"Player preferences among new and old violins" is a scholarly paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in January 2012.
This result—which contradicts widespread belief among violinists that the best 16th and 17th century Golden Age violins are superior to the best modern ones—attracted significant media attention.
They held the experiment in a dim room, with participants wearing welding goggles so they could not identify the instruments.
"They were chosen from a pool of violins assembled by the authors, who then selected the three they felt (i) had the most impressive playing qualities and (ii) contrasted with each other in terms of character of sound."
The number of violins tested was small, due to time constraints and the difficulty of obtaining multimillion-dollar instruments to be played by blindfolded strangers.
The older violins were loaned to the experiment by IVCI attendees, with the stipulation that the experimenters not modify the instruments in any way (strings, sound post placement, etc.
[7][8] The study revealed that there was no statistical correlation between the age of an instrument and whether participants preferred it in the head-to-head competition.
[9] Earl Carlyss of the Juilliard String Quartet criticized the study, saying its methods were inappropriate for evaluating instrument quality.
If 21 of us could not tell in controlled circumstances and 1500 people could not tell any differences in a hall, and this is consistent with past studies…then it is time to put the myths out to pasture.