Comment Re:Sorry about the loss of the magic (Score 1) 469
I this same sort of parallel with guitars as well; all of my musician friends that play guitar seem to highly value older guitars (made in the 60's and 70's) over those made recently. And they're not just valued for their sentimental value; every decent guitar player I've met seems to have some sort of fascination with vintage guitars and *knows* the sound is considerably better than anything they can buy today. I don't see this parallel with non-string instruments, such as brass, woodwinds, percussion or keyboards (possibly a couple of exceptions for keyboards, i.e. a hammond B Leslie; but certainly not the norm).
Maybe there's some other factor here, but I still have a hard time believing whether older string instruments are actually better sounding. As OP suggested with the Stradivari, they were certainly well crafted in their day. But surely we have the technology and material to surpass that now - especially with the same companies that continue to make guitars, right? Or is there truly some scientific factor that makes the sounder better (such as the wood "maturing" or drying up more over time, or something like that)? I still don't know whether vintage guitars actually sound better, or if everyone's just fooled into thinking they sound better because Hendrix or Page played that exact guitar that one time in the 70's - they don't sound any better than new guitars to me. Perhaps there is something "special" about older string instruments that hasn't been explained well yet?
Maybe there's some other factor here, but I still have a hard time believing whether older string instruments are actually better sounding. As OP suggested with the Stradivari, they were certainly well crafted in their day. But surely we have the technology and material to surpass that now - especially with the same companies that continue to make guitars, right? Or is there truly some scientific factor that makes the sounder better (such as the wood "maturing" or drying up more over time, or something like that)? I still don't know whether vintage guitars actually sound better, or if everyone's just fooled into thinking they sound better because Hendrix or Page played that exact guitar that one time in the 70's - they don't sound any better than new guitars to me. Perhaps there is something "special" about older string instruments that hasn't been explained well yet?