[Bored chemist]

. A professional flautist friend selects from her considerable collection according to the mood of the piece she is recording or performing.

Not really a proper controlled experiment. 

[alancalverd]

The control is exercised by her customers, who know what sound they want. Having heard her perform with various flutes in a single concert, I can vouch for the difference.

[Bored chemist]

Is your computer hooked up with silver wires and gold-plated plugs and sockets?
Their customers swear that they know what sound they want.

So...

Not really a proper controlled experiment.

[alancalverd]

I can only suggest that you talk to, or preferably listen to, a professional flautist. Two good choices are both American, both work in London, and are both called Nancy: Nancy Hadden and Nancy Ruffer. 

[Bored chemist]

I can only suggest that you talk to, or preferably listen to, a professional flautist.

I have.
But there's no point if my "tin ear" can't distinguish their silver flute.

I'm not interested in someone's subjectivity and bias; not even if it's my own.


Has anyone actually done a double blind trial?
This sort of thing always reminds me of audiofools and the cobblers talked by wine experts.

[paul cotter]

BC, while I agree wholeheartedly with your dismissal of audiophools and wine "experts" I feel Alan has a valid point. Two popular electric guitars are the fender Stratocaster and the Gibson les paul  and I, with my tone deaf ears, can distinguish them, unless the sound is heavily processed. The technical difference is in the pickup coils: the fender is a single coil job and the Gibson is a twin coil antiphase arrangement( as a hum cancellation effort ).

[Bored chemist]

The technical difference is in the pickup coils: the fender is a single coil job and the Gibson is a twin coil antiphase arrangement( as a hum cancellation effort ).

It's clear that a humbucker coil would make a difference.
What's less clear is that a few microns of silver plating on a tuba would make a difference.
Somewhere there''s a cut off of audibility.

Does a plastic saxophone sound different because it's made of plastic, or because it has thicker walled pipes or because it  looks tacky?

My point remains; until someone actually does a properly controlled experiment, we have not ruled out hype for silver flutes any more than we have ruled it out for gold plated fuses costing more than a car.

[Bored chemist]

Having heard her perform with various flutes in a single concert, I can vouch for the difference.

Are the instruments meaningfully different, or does she play them differently because they are different?
(Or even because she's playing a different piece of music?)
Good luck with the experimental design.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stradivarius#:~:text=The%20many%20blind%20experiments%20from,in%20numerous%20works%20of%20fiction.

[evan_au]

a plastic saxophone

Some researchers are 3D-printing plastic violins. They model the structure on computers, so the sound is very much like a professional wood violin.

Unfortunately, you can't use a 3D-printer to turn  yourself into a professional violin player!
https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/3d-printed-violin-song/

[alancalverd]

A couple of years ago I heard a radio presentation on the subject of violin materials, mostly based on work at the University of Surrey. The timbre of a carbon fiber instrument was clearly different from a "reasonably priced" wooden one with the same strings and bow.

BC's source states 

The many blind experiments from 1817 to as recently as 2014 have found no difference in sound between Stradivari's violins and high-quality violins in comparable style of other makers and periods, nor has acoustic analysis.

(my emphasis)  Which makes sense. The wood, brass or whatever doesn't know the name of the craftsman who made it.

"Comparable style" is a bit vague, however. You'd expect every violin made exactly to a Strad pattern with similar materials would sound pretty much the same but if you altered the shape of the f-slits alone, you'd change the resonances (you can see this with Chladni patterns or interferometry)  and thus the resultant spectrum, which casts some doubt on the finesse of said "acoustic analysis".  The distinguishing feature of Stradivarius, Guarneri and other famous instruments seems to be their longevity: "student" violins rarely survive a couple of generations before warping or splitting, whereas the historic instruments still sound bright and precise after 300 years, and this seems to be the result of very specific sourcing and treatment of the wood.

[Bored chemist]

"Comparable style" is a bit vague

historic instruments still sound bright and precise

What are the units of brightness and precision in this context?

[alancalverd]

"Sound" in this context is very subjective. Anyone who has heard both Abba and Jacques Brel, or has played both fretted and fretless stringed instruments would know the difference. Or in the specific case of the violin family, the difference between my old (1960s) slightly warped Czech 3/4 double bass and an 1800s German concert bass in good condition.  It would be nice to think that the owner of a million-pound Stradivarius  would take care not to fall down the stairs of a pub whilst carrying the tools of his trade, but it can happen and at least you can repair a cheap bass with Araldite and a few screws without the next audience complaining.

[Bored chemist]

"Sound" in this context is very subjective.

That's why we invented

"acoustic analysis"

[alancalverd]

You still have the problem of comparing an objective spectral measurement with a subjective appraisal of "niceness" or whatever it is that makes a solo violin acceptable to the human ear, when they are both subject to the huge variance in technique even with a single note repeated by an expert (which is what makes live music more interesting than a recording*).

Given the variance in technique, it would indeed be surprising if there was any consistent distinction between a Strad and a Guar under semilaboratory conditions (e.g. blind playing by human experts), but equally surprising if you couldn't distinguish between an "established" wooden and a new plastic instrument of any type played under laboratory conditions - i.e. mechanical bowing and stopping. If interferometry shows that different instruments deflect differently, physical acoustics suggests that they must have different radiated spectra.

That said, I would be delighted to meet anyone who buys goldplated fuses to listen to a Sarasate recording: I have a sack of magic beans for sale.

*Footnote (to be played on a shoehorn?): A jazz musician is defined as a guy who never plays the same thing once.

[Bored chemist]

When it comes down to it, a piano played in helium will sound pretty much the same as in air.
But bagpipes are significantly funnier in helium.

There's a story about two guys who are arguing about the quality of a stereo system
The owner says it's good. The neighbour says it sounds artificial and he should change the cables.
They agree to do a blind testing on the cables using a recording of a flute solo. The neighbour will listen from the other room to see if he can tell the difference.
So the guy changes the cables, and the neighbour says it's still not right, and suggests a different tone arm.
So the guy changes it.
And again, listening from the other room, the neighbour still says it doesn't sound right.
At this point the guy is getting irritated.
So the next time, when the neighbour says he should change the speakers, he says he will and agrees to another test.

And when the neighbour says "it still doesn't sound right", the guy asks the flute player,  still  playing, to walk in from the next room.

All the neighbour needed to do was flood the next room with helium.
It would make little difference to the pitch of a recording played through a loudspeaker; but it would wreck the live performance.