Originally Posted by
elcruxio
Yup. Modern top class violins are better in blind tests. Some of the materials are the same but the manufacturing methods (plate grading process etc) are vastly different and improved from stradivarius. Carbon fiber bows blowed past wood bows a long time a go. Modern strings are something Stadivarius could not have dreamt of.
Also carbon fiber violins, violas and cellos while different in tone can be considered to be superior in several different ways. But it of course depends on what sort of tone you want. Carbon fiber instruments project much better than wood ones. But you can't get a spruce top tone without a spruce top. . . .
Evidently the differences are diminishing. From
this page:
. . . Scientific tests on these prototypes are ongoing and include double-blind listening and playing tests as well as more objective measurements, such as modal analysis. Spruce performs well, as is to be expected, yet it doesn’t seem to stand out as the overall winner among these prototypes. Some materials, such as a carbon-Nomex sandwich, seem better suited to creating a louder violin, whereas the flax violin appears to have a warmer, rounder sound. The two violins from woven carbon sound somewhat similar to me – but just like having two wooden violins, they don’t sound exactly the same!