

How Stradivari Came to Dictate Violin Design - plorg
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/30/arts/international/how-stradivari-came-to-dictate-violin-design.html

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CountHackulus
It seems incredible to me that the varnish on the wood has a bigger effect on
the sound than the shape. It seems counter-intuitive at first, but the more I
think about it, the more it seems that the shape of the resonance chamber at
the edges doesn't really matter. Interesting takeaway!

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TylerE
This is also part of why many older guitars sound better than newer ones. Back
in the day all they had for spray-on finishes was nitrocellulose, which is
nasty stuff and a pain to work with but dries quite thin. These days most
lower end instruments are sprayed with some sort of poly or other heavier
laquer.

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JasonFruit
A much better link is to the original paper, which has considerable nuance
that the NY Times article fails to convey:
[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0109229#pone-0109229-g007)

