But he politely declined to go into the details of how the Italian masters might have chemically treated their priceless instruments.
"Many people can figure it out based on the [test results] and what kind of chemical treatments were possible in the 17th and 18th centuries," he said.
Other experts have argued that Stradivari's secret lies in the stiffness of the wood he used for making his violins.
In 2004 Henri Grisso-Mayer of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville argued that tree-ring studies indicate that the "Little Ice Age" could be the key factor.
That cold spell, which afflicted Europe in the years leading up to Stradivari's time, would have produced a uniquely fine-grained wood, he said.
Texas chemist Nagyvary counters that such arguments focus on the instruments' volume, rather than their distinctive sound quality.
In a Stradivarius, "the difference is not in loudness," he said.
"The Stradivarius has much less [extraneous] noise, and that's what the players want. They don't want to hear that gravelly noise under their chins."
And softer, chemically treated wood, he said, produces much less unwanted noise.
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