Ten world-class soloists put Stradivarius violins and new, cheaper ones to a scientific test. The new instruments won.

When the lights were dimmed and the musicians put on dark glasses, their top choice out of a dozen old and new violins was by far a new one; so was the second choice, according to a study published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Of the six old violins tested, five were by made by the Stradivari family in the 17th and 18th centuries. The newer violins were about 100 times cheaper, said study co-author Joseph Curtin, a Michigan violin maker. But the Strads and other older Italian violins have long been considered superior.

The idea was to unlock "the secrets of Stradivari", the study said.

So the study tries to quantify something that is inherently subjective and personal, the quality of an instrument, said Curtin and lead author Claudia Fritz of Pierre and Marie Curie University in France. A few years earlier, Curtin and Fritz tested violins blind in an Indianapolis hotel room, but this one was more controlled and comprehensive, putting the instruments through their paces in a rehearsal room and concert hall just outside Paris. They even played with an orchestra, the results of which will be part of a future study.

"I was surprised that my top choice was new," said the American violinist Giora Schmidt. "Studying music and violin in particular, it's almost ingrained in your thinking that the most successful violinists on the concert stage have always played old Italian instruments."

Solenne Paidassi, a French soloist, said there was a "a paranoia about new instruments" and "a glamour about old instruments".

Curtin, who makes new violins for a living, said he was surprised, adding that the study was designed to eliminate bias.

"I remember trying the old violins and the new violins among ourselves just before the testing got going and saying, 'You know maybe the old ones will win'," Curtin said.

But when the lights were turned down, all that could be judged was the sound. Some violins were 300 years old. Some were days old. When the soloists were asked to guess whether the violins they were playing were old or new, the soloists got it wrong 33 times and right 31 times.

Canadian soloist Susanne Hou has been playing a £3.6m, 269-year-old Guarneri del Gesu violin and knows what she likes. During the testing, some of the violins she played for only a few seconds and then held the instrument out at arm's length in distaste. But, like others, she was drawn to a certain unidentified violin; it was new.

"Whatever this is I would like to buy it," she said in a video shot during the experiment, carried out in September 2012.

Schmidt, who normally plays a new violin costing £18,000, liked a different new one, calling it extraordinary in a phone interview: "I said kiddingly to them I will write you a cheque for this fiddle right now."

Curtin said the researchers will not reveal which instruments were used, to prevent conflict of interests or appear like a marketing campaign.

James Woodhouse, a professor of engineering and expert on musical instruments at the University of Cambridge in England, was not part of the study, but praised it as solid "and very tricky to carry out".

Classic violins "are still very good, but that when a level playing field is provided for making honest comparisons, the very best of the contemporary instruments stand up remarkably well in their company", Woodhouse wrote in an email.

Hou, whose four-year loan of the classic Italian violin has expired, said in an interview that finding the right instrument was very personal: "There are certain things you can't explain when you fall in love."