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Test your ear.
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ozmous

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June 14, 2013 - 12:32 am
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here's a very good test if you know what a Strad, a 19th century german, and a $39 violin sounds like;

http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graph.....index.html

surprisingly, I got it the first time, the sound was much obvious, specially with the $39 one, it sounded bulky and as if the sound was encased inside, the german one is darker and has a large, not much smooth sound, and the Strad has a thin smooth sound that seemed great for a chamber music.

 

 

cheers! - ⁰ℨ

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Feathers
Colorado, USA
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June 14, 2013 - 2:24 am
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I also got it right on the first try.

And I agree, the cheap one was easier to pick out. To my ear it sounded scratchy, and less controlled on some of the notes.

This was really interesting, thank you for sharing it.smile

"Music is what feelings sound like." ~ Author Unknown

 

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Kevin M.
Nicholson, Pa
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June 18, 2013 - 10:55 am
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The Stad was the only one I could listen to all the way through. The German had the usual D and G string sound of the German violins and the 39 dollar violin well it did make sounds.

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DanielB
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June 18, 2013 - 4:34 pm
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Well, I got the $39 one right.  LOL

For the other two, I haven't listened much to Strads in particular so far as I know.. So I figured the one I thought sounded best would be the Strad.  Apparently I just like the old German violin sound better.

Which is actually kinda cool, since I might be able to afford an old German violin someday, but a Stradivarius?  Probably not.  LOL 

 

"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman

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celticveil

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June 18, 2013 - 6:54 pm
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Hah, don't know how I managed it as I'm very new to this. I got all three right on the first go.

 

To me the cheapo sounded very scratchy and whiny on the high notes, the german was similar but not as bad and the strad was the best, so I guessed the worst sound had to be the cheapo, with the next worst being german, etc.

 

First time I've ever purposefully listened to a strad. I may have heard them elsewhere but never identified as a strad.

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Steve
Oregon
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June 18, 2013 - 7:57 pm
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Well, I surprised myself and got all three correct. Age, partial deafness and tinnitus notwithstanding, ha.laugh

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OldCrow

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June 18, 2013 - 9:34 pm
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This was conspicuously easy.  I wonder if the intent wasn't to proliferate the idea that Stradi's are the epitome of violins and nothing else compares, which simply isn't true.

 

Let's get a second opinion devil-violin

 

Let's take some sound samples of various violins all being played from the same impartial player.   

 

See if you can pick out which sound sample comes from the following instruments:

 

Cecilio CVN-200 $99.00

http://fiddlershop.com/instrum.....n-200.html

 

Fiddlerman Apprentice Violin $299.00

http://fiddlershop.com/fiddler.....iolin.html

 

Fiddlerman Soloist $1199.00

http://fiddlershop.com/fiddler.....iolin.html

 

Cremona Kreisler Violin $1,589.00

http://fiddlershop.com/instrum.....iolin.html

 

Sample A

https://soundcloud.com/alphacrow/a-1

 

Sample B

https://soundcloud.com/alphacrow/b

 

Sample C

https://soundcloud.com/alphacrow/c

 

Sample D

https://soundcloud.com/alphacrow/d

 

 

Good luck :)

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KindaScratchy
Massachusetts
June 18, 2013 - 9:58 pm
Member Since: March 14, 2012
Forum Posts: 1760
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I got it right on the first try, too. Before I started, I questioned how valid a test it would be, given that the recordings and on-line delivery might not represent the actual sound accurately. Nonetheless, there was a definite difference in sound quality. The cheap violin was fairly unpleasant to listen to. The German was better and the Strad was definitely best.

My husband and I attended an in-person blind test, comparing several Strads with several violins made by contemporary makers. The test was part of Mondo Musica New York this past March. Professional players played excerpts of the same pieces on all of the violins, which were rated by a panel of experts, and non-expert audience members (including us).

We were asked to rate the violins on various qualities like projection, and to guess which instruments were the Strads and which were modern.

We never got our personal results, so I don't if we guessed right, but the overall results showed a preference for the modern violins.

It was very interesting to participate.

When the work's all done and the sun's settin' low,

I pull out my fiddle and I rosin up the bow.

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DanielB
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June 18, 2013 - 10:18 pm
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Did anyone else notice that in the first test, the one with the 3 violins, that they also are not being played equally well?  There are quite a few points where it sounded like the non-Strads were being played intentionally a bit off, on not only intonation, but timing.  It may be too painful for some to listen all the way through the tracks, but if you jump to about the 30 second mark, you won't need to listen for even 10 seconds to hear what I'm talking about.

Now listen to Pierre playing the 99$ Cecilio.  I would bet that if you handed that 39$ violin from the test to Pierre, probably he couldn't make it sound really wonderful either, but it would be an even comparison and the differences would be in the actual sound of the instrument.  

Not sure why they would want to "slant" their little test like that, but it seems to me they did.

 

 

"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman

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Fiddlerman
Fort Lauderdale
June 19, 2013 - 10:15 pm
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Exactly Daniel. He is intentionally playing worse on the less expensive violins in the correct order.

However, these tests are no good. To begin with, there should not be a ton of reverb. They should play the instruments in a dryer room. Secondly, I don't think they should be playing a piece that is beyond his technical abilities. Something simple would have been adequate.

That's hilarious Al. LOL

I don't think I can answer those tests except that I remember what I played on the soloist review. LOL

A lot of what makes a violin great is it's ease of playability as well as it's sound. A lot of what makes up the sound of a violin cannot be reproduced in some of our lesser quality computer speakers and sound systems.

"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."

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ozmous

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June 20, 2013 - 12:32 am
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Aye, I do agree, if the violinist thinks that he's playing a cheap one, he wouldn't play it nicely, I think that they shouldn't tell what the violins are to the player, maybe let him/her play it with a blindfold....but anyway, some cheap violins have bad wormanship, i.e high nut, slipping pegs, hight and thick bridge, therefore, making it hard to play a nice sound.

cheers! - ⁰ℨ

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Mad_Wed
Russia, Tatarstan rep. Kazan city
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June 22, 2013 - 7:07 am
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DanielB said
Did anyone else notice that in the first test, the one with the 3 violins, that they also are not being played equally well?  There are quite a few points where it sounded like the non-Strads were being played intentionally a bit off, on not only intonation, but timing.  It may be too painful for some to listen all the way through the tracks, but if you jump to about the 30 second mark, you won't need to listen for even 10 seconds to hear what I'm talking about.

Now listen to Pierre playing the 99$ Cecilio.  I would bet that if you handed that 39$ violin from the test to Pierre, probably he couldn't make it sound really wonderful either, but it would be an even comparison and the differences would be in the actual sound of the instrument.  

Not sure why they would want to "slant" their little test like that, but it seems to me they did.

 

 

Yep. I thought at first that they gave those violins to the different violinists, with differnt skills level.dunno

It wasn't hard to guess, really. I'm not a fan of Strads, but this one definitelly wins!

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