When Mina Jang played the same melodious tune on two different flutes behind a screen, she said the examiners grading her couldn’t tell the difference.

Yet the two instruments were made in dramatically different ways.

One was a handmade version of an original early 18th-century flute crafted in 2001, while the other was made of white plastic and “cloned” using a 3D printer in 2019.