Blind-tested soloists unable to tell Stradivarius from modern violins
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 <i>could</i> tell Stradivarius from modern violins, because modern violins sounded better?<p>I understand that this test proves that modern violins sound just as good as Stradivarius, but how do you tell which sounds <i>better</i>? I guess you make a blind test where you ask people which of the two things they like best...<p>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.<p>They seem to be conflating two tests, one being "Can you tell which violin is new?" and one being "Which one do you prefer?"<p>Maybe the title should be "blind-tested soloists overwhelmingly prefer modern violins to Stradivarius".<p>/rambling