Acousticians and fluid dynamicists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have identified key design features of some of the world's most prized violins such as Stradivari that contribute to their acoustic power. Working with the North Bennet Street School in Boston, the team acquired technical drawings of violins Cremonese-era of the 17th and 18th centuries from museums, collector databases, and books, as well as X-ray and CAT scans of the instruments. They compared the dimensions of various features from one instrument to another, as well as measurements of acoustic resonances across instruments. The researchers found that a key feature affecting a violin's sound is the shape and length of its "f-holes," the f-shaped openings through which air escapes: The more elongated these are, the more sound a violin can produce. What's more, an elongated sound hole takes up little space on the violin, while still producing a full sound - a design that the researchers found to be more power-efficient than the rounder sound holes of the violin's ancestors, such as medieval fiddles, lyres, and rebecs.
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