Claudia Fritz is my new hero.

For the first time a researcher had the idea of studying the consumer part (the violinist's reaction) and not the object itself.

Can the best musicians tell the difference between a high quality old Italian violin and a high quality modern one?

Claudia Fritz has been fascinated by what we perceive as beautiful sound, and decided to ask very powerful questions to a selected group of musicians.  In this was helped by violin maker Joseph Curtin, Jacques Poitevineau, Palmer Morrel-Samuels and Fan Tao from D'Addario Strings.  Here are the questions:

* If you could go home with one of these violins, which one would you choose? Why?

* Which are the best and the worst instruments in terms of projection?

* Which are the best and the worst instruments in terms of playability?

* Which are the best and the worst instruments in terms of range of tonal colors?

* Which are the best and the worst instruments in terms of response?

and a detail account of this study.

What is your opinion?