Wood density holds key to Stradivarius sweet sound

Wood density holds key to Stradivarius sweet sound : "Researchers using a medical scanner have worked out why a Stradivarius violin sounds so good -- it is because of the remarkably even density of the wood.

For the past 300 years, musicians and scientists have puzzled over the unparalleled quality of classical Cremonese violins made by Italian masters like Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesu.

Now a Dutch doctor and a violin maker from Arkansas think they have cracked the mystery after comparing five classical and eight modern violins in a computed tomography (CT) scanner normally used to examine patients."