stradivarius

The grandparents is implying that the price of Stradivarius violins is also based on assumed rather than proven quality.

The prices of the Stradivarius violins are as reasonable as the price of Van Goghs and vintage wines.

Wait, just by chance it looks like there was a 4/5 chance that the Stradivarius would loose/be outdone.

But, there is a difference between the Stradivarius scenario, as you've put it, and the Steve Jobs quote.

There were several A/B tests with Stradivarius and most professional violinists couldn't even tell them apart from regular violins.

What we have proved is that ONE GUY plays a new violin as well as he plays the stradivarius.

It's the Daily Mail; we should be just happy they aren't claiming playing a Stradivarius causes cancer.

A fair number (unsure of the proportion) of Stradivarius instruments actually are played.

There's a reason nobody has ever cheapened the Stradivarius by creating new technology.

In what ways does a Stradivarius sound different from a normal violin?

Stealing a 6 million dollar stradivarius is an incredibly stupid idea, really.

Getting the chance to play a Stradivarius instrument is a distinctive honor.

That "varnish" theory of the Stradivarius isn't current, by the way, perhaps because of the very results you refer to.

None of the listeners identified more than two of the four instruments; two of the listeners identified the 20th-century violin as the Stradivarius." This suggests that there isn't much of a difference between the instruments.

From "The Acoustical Foundations of Music" by John Backus, page 207: For example, the excellent quality of Stradivarius violins has been attributed to a varnish of almost magical properties used by the old instrument makers, whose secret has been lost.

When asked which violin was their favorite: "[T]he 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." So while there were some brilliant violins produced at the time – certainly an accomplishment based on the resources available – we can also make some pretty good ones today.

The truth is, Joshua Bell playing a swinette would sound better than me on a Stradivarius.

Stradivarius was on a mission to build the most beautiful and melodious violins ever made.

Stradivarius could not have known how his fiddles would sound today.