Hmmmm, please check this out !!

The idea has been around for a while - I seem to recall it being discussed on The Bottom Line mailing list in the early '90s and that was other people passing on what they'd heard before.

However, I haven't actually heard the results of such treatment. It's a shame the website doesn't provide a few 'before and after' samples.

Wulf

 

Interesting concept - the first time I have heard of someone trying to accelerate a natural process which has never really been studied in mainstream science to my knowledge.

I'd also be interested in hearing unretouched before and after sounds for the instruments treated this way.

 

As has been said, the idea has been around. At least one maker has "sonically aged" his instruments, by strapping them to a large transducer (voice coil). This might have been done at the wood stage, but I think it was at the assembled instrument stage. The claim of that manufacturer I believe was that it would open up the micropores of the wood, or some such, to improve the tone.

With this one, the person is making only some very vague claim to improve the sound and stability, by some very vague method, with no guaranteed results. (Read the guarantee. It only states that they will run it a little longer if they don't like the results, and implies that they will repair any damage done to the instrument.)

While I realize that it is only a so-so translation from the original German, the claims made, however vague they are, don't seem right to me:

Funny, but I've never heard of a vintage, broken-in instrument becoming un-vintage and un-broken in by not playing it. Perhaps it might not sound as good anymore because the player stopped practising??

Somehow I doubt that buzzing a metal instrument such a a trumpet will have any noticable effect on the sound, unless you break it! But I could be wrong.

Next comes the claims that are sufficiently undefinable as prevent anyone from complaining that they didn't happen:

What is direct attack? Unless you find some universal or at least agreed-upon definition, and then take before-and-after measurements or at least listening tests, this is meaningless. And I believe that it would be really a matter of taste, and therefore indisputable. Outstanding brilliance? Same thing. Exquisite balance? Likewise. Fully present intonation? Here's one you can't dispute. Whether it is well intonated or poorly intonated, the instrument should certainly continue to be fully present after you shell out your 770 euros!

 

All this would be a little more believable with some before-and-after sound clips.