$69 vs $10,000,000 Stradivarius Violin - Ray Chen

The 10 million dollar difference is, let's hear the amazon violon after 300 years

The Stradivari knows sanctified music, and helps you play it...

The $69 violin sounds like a blunt hacksaw playing a rotten tree branch.
Hyperboles aside, the fibers of the wood have no cognizance of the direction of the strings. That purported instrument generate a noise akin to the sound of a violin, at the expense and the efforts of a strong-willed violin player...

😳when you play that well.....the 69$ violin sounds too good...
Sorry for th Stradi one..but... not worth that much money.. except for humanitarian cause

My eight year old son watched one of your videos and has since become obsessed with the violin!!!! ❤ He's getting one for his birthday next month! Thank you for inspiring a love of music!

probably the crappy speakers I am listening on, but they didn't sound any different to me.

I am no musician but I think the low notes were more rich sounding on the most expensive

Oh YES!!! The Strad just has that pleasure/dream button installed!!!

I think you've sold a lot of $69 violins here. The $69 violin did well enough that I don't think a beginner is going to be disadvantaged from having started on one... and they're not going to have the $10,000,000 or even a $10,000 violin anyway.

The listeners see slightly the difference, but the player feels thousand times of the difference. You really feel the violin by the touch much better than the hearing.

Can definitely tell the difference in sound

No matter the sound difference I think one thing will be something everyone is gonna have noticed and probably it is something we can all agree on this handmade violin as it is often the case with beautifully crafted things. It’s a visually utterly pleasing and truly a piece of art, which is something even I as a person who has a deep life for craftsmanship and arts but sadly no real knowledge of violin or music can notice it’s just the beauty of the craftsmanship behind this handmade instrument and while I still find at least in this great artist hands for the cheap violin to sound quite well it is certainly disgustingly ugly which is always the case when something is made in a factory those things just tend to suckwhich is why as I said before I can only credit the fact that it did still sound quite well to the artist who played it

Well, I am utterly embarrassed to say so, but I certainly wasn’t able to tell the difference at every point maybe at some point if I was very lucky but with someone mastering this art so perfectly so masterful as u did both did sound marvellous to me

Well, I am utterly embarrassed to say so, but I certainly wasn’t able to tell the difference at every point maybe at some point if I was very lucky but both certainly did sound incredible

Thing is, a good $1000-$1500 violin will be closer to the sound of the Strad than the 69$ one.

Mr. Chen. you are holding 10 M dollars instrument but I don’t see any security personnel around unless you are the owner if this is true …… by the way you are a good artist I love your playing.

The Legend, The Voice, Nippy,The Prom Queen of Soul and Honey Bey
Yes Girl you can sing and an amazing technician but Whitney is just something else
She is a strarivarius among Violins

You’re pretty good at that

strad has more clarity

You could also do a test by making a comparison by putting a good set of strings on the cheapest violin and having it adjusted by a luthier.

There's a lot of things to include in the sound. Strings. Material(wood or plywood),which wood or plywood. Finishing. Varnish or just waxing. Natural or today's chemical stuff. Tuning,432 or 440 Hz....even with a cheaper instrument you can achieve amazing results. And most important, musician. As i would like to say, it's not about the tool, it's about who's using it and how.

Ye the strad is just way more crispy.. yumyum

Crushing a bit.

Goes to show, that a master can use anything at all. TBH, at least through YT, I was only able to hear significant differences with the advanced and super advanced levels. And as Ray mentioned, it seemed less a matter of sound quality, more a build quality. He should do a blind comparison, at least for the audience. (Yea, I know this is 4 year old vid...)

Yes, they camYes, they came up with it here, but the secret is not so complicated

And all you need is: resonances depend on the shape of the bend of the deck, proportions and body, cycles are output according to the standard if there is no standard, then you need to make several thousand scripts to understand which bend affects the sound. You can use a sound spectrum analyzer to help your ears. Then you need to learn to hear it even at the stage of making a soundboard

A homogeneous tree is as dense as possible in structure

All Italian craftsmen dried their tools in the hot sun of Cremona, for some reason many do not take this into account. On their outdoor verandas on the roof. Drying is very important

Impregnation of wood with compounds from rot under varnish, there are considerations as to what they are-but the essence is tanning agents, I would even try potassium permanganate solution

just a high-quality varnish, there are no secrets there. a thin layer so that the structure of the tree is manifested

It is necessary to develop materials science in terms of understanding what the acoustic properties of a particular piece of wood will be and match them to each other to create a particular effect. And this requires practice. which can also be obtained, except by creating with your own hands more than 2-3 thousand tools

It must be like this, are you looking at a block of wood? you feel its texture with your fingertips, not even cut yet, and you already understand how it will sound approximately, and when choosing bars for the neck, shell, upper and lower deck, you select them to each other.. and then you strengthen the necessary and weaken unnecessary properties by already removing the shape of the soundboard using a cyclic scraper

Guarneri ‘Del Gesu’, for example, sounds much deeper, richer and ultimately pleasant to my ear. than a lot of Stradivari.

You are great!!!😊

Just goes to show, you do actually get what you pay for. Beatifully done on both instruments. A great little beginners violin and the ultimate from Strad

I could only tell the difference because you had it up in the corner. Have a few drinks & I bet they sound the same. What we need to know is which company sells the most?

Play the the cheap one a ton more it will age over time....

we had $75 violins made in China in the 70s that were just awful. I have a violin worth maybe $6000, my dad paid $75 in 1957

One thing that I'm sure about after watching this video is that you grabbed a whole lot more cheaper violins, as you are masterfully used to make them sound better than what they really are,all regards to you

It's astounding that a new & playable violin (including bow & case) is available in today's world for $69 (it would be interesting to hear the details of this). Be that as it may, these are two instruments of wildly disparate price. Thank you for playing them both beautifully!

I think it's bullshit ... I can't hear so much difference.

As if now there are no masters who can manufacture the so called 10 mln violins

Thank you so much, as the one with an ear of a commoner it struck me that the difference of 10 mln exactly reflects the sound value.))))

If 69$ sounds like that, that strad sounds like maybe 120$

Plot twist - the $69 dollar one is actually the $10m one.

I’ve been wondering which to buy, so a very helpful video. I have the budget, so I think I’ll buy 144,927 of the cheaper one.

Mr RAY can make a cheap violin , laugh and cry ... Mr RAY can take a STRAD and make it mimmick all of the human emotions . 🎻

I have $69 speakers...

Sorry but the difference between the two isnt worthy of 10 million dollars. In the world of reality if one violin is worth $69, the other instrument is worth $300.

I have a rather severe case of tinnitus from years of construction work without using PPE and even i can hear the significant difference between them. That violin is amazing.

How you dare to compare a Stradivari with a cheap violin?😀😀

I can barely tell the difference. But it is playing thru my phone speaker. But for nearly 10 million more, no way in hell!

which G string did you use? We are having G String issue as well!

Whew, he made that 69 (heh) dollar violin sounds far better than one might think. Honestly, for less than even a hundred bucks, i was kinda expecting a plastic monstrosity.

Also, the video nicely puts this into perspective: Yes, just as expected, the Strad does sound much better, but 10 Million USD better? Obviously not.

Come to think of it, in our era, it probably also depends on how you're listening. In say, a concert hall, the difference will probably be a lot more pronounced than on a mono phone speaker. Still won't justify millions of dollars in price difference, but you know. Just a thought. :p

Obviously the Strad sounds better but then a cheaper professional quality instrument would always beat a student model but for the price the cheap one sounds amazing

my violin is £1600...