The role of radiation damping in violin sound

Abstract

A generalized model combining experimental normal mode radiation efficiency and total damping trendlines and structural acoustics systematics was developed to examine violin quality-related trends in radiation damping ζrad and fraction-of-vibrational-energy-radiated FRAD up to 8 kHz. FRAD was similar for “good” and “bad” violins. ζrad and FRAD exhibit a “knee” at the critical frequency, where FRAD reached its maximum value of ∼0.5. The critical frequency falls significantly lower for “good” than “bad” violins (3-violin samples for each), which imparts a relative enhancement to acoustic output near 3 kHz for “good” violins, independent of any bridge contribution or excitation method.