The magic of the stradivarius sound has fascinated people for three centuries and in recent years the secret has been pretty much figured out. A mini ice age from 1645 to 1715 created long winters and cool summers which caused trees to grow slowly and uniformly – ideal conditions in fact for producing wood with excellent acoustic qualities. So that was part of the strad magic. Now Swiss scientist Francis Schwarze and the Swiss violin maker Michael Rhonheimer have created a modern day violin that recently fooled some experts in a blind audio test. Their trick? follow this link for the full story.

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