When Fritz asked the players which violins they’d like to take home, almost two-thirds chose a violin that turned out to be new. She’s found the same in tests with other musical instruments. “I haven’t found any consistency whatsoever,” she says. “Never. People don’t agree. They just like different things.”
In fact, the only statistically obvious trend in the choices was that one of the Stradivarius violins was the least favorite, and one of the modern instruments was slightly favored.
via npr.org
Demonstrates the importance and power of double-blind testing to get at the truth, which in this case, is that Stradivarius violins do not have an appreciably better sound than modern violins.
