Just read about a cool experiment which showed that elite violin players couldn't reliably identify a Stradivarius vs. a high-end new violin in double-blind tests: http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2012/01/02/144482863/double-blind-violin-test-can-you-pick-the-strad?ps=cprs
If someone were to repeat this experiment with some pre-war Gibsons and modern high-quality banjos, I would predict identical results.
EDIT: Here's a story on the same experiment from the NY Times (no sound clip with this one): http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/science/in-play-off-between-old-and-new-violins-stradivarius-lags.html