They are master quality violins for the time period and they pretty much set the standard for modern violins.

If they were being made today they would be considered very good quality violins and fetch in the $10,000+ range or more most likely, especially considering the location they are made in, the materials, and the methods employed to build them.

"They are master quality violins for the time period and they pretty much set the standard for modern violins."

Classic literature is the same way. It's classic because of its influence, not just quality.

I dunno - the blind test results sort of prove that they are the gold plated monster cables of violins :p

Looks like it was only 3 Strads and 3 new violins, which were selected from a pool of 15 submitted by violinmakers. So only really good violins. (But also a very small sample.)

8 players chose a Strad as their favorite, so it's not as clear-cut as "new violins are better." It's more like, Strads are in a similar league, but do not outclass, new violins, despite costing an order of magnitude+ more. But then again, they are pieces of rare collectible art that are hundreds of year old–it's kind of amazing that you can play them at all!

So it's more like: imagine if there were a handful of surviving vintage audio cables from the 1600s (okay, the 1800s?) that performed almost as well as modern ones. I imagine they'd cost more money. And that wouldn't be so crazy, given their history.

Here's the original study & NYT coverage for reference:

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1619443114

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/science/in-play-off-betwe...

That test compares them to modern violins. Maybe comparing them with their contemporaries would provide more accurate results? I know I prefer the sound of a Guarneri violin, but Strads are reputed to have better piercing power for carrying to the back of a concert hall, which was definitely an advantage in the days before electric amplification and computationally modeled and strategically baffled reverberant chambers for maximum audio enjoyment over the widest possible range of listeners.