by coffeesp00ns

The final results showed that one modern instrument garnered a total of 26 points, being the top choice for four players, second choice for another four, and rejected by two. Conversely, a Stradivari ended up with a score of -9. Its closest rival was a modern instrument, which had a score of -7.

The results revealed the two most-preferred instruments to be modern, while in third place was a violin from Stradivari’s ‘golden period’. At the opposite end of the scale a Stradivari drew the poorest result and a modern instrument was placed second-last.

I had a lot of problems with how the previous study was marketed and conducted, and as before, the title of this article is misleading. The testers were asked to rank the instruments in the order of what they preferred, and the "Name the strad" portion was a more minor element. Indeed, in the article, the only part I can see that mentions it is this:

At the end of the test the players were given a series of violins and 30 seconds to decide whether it was old or new.

and the results of that question are not listed in the article. These authors have proved, without a doubt, that there's nothing overly special about Strads to make them a preferred performance instrument, but they have yet to (in my opinion) prove that people can't tell what they are as compared to others, at least not in the data that they have released

Thoughts? Any Acoustic engineers want to weigh in?