matesic

When it comes to human perception there is a VAST number of things for which physicists have no answer!

Of which there are many - for example the speakers connected to my TV are offset to the right, but I never notice that and automatically ascribe the source to what's on the screen except with sounds emanating from the far right which take me by surprise. That's surely a deep-seated psychoacoustic phenomenon but what Casey and Michael describe might conceivably be a real acoustic effect due to phase cancellation and reinforcement. Having said that I've no idea how it might operate.

Of course the effect could quite easily be tested to determine whether sound pressure level actually falls off with distance in a different manner in these violins as compared with others. Also whether the effect varies according to the room acoustic.

I noticed immediately that it wasn't a real chicken - fake joke!

Jokes never improve from over-analysis

Until someone more knowledgeable chimes in, yes it does look like full-size tailpiece to me. We'd be able to see it better with a straight-on photo but that can't be right. As regards the instrument itself, I'm reminded of my first violin, also made by a recently deceased local amateur with a few dozen instruments under his belt. It got me through all the grades but looked like what it was, as does this one, namely a hobbyist's project. But isn't the important thing how it sounds and plays, so..?

No, but it is like that round here

50 years ago when I first went looking for a decent violin (with a budget of £120) every other dealer offered me a Collin-Mezin and I hated them all. Fast-forward 25 years and I went shopping again with £3000, only to get a similar experience. One of my quartet colleagues owned one which I thought sounded terribly shrill. Martin's summary seems to explain it perfectly

Unfortunately ublock isn't compatible with chrome on my faithful old windows XP machine where the ads won't let me submit a reply. On the plus side there's "7 women for 1 man" with a picture in which the upper bouts seem disproportionately large

But if you have a budget of 7000 and want a decent Italian violin by a real Italian maker you never heard of I know the place...

I thought I might have deja-vu but this was recently raised in The Fingerboard. An ad-blocker works the trick for me

It baffles me how civilised adults can so often get drawn into this kind of "debate"

My Yita is 17" but my colleague was happy with her much smaller one. On mine I can't put down all 4 fingers on the C string without lifting the first one off

Seems a lot of money to risk on a project that may not go very far. For a "suck it and see" instrument Yitamusic would be a safe choice and will probably play easier and sound better than many auction punts. You have the choice of sizes and models too. After struggling with a duffer for too long I was happy with my Yita for 10 years and finished up section principal in a good amateur orchestra, where my co-principal also played one.

Yes! I finally seem to have got rid of Martin's "Lichtenstein" ad from the home page