Not that I am in any way an expert on the merits of various violins, but I have been fortunate to have been acquainted with many such experts over the course of my life, and the over-riding impression I come away with is not that Strads are somehow "better" (whatever that might mean) than del Gesus or Amatis or any of the other Cremonese instruments, but that their outstanding property is their ability to "carry" significantly further (unamplified) than any other violin in a concert hall.
I doubt that any scientific test has ever been carried out ( or could even be carries out) to determine whether this is in fact true or not ... you would need to carry it out somewhere like Carnegie Hall, with a full audience, and have a concert violinist play several Cremonese violins unamplified, and have sophisticated recording gear at the back of the hall. The variables are just too many.
This "projection" phenomenon however is undoubtedly real, at least in the realm of acoustic guitars. ... I have owned many, many high end guitars in my time, and have played them all in public, ( in admittedly small compared to Carnegie Hall rooms) . Some have attracted comments regarding how well they could be heard from the back of the room, and others have not. FTR, the guitar which attracted the most (unsolicited) comments regarding the projection, was an Ed Claxton OM which I owned around three years ago. people at the back felt as though the guitar was directly in front of them.
The point I am making is that both guitars and violins can sound great (or not) to the player, but to the audience at the back, the impression can be totally different.
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