I'd say that's at least the late-19th and early-20th Century consensus view, and I'd be inclined to agree that there are very few makers from the late-18th thro

I'd say that's at least the late-19th and early-20th Century consensus view, and I'd be inclined to agree that there are very few makers from the late-18th through the mid-20th Century that were making really exceptional instruments. Other people today would insist that there's no advantage at all to a Strad or del Gesu, and that there are lots of instruments by Storioni, Pressenda, Vuillaume, and others that are just as good. (I don't agree.) That being said, Stradivari and Guarneri were not so highly-rated in their own lifetimes; the Amati family and Jacob Stainer fit the ideal of tone and power of that time. It was only as violin technique and string and bow technology improved, and older instruments were modified with stronger bass bars and back-tilted necks mortised into top blocks, that the Stradivari and Guarneri instruments became so highly-prized. It's almost as though they only really worked properly when technique and technology advanced to be able to fulfill the tonal goals the makers had for their instruments.