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stradivarius

Can technology improve the sound of 300-year-old violins?

David Segal Violins is located just a few blocks from Lincoln Center and the Juilliard School in New York City. I stopped by the showroom to learn how the technology of violin making has changed, but that wasn't the main story. Today's violins may look similar to the ones made 300 years ago by Stradivarius or Guarneri, but they get used in different ways. Where before violins were only played in concerts, now they're also recorded. Segal tells me that a great concert violin might not work all that well to accompany a vocalist.

The "technology&… Read more

A boombox that would bring Yo-Yo Ma to tears

The noise you may hear in the background is one Antonio Stradivari spinning in his 18th century grave.

We honestly don't have anything against the boombox's comeback, but the monstrosity pictured here looks like a DIY version of something from a CSI autopsy table. This Frankensteinian project is the work of artist David Ellis, who created it with "medium-modified double bass fiddle, spraypaint, casters, oak, plywood, metal, iPod, two tube pre-amps, B and C mids and tweeters, Electro-voice woofers, JVC tweeters, Crown XLS 602 Poweramp, and Behringer equalizer."

Perhaps most impressive is that he created three … Read more