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black6host writes:

I came across this article tonight, and being somewhat interested in music thought others might be interested as well: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/may/21/scientists-find-secret-behind-sweet-sound-of-stradivarius-violins

The violins made by the Italian masters Andrea Amati and Antonio Stradivari are celebrated as the finest ever made, but the secret behind their perfect sound has mystified experts for centuries.

Now scientists in Taiwan believe they have hit on an answer. Using software normally reserved for speech analysis, they found that violins from the two Cremonese luthiers mimic aspects of the human voice, a feature they argue adds to the instruments' exceptional musical quality.

The scientists recorded a professional violinist playing 15 antique instruments at Taiwan's Chimei Museum and compared the acoustic signatures with those from 16 male and female vocalists who were recorded singing English vowel sounds.

The researchers found that the early Italian instruments produced human-like "formants", the harmonic tones that correspond to resonances in the vocal tract. Specifically, the Amati violins produced formants similar to those from bass and baritone singers, while the Stradivari instruments had higher-frequency formants, closer to those of tenors and contraltos.

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