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From my point of view, a guitar needs to sound a bit tight in the beginning, and if there's too much of anything in the sound, it's probably only going to get worse. Some of my best have sounded pretty restricted upon first string up, and then after a couple of days, the tone starts to develop.   Given a couple of weeks, they show what they're going to do.

Some Strads are loosing their 'tone' now, and some real old instruments loose it after a couple hundred years,I've heard when I was on some cello forums.
 Strads probably sounded really great to begin with because of the best workmanship and the funny wood. They would just get a bit sweeter as they age, but in 20 years they were 99% I bet. Also, the scales changed for violins, so who knows what they really sound like, most have had neck resets, Im sure that would have influenced tone as well as the old makers. Oooops, its a guitar forum. 

Regarding the impact of time on a guitar/instrument and how much of an advantage time is for a guitar to sound good I found this:

"It was reported in late March 2001 that Joseph Nagyvary, a biochemist at Texas A&M University,
succeeded in making a violin somewhere near the quality of a
Stradivarius by leaving the wood in sea water for a period of time.^[7] Due to lack of land space in Venice, in former times, imported wood was often stored in water in the Venice Lagoon, where a type of rotting affected it slightly. He managed to get hold of some wood shavings from a Stradivarius violin, and under a microscope he found that in that wood the natural filter plates in the pores between the tracheids had disappeared. He also, reportedly, treated the wood with borax.

By late 2003, Nagyvary had refined his techniques and produced a
violin that was tested in a duel between it and a top-tier Stradivarius.^[8]
Both violins were played in each of four selections of music.
World-class violinist Dalibor Karvay performed behind a screen to an
audience of 600 (including 160 trained musicians and 303 regular
concert attendees). This was the first public comparison of a great
Stradivari with a new violin in front of a large audience. The audience
cast ballots for the violins' tone qualities and projection. The
results indicated that Nagyvary's instrument surpassed the Stradivarius
by a small margin in each category."

Now I don't want to get into what makes a Strad sound good - the point is simply that in a blind listening test 600 people deemed a new instrument to sound as good or better as a top rated Strad.

Nagyvary's claims border on snake oil. Every 10 years or so he announces to the world that he has discovered Strad's secret. I can't believe he is being quoted here with no disclaimer.

Nagyvary has claimed to have "found" the "secret" many times.....

Just ignore everything he writes, and you'll be fine.

I heard it sounded brighter.  A bright violin is hardly enjoyable. All this Strad copying mania seems so pointless.  It is like some modern Greek bloke trying to write like Homer. Write something that everyone reads and thinks..wow...this is Homer.  Give me a break :)

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Build log

Yeah I agree and was aware of Nagyvary and the previous claims as well.

Barry it is disclaimed:  "Now I don't want to get into what makes a Strad sound good..."

Not to belabor but we have discussed in previous threads what the blind guitarist would say/hear/feel when considering an instrument.  600 blind listeners rating a new instrument even close to a Strad to me speaks simply to the idea that we, today, can produce great sounding guitars and not be depending on the impact of aging.

That's all I was suggesting - Nagyvary can drink paddy water if that makes you guys feel better.....

No one can really say what a Strad sounded like whne new .. almost EVERYTHING on them has been changed or replaced - they all have new necks, with dovetail joints (originally they had a nailed butt joints - no comments Hesh), set at higher angles than original - most if not all have had the tone bar altered, some only have .5mm of the original wood and finish remaining in the top, new bridges .. they are about as far from original as possible ...

Reminds me of a Brad Gillis article in GP - he talked about his 64 strat - yeah right ... it had a new neck, tuners, floyd, PUs, knobs, output jack, and refin - they only thing from 64 was the underlying body wood.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

That body wood might be more important than what is left intact in some Strads though.

At the end what really matters is the label. Same as we small builders can't put Martin out of business.  Sorry Hesh :)

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Build log

I agree with Alex. The secret to the tone is in the label.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

I was not referring to a disclaimer on your knowledge of the subject but on the disruputable source of information that you were quoting. But I also do not with to belabor the point.