Thank you for your insights! Most professional string players don’t recognize many of your points. However , I have come to believe that the \modern set-up\ would not have worked at all in the first years of these instruments. I believe also that their power and quality is not achieved out of thin air. the Capacity of the modern sound was always there waiting to develop and mature. In that way it is exactly like the voice ( another parallel !) a young soprano who will become a Christine Brewer, or Zinka Milanov (two examples of quite differing voices) does NOT sound any way near the way they BECAME. By working their instruments and their language and style of vocal approach it develops. A singer at twenty may feel that they could tackle Brunnhilde or Aida, and maybe they could– but at the expense of doing their vocal chords great, irreparable harm. Similarly , the instruments must be played so that the individual character starts to emerge. And gradually they can be “altered” to make more power and brilliance. But the capacity of it was always there. Maybe a better way to describe it is to say that the balance of all 4 strings, of the differing registers and the percentage relationship between resonance and focus is close to perfect acoustically. It has a perfect “voicing”.