Home Propeller Head Plaza

Technical and scientific discussion of amps, cables and other topics.

[ Follow Ups ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ Propeller Head Plaza ]
[ Alert Moderator ]

How to put this...

First, on violins, there is just no doubt that different kinds of wood finishes enormously change the performance of the material, especially on the older wood that is very much assymetric in properties along different axis (there is some fascinating work on wood that's been immersed in cold water, i.e. Lake Erie, I think it was for a long time that takes on similar characteristics).

So different kinds of lacquer do matter enormously on violins. This is something entirely accepted by physics and the like, of course analysis of it depends very, very much on detailed, close-up understanding of every small part of the wood in question, etc, so actual analysis is rather painful. (Measurement of the results is not so painful, but not very easy either.)

So I can't see why there is any surprise that different kinds of lacquers will change the behavior of violins.

But when we get into mechanism, the C37 stuff does not seem to hold a lot of water. Don't get me wrong, the steps involved may very well make good laquer for violins, but it doesn't seem very good as a mechanism or explaination.

Now, a bunch of guys from Bell Labs and CCRMA have in fact done quite a bit of work on violins and on the characteristics, there is a lot of information on what "full", "thin", etc, mean. On the other hand, most of these guys couldn't make a violin if their lives depended on it (although one has made a CERAMIC violin that plays very well and sounds good, but the appearance and texture of the material doesn't exactly appeal to violinists, to say the least).

What would be wonderful to see is for these two guys to get together, and to jointly work to understand just what the various laquers do in technical terms.

Then we could get some solid science out of it.

Art and science are not opposed, do not have to be opposed. In many (perhaps all?) cases, each can learn a lot from the other.

That would be wonderful to see in this case, indeed.

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Atma-Sphere Music Systems, Inc.  

Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups
You can not post to an archived thread.

[ Top Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]