Expert violinists can't tell old from new

In PNAS, Fritz et al. (1) follow up their groundbreaking 2012 paper with what will probably be the final nail in the coffin for those who would believe that old musical instruments sound demonstrably better than new instruments. Their study used six prized instruments, Stradivari and Guarneri “del Gesu” violins, and six modern violins. World class violinists who were literally blind to provenance (the violinists wore goggles that dramatically reduced their ability to see) were given two opportunities to play them: in a small salon and in a concert hall. They were allowed to bring a friend to act as a second judge. Their task was to rank order the violins in terms of desirability and to label them as old vs. new. These highly trained and highly discerning musicians utterly failed at detecting old vs. new and showed no consistent preferences [...