Blind test: can you recognise the sound of a Stradivarius?

Just how good does a Stradivarius sound, and could you pick one out in a blind test? The Strad magazine staged one to find out.

Earlier this month, The Strad magazine got the leader of the London Symphony Orchestra to play six different violins in a blind test - one of them being a legendary Stradivarius model from 1709.

Listen to the test below and see if you can work out which violin is the Stradivarius - you might be surprised…

The other violins that you can hear are an 1850 Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, a 1923 Giuseppe Fiorini, a modern Del Gesù copy, a Mirecourt French trade violin from around 1900 and an 1835 A.S.P. Bernardel.

Visit The Strad's feature on the experiment to find out more about what happened.