Margen
A Stradivarius can cost over ten million euros, and for centuries its sound has been treated as untouchable. So a team of researchers ran the obvious experiment: in Indianapolis and later in Paris, elite soloists played legendary old violins and modern ones — in dim light, wearing welder's goggles, so they couldn't tell which was which.
The results, published in the scientific journal PNAS, caused a small scandal: most violinists preferred the new instruments and couldn't reliably tell old from new. One of the modern violins was, in fact, the overall favourite.
None of this makes a Stradivarius a bad violin — they're superb. But it suggests that part of the magic lives in the label and the legend. The ear listens; the brain, meanwhile, is checking the price tag.