People can convince themselves that they really hear something when none exists. See these articles on violinists and their evaluations of old violins vs contemporary modern instruments:
In the last article, this comment is telling:
In short, simply knowing that an instrument has a certain pedigree or history could activate expectations for its sound that cause neural circuits even lower level sensory-perceptual ones—to behave differently than they would without that knowledge. We may really believe that they sound better, even if there is no acoustic difference in the distal world.
I think the same is happening with guitars, especially old guitars like 50s Strats and Les Pauls. And of course, the use of "tonewoods" in electrics.
- Soloist evaluations of six Old Italian and six new violins
Claudia Fritza,1, Joseph Curtinb, Jacques Poitevineaua, Hugues Borsarelloc, Indiana Wollmana, Fan-Chia Taod,and Thierry Ghasarossiane
- pnas.1323367111.pdf
- Expert violinists can’t tell old from new
Daniel J. Levitin1Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 1B1; and College ofArts and Humanities, Minerva Schools at Keck Graduate Institute, San Francisco, CA 94103
- pnas.1405851111.pdf
In the last article, this comment is telling:
In short, simply knowing that an instrument has a certain pedigree or history could activate expectations for its sound that cause neural circuits even lower level sensory-perceptual ones—to behave differently than they would without that knowledge. We may really believe that they sound better, even if there is no acoustic difference in the distal world.
I think the same is happening with guitars, especially old guitars like 50s Strats and Les Pauls. And of course, the use of "tonewoods" in electrics.
