Correlation between Acoustic Analysis and Psycho-Acoustic Evaluation of Violins

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an experimental study performed on seven violins obtained from a top plate made of resonance spruce and a back plate made of curly maple. Each pair of plates had a different modification to its thickness profile. Some were thickened and others were thinned compared to the classical thickness profile. Then, a soloist played a musical sequence on each violin and the acoustic signals were recorded. The sound quality of the signals was evaluated with a psycho-acoustic evaluation based on a blind questionnaire completed by listeners. It turned out that: (1) respondents with more musical experience (especially those with over 26 years of experience) were more demanding in assessing sound clarity and offered the widest range of scores in assessing this quality; (2) the musical experience of the respondents influenced to the highest degree the appreciation of the warm sound quality; (3) the scores for the violins with thinned plates were weaker, especially according to the psycho-acoustic analysis; and (4) the highest score was obtained by the violin with the thickest plates, which can be correlated with the two dominant frequencies extracted from the FFT analysis, whose values coincide with the frequencies of the B1− and B1+ modes.

Keywords

• violin
• acoustic analysis
• short-time Fourier transform
• mode frequency
• psycho-acoustic evaluation
• sound quality