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.
