn to taste tannins you should be reasonably good at picking red from white, but the flavor from wood in young barrels is similar.
From what I understand, the modern violins in this price range tend to be completely handcrafted by luthiers. (Actually $100K sounds high. Googling, it seems possible to get handmade violins for $10-$25K. See this quest: http://www.violinist.com/blog/smileyh1/20095/10115/)
Luthier is definitely a skilled trade like any wood working, and I think it's easy for me to buy that an entirely hand-crafted product will have some "signatures" in tone and -- especially -- playability that, especially for the professional, might be worth paying for. (I know I definitely have some preferences in acoustic grands that boils down mostly to the nice playability of certain high end models, and I'm hardly a professional piano player!)
I also imagine that above a certain quality level, much lower costing products will often be entirely acceptable. Actually, like wines, I imagine in some cases people might actually prefer the tone of the cheaper product.
On the other hand, there's definitely a "too cheap" instrument level that's mostly for students / beginners.
One additional point concerning the violin market, too, I know that if you change the name of "violin" to "fiddle", you'll find very few bluegrass shops selling fiddles over $1K. :)
Thanks for the link to the Smiley Hsu "My Quest for a 'Professional' violin" article. Finally read it. Very interesting look into buying a pro-quality violin in which the author ended up liking a $12,000 violin more than the $150,000 ones.
If memory serves me right, one of the violins that came out on top in the original study was moderately priced (eg 1/10th the price) of the high-end models.
Does it need to be mentioned? It seems obvious that they be comparing with the best, not comparing with the $20 Friday Special from Joe's Discount Violins and Sheet Metal.
> Does it need to be mentioned? It seems obvious that they be comparing with the best, not comparing with the $20 Friday Special from Joe's Discount Violins and Sheet Metal.
I think so. "Modern instruments" is a very wide span, and leaving it off lets people conclude what they want about the instruments. See, for instance, other commenters concluding that this proves they're junk, or comparing them to $2000 cables equivalent in effectiveness to $5 cables. Instead, these are $million instruments, with hundreds of years of history, and also sound as good as very expensive modern instruments.
The follow-up study seemed to ask a similar question.
So these studies tried to find out which violins are most popular among high class violin players, not (primarily) whether they were able to tell the difference.
I've read elsewhere about the first study that the the participants were quite surprised that people thought they couldn't identify the Stradivarius, because they were never asked to.
In this study they did both, they had a long session where the players where asked to rank the instruments based on how they liked them (and rate various characteristics like loudness and timbre), then at the end they had a "new or old" question:
"Next they were presented with a series of violins (one at a time, in random order) and given 30 s to play each one before guessing what kind of instrument it was. If a soloist was unclear about the meaning of the question, he/she was prompted to guess whether the violin was new or old. The series consisted of (i) that player’s favorite old violin; (ii) the player’s favorite new violin; (iii) an old and a new violin the player found unsuitable; (iv) the old violin and the new violin that, in session 1, were most often included in top-four lists and that were on average most highly ranked within those lists; and (v) the old and the new violin that were most often rejected as unsuitable in session 1."
Another issue with the 2010 study is that the performers were not allowed to tune or adjust the Strads in any way, but could do so with the new ones, so the old violins sounded objectively worse. And yes, they could absolutely tell which was which, and that the modern ones sounded better often due to the fine tuning in the setup.
I've owned cheap guitars and I have a "nice" Fender. I'd much rather play the Fender. But as any guitar player will tell you, you can put a cheap Strat knock-off in Jimi Hendrix's hands and it will still sound like Jimi playing his Strat.
Conversely, a Yehudi Menhuin or a Joshua Bell need a good instrument. At their level of playing, little things affect their performance.
That's the crux I believe. A beginner player would not appreciate the difference between a $200 guitar and a $2000 guitar. Someone struggling to find the finger positions for a simple chord isn't going to notice the action, fret shape, fingerboard radius, tonewoods etc. Only a player who is trying to get that last 2% of tone out of the instrument will appreciate the subtleties.
I am guessing they didn't compare cheap student violins against the Stradivarius, otherwise I am sure any reasonably competent violinist could tell immediately.
Modern construction method, including CNC machines can certainly make instruments a lot better than they did 'back in the day'. Check out Youtube for videos of the first guitars made at the Fender factory - those workers were freehand cutting the body shapes on a jig saw. No consistency at all. As much as a '56 Strat or a '59 Les Paul is in demand today, I bet there were a lot of dogs among the ones made back then.
I am sure there are thousands of violin makers today who can make a violin as good as a Strad. However, I've heard rumours that Stradivarius made his from wood that was thousands of years old that was extracted from a glacier - perhaps that is the special 'magic' that no one else can replicate?!?
As a counterpoint, when I was a young student learning the trumpet, my learning took a big jump forward when I switched to a professional-grade instrument.
Every small improvement in technique was matched by an immediate response from the instrument, giving me much better feedback on what to do right. I imagine the same is true when learning to race cars. You can learn a lot driving an Escort, but you'll learn a lot faster driving a Corvette.
Hmmmm. Yeah, probably with subtle differences. For example, you'd probably want a proper track-prepped car to learn on, because the feedback to your inputs is just, frankly, BETTER. You don't necessarily want a "faster" (eg, more powerful) car, because the power hides your corner speed mistakes. Hence the aphorism "it's better to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow". But overall, I think you're right, driving a tool that's better for the job probably makes you learn a lot faster.
> A beginner player would not appreciate the difference between a $200 guitar and a $2000 guitar. Someone struggling to find the finger positions for a simple chord isn't going to notice the action, fret shape, fingerboard radius, tonewoods etc.
This is a common thing to say, but it's untrue. A cheap and nasty instrument will have bad features that are noticeable even to beginners. Things like poor quality finishing, hardware that rattles, sharp edges on the edge of the fretboard where the frets haven't been smoothed off properly, etc, etc, and it's really uninspiring if your guitar isn't enjoyable to hold. Even more "advanced" things like having the right action or a comfortable neck radius are noticeable early on. Tuning heads are another big one, cheap tuning heads are awful (the difference between good and bad ones is like night and day), and if your guitar is constantly going out of tune due to that or something else, and if you're not completely tone deaf, you will notice and it will annoy you.
I do agree that a badly made guitar will certainly hamper a beginner from enjoying the experience, but I was more talking about a reasonably made 'cheap' guitar - production of Chinese and Indonesian guitars these days is remarkably good (and consistent).
One situation that highlights my argument is: I was talking to my guitar teacher the other day, who is a monster player. He had a well known maker build him a Les Paul style guitar, but when he received it, he had a hard time getting used to playing it - something seemed off. He sat down with the builder and went over the guitar with a fine tooth comb (literally - the used a set of calipers), and discovered that the 'B' string slot on the bridge was out of place about one string width. One millimetre out, and he could feel that something was wrong.
To an intermediate player like me, I probably would never have detected that - my playing style and speed is not at the level where that would even make a difference to me.
> As much as a '56 Strat or a '59 Les Paul is in demand today, I bet there were a lot of dogs among the ones made back then.
Most of them are awful - construction-wise. (But to some, that's the lure.) I would much rather own an electric guitar or a tube amp made in the last 15 years than one from 1974.
I'm a bit confused about your post. Hendrix doesn't need a good instrument but Menhuin or Bell does? Are you saying that Hendrix is not as relatively technically skilled with his instrument as a classical player? Or that there is a fundamental difference in the type of music that does not require a good instrument?
A cliche every guitar-player loves to spout is "tone is in the fingers, not gear". A good guitarist will sound 5x better playing on cheap gear than a mediocre player on expensive gear. That doesn't however mean a cheap guitar will let a great guitarist express all his ideas well. When Jimi went from playing back-up on all those R&B records to playing a new sound, his equipment changed too. So gear did matter.
Similar with photographers. People who see a beautiful photo and say "Wow, that's amazing, you must have a fantastic camera!" - huh. "Do you see an amazing painting and say 'wow, you must have a fantastic brush'?".
Actually he got his first Strat only in 1966. But that doesn't mean much - he was playing Jaguars and Jazzmasters before, which weren't shoddy.
But to an electric guitar player, the amps and effects are as much part of the gear as the guitar itself. His "rock gear" really came together in 1966-67.
Yes, I'm still confused as well. By the phrasing, it sounds like HenryTheHorse is saying Yehudi Menhuin and Joshua Bell are different than Jim Hendrix (Menhuin and Bell are better?), but that seems to go against the first sentences.
Hendrix's music is not even nearly as technical and perfectionist as classical music. The former was not a perfect instrumentalist, but his overall singing, composition and style made him the figure he is, whereas the latter is valued on a mostly technical basis.
I'd disagree. Exaggerated for effect, but take this clip from It Might Get Loud (where U2's Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White get together to talk guitars), where Jack White talks specifically about making music with crappy instruments (in this scene a home-made 'guitar' with a Coke bottle, in another, a beat up player/upright piano):
Some notes. The study started with a pool of 13 new and 9 old instruments, and pre-selected down to the test set of the best 6 new and 6 old among these.
Among the test set, new instruments had a slightly higher average score than old ones, and the top two instruments were new. But all soloists picked a mix of new and old instruments in their top 4, and in the overall rankings new and old are well mixed. From high to low based on combined session scores, the list goes NNOONNOONONO.
Of the soloists, 7 prefer an old instrument for their performances, 2 a new one, and 1 switches between an old and new.
I'm tempted to believe these results, as I suspect a lot of the reputation of stradivarius violins is overblown. However, there is almost always a huge problem with these sorts of tests: the pepsi challenge problem. With subjective measurements it can often be difficult to robustly test the differences between two things in a short sample period. People may say one or another sounds better but that might only apply for a small sample. Or, people may just be unable to explicitly say which one they actually prefer when confronted with the choice in the moment. Whereas with regular use over extended periods of time they may be able to develop a stronger preference and be able to pick out differences explaining that preference.
As a sort of proof of concept, aurally, I've noticed that there are several popular songs which have very distinctive audio glitches in them (typically high pitched beeps). The thing is, these glitches are not noticeable by most people when casually listening (testified by the fact that the songs are out in public release with such glitches) but once you notice them you begin to notice them every time, and it detracts from the enjoyment of the song. Similar effects on a subtler level surely exist for almost all music, so I wouldn't take the idea that listening to two separate samples of music and being forced to express a preference in the moment is at all a reasonable measurement except in more pronounced cases.
I'm very sceptical of experiment design that relies on self-reporting. It is super-easy to get people to accept amazingly compromised compressed versions of original visual and audible information.
But what is that measuring? That we can't sense the difference? That information from our senses is lost when encoding it in our nervous system? That our conscious minds cannot introspect or report the difference? We know our conscious minds are unreliable reporters of what our subconscious is doing or deciding. On the other hand it is easy to show that the scene we think we are seeing is created in the mind. It is easy to trick a person into thinking identical shading is different, and different shading identical. What does that actually tell us about how to compress video?
I would prefer to go with physiology. If our sense organs can resolve it, and the nervous system can delivery the sensory information, the information is important, no matter what words our unreliable consciousness says.
Interestingly, not even the maker of the top instrument (which garnered 26 points against the Stradivarius) knows about the result. It was deliberately kept hidden.
I really hope they let the world know - something this good needs to be celebrated and rewarded. It is unfair otherwise.
No, the test doesn't show that Stradivarius violins are junk but rather that the best violins by modern violin makers are able to challenge and surpass Stradivarius violins.
It's not a good comparison because there's much more range in instrument quality than cable quality.
"Audiophile speaker cables" carry the stigma that they do because the luxury versions aren't better than the "minimum viable product" versions in appreciable ways. Instruments, violins included, see a massive range in quality between the things you would consider functional violins and very well-made violins.
The complaint about audiophile speaker cables is that they don't produce a difference in result that even trained sound engineers would be able to reliably identify. Whereas any reasonably experienced violinist or even any reasonably experienced musician would be able to tell you about the difference between a bad and a good violin by listening to them. The differences between the best violins might be hard to identify, but there's still a substantial range of quality levels.
No, I would instead state is as modern expensive violins are of the same quality if not better. However you first have to remove the cues players have in identifying the violin they are using to remove inherent bias
a recording of that soloist can be made indistinguishable from the actual performance, i think we need to accept that there is some value to the soloist and the audience in being in a room with such a piece of history and craftsmanship.
Perhaps. What we don't need to accept are the claims of Stradivarius fanbois that insist there is some unquantifiable aural superiority to their favorite instrument that only they have been blessed with the ability to perceive. It's bunk, and this study has been a small victory for rational thinking. So feel free to cling to whatever intangible you wish, but I feel no loss here; I celebrate whenever we can finally dispense with yet another fetid accumulation of nonsense and its purveyors.
one way to think about these results is, despite knowing a lot more about theory of sound and music and having access to much more sophisticated manufacturing, modern violin makers are unable to create violins that are better than a 300 old violin. That's a pretty good reason to stick to what you know
The goal isn't to make the objectively best violin, it's to clone a Stradivarius. Stradivarius violins are widely considered to be the best, so any deviation from them must make the violin worse. Branding is more important than sound quality.
Another way to think about them is that the best craftsmen of a few hundred years ago can make violins that are every bit as good as the ones we do today, but the difference is that we can crank them out (as far as $100,000 objects can be "cranked out") to an extent unimaginable by Stradivarius or his contemporaries. After all, $100,000 is cheaper than most dwellings in the developed world, whereas even during his lifetime a Stradivarius violin would have cost much more than an average house.
this is not the issue. Stradivarius violins are in private collectors' hands and collectors let famous violinists play those violins. The issue is, should those violinists switch to a brand new violin? this experiment provides no evidence that it's necessary
There has long been a received wisdom among a subset of audiophiles that the best records ever made were the RCA shaded dog Living Stereo from the late 1950s and early 60s. This guy opened my eyes to the bunk:
Ultimately these tests only reveal the biases of the players. They will prefer – and actually perform better with – that which they believe to be configured in a certain way, regardless of whether it is in reality or not. We had one prototype that us engineers hated to death because the only difference between it and the rest was that it was a different colour, but ALL the players hailed it as the golden standard.
The same goes for the famous 'Does Fuck All' button on recording mixing desks, which you can use to tell players that you've made the change that they wanted to satisfy them. And also when you're buying speakers it's very common to be shown the same set of speakers three times and have three opinions.
I just recently tour managed a friend and would set up her mic sound every night, and each time I would need to play some sort of subtle trick with her so that she felt things were just right. No amount of 'rational tweaking' could achieve the same.