Tearinyourhands - Posted - 01/15/2024:  12:53:10

Our daughter has been playing violin for 4 years (she is now 12). We started with a 1/2, then stepped up to a 3/4, and are now ready for our final step up to a 4/4.

That being said I would like to get her a violin that can/will follow her through her high school years.

What are your thoughts or recommendations for a Good violin in the $500-$600 range (if you have one for sale PLEASE let me know!).

Thanks a million!

farmerjones - Posted - 01/15/2024:  14:58:24

Seeing how you're in state. I recommend Becker fine instruments in Windsor Heights, a suburb of DesMoines.

The Violin Beautiful - Posted - 01/15/2024:  18:26:24

Becker is the best shop in the area. I’ve spoken to the owner many times over the years, as he was a regular customer of the wholesale business at a shop where I used to work.

The budget of $500-$600 is tough, though. There are a few options, but almost everything you’ll find will be made poorly, in very bad condition, or not set up competently. Good setup work costs several hundred on its own and factories that produce cheap violins cut corners on setup by using low quality materials and minimally skilled labor.

Work with the budget that fits your means to avoid regret if the violin isn’t a forever endeavor. However, if your daughter sticks with the violin, it may not take long before she’s ready for something better. Violins in this range aren’t really intended as lifelong instruments.

ShadeTree - Posted - 01/15/2024:  22:05:45

It is absolutely wonderful that your daughter started learning to play the violin at such an early age. A young mind is very flexible in soaking up knowledge and abilities. Learning to play an instrument benefits an individual far beyond the music itself. She is to be commended.

A decent violin can be pricey. From my experience, one would expect to pay $1500 to $2000 to begin to get an acceptable violin. The prices for a life-time violin can go well on up from there. Exceptions can sometimes be found, but this is just a ballpark figure. The one thing to remember is than when young individuals get into their crazy teens, they might not want to play the violin any more.

Whatever price range you decide to budget, let her largely decide which violin sounds and feels best to her. Let her play as many violins as possible. Try not to be in a hurry to buy. It might take several different trips to the violin shop before the Ahaa moment strikes. If she loves the instrument, if it seems special to her, then she will practice more often, longer, and with more enthusiasm.

The best thing your daughter has going for her is a supportive parent. My hat is off to both of you. Best of Luck in the musical journey.

Quincy - Posted - 01/15/2024:  22:49:31

I read once the advice on this forum : Why not go to a luthier , some might have put some cherries aside. I still do not fully grasp the meaning of that expression though , BUT:

I was lucky to find a young luthier here in Belgium who bought wood on the Chinese market and told me Chinese violins are not bad if you know where to buy the wood. He was pretty self assured. He set up several of these Chinese violins himself , let me choose between a set of violins (and bows) and sold me a violin for I believe 850 euro that it was and the instrument is really very easy to crosstune , only now and then after I picked a new tuning and get my violin out of the case again I have to fine tune it using the fine tuners, but most of the times when I use my tuner it is still perfectly in tune and when it is not you see each string dropped a bit (sometimes the opposite) but at the same level so still in harmony but not 100 % exactly in tune . Which can be easily solved with fine tuners.

More importantly I adore the sound of my violin, it is not only easy to tune , irl it sounds like a very good violin and I just love the sound next to my ear.

When my former violin teacher hinted me on these instruments her luthier was selling she said : "'I told him he is crazy , he could easily have asked 1500 euro for them", but the point is: he did not.

Needless to say this luthier is now also my luthier and I might have a trip to his place during springtime for cleaning up my instrument - have to cherish what I have.

I would see if I could save up a couple of 100's more and then see if I could find a luthier who has some decent beginner instruments. I have not enough experience with violins to do a lot of comparing but I just wanted to say it worked out fine for me and I hope you and your daughter will find the same luck.

Edited by - Quincy on 01/15/2024 23:03:18

doryman - Posted - 01/16/2024:  16:35:34

I'm sorry, but I don't agree that one has to spend $2000 and up for a perfectly serviceable violin for a 12 year-old student. We have a violin shop in town that services the middle schools and highs schools in the county. They contract with a small Chinese factory who builds violins for them. The shop in town does the final set up and rents/sells these violins to probably 80% of the students who play in the schools around here. These violins sell for between $400 and $600. My daughter owns one of these and it is an easy player and it sounds quite nice. I can't believe that our situation is unique. There must be many student centric shops selling perfectly adequate violins at this price point.

I have zeros doubt in my mind that folks like Rich, above, and others, would find these instruments unacceptable for their level of play. And I have zero doubts that Rich and others could easily discern a difference between these student violins and a violin that costs $2000 dollars or more. However, that is NOT the world of most middle or high school students, I suspect.

Although new to the violin (4 years), I've been a musician for 50 plus years and a gigging musician for 40 and I play a variety of instruments. I completely understand the concept of possessing an instrument that is so poorly constructed that it is the limiting factor for even a beginning student (my first guitar was such an instrument). I don't believe that a $600 violin is necessarily such a beast.

KCFiddles - Posted - 01/17/2024:  22:11:44

Well, I do have the mate to that fiddle that Doug Brock just wrote about under "Other fiddle related topics" - the one that he said sounded better than his $2000 Chinese fiddle. I can adjust the post to a more classical balance, put on some Kaplan Amo strings, include a used case and a carbon fiber bow and shipping, all for $650, and I guarantee it will sound better to her teacher than any violin you can find for sale in a shop under $1000. KC strings gets $1680 for them. The only reason I'm selling so cheap is that it's a "second" with no structural damage, and you really have to look to find my repairs, and even then you have to know what you're looking for. PM me if you're interested. I won't follow up unless I hear from you.

The Violin Beautiful - Posted - 01/19/2024:  06:42:14

quote:

---

Originally posted by doryman

I'm sorry, but I don't agree that one has to spend $2000 and up for a perfectly serviceable violin for a 12 year-old student. We have a violin shop in town that services the middle schools and highs schools in the county. They contract with a small Chinese factory who builds violins for them. The shop in town does the final set up and rents/sells these violins to probably 80% of the students who play in the schools around here. These violins sell for between $400 and $600. My daughter owns one of these and it is an easy player and it sounds quite nice. I can't believe that our situation is unique. There must be many student centric shops selling perfectly adequate violins at this price point.



I have zeros doubt in my mind that folks like Rich, above, and others, would find these instruments unacceptable for their level of play. And I have zero doubts that Rich and others could easily discern a difference between these student violins and a violin that costs $2000 dollars or more. However, that is NOT the world of most middle or high school students, I suspect.



Although new to the violin (4 years), I've been a musician for 50 plus years and a gigging musician for 40 and I play a variety of instruments. I completely understand the concept of possessing an instrument that is so poorly constructed that it is the limiting factor for even a beginning student (my first guitar was such an instrument). I don't believe that a $600 violin is necessarily such a beast.

---

I think a decent violin can be bought for as little as $1000. There are some exceptions, like violins that have had extensive repairs, defects, or violins made for varnish practice. Under that price you're either getting something that's not repaired or isn't set up properly. Even a "student-level" setup will cost at least a few hundred. 

 

The first shop where I worked had one of the most well-known rental programs in the country (we even had people renting from other states as far away as the west coast) and over my first summer there I was responsible for maintaining the violin, viola, and cello fleet of 3,000. I am extremely familiar with rental businesses, as most of the shops where I worked had rental programs. I'm also familiar with the rental instruments that are being used. I have also spent years listening to teachers in private studios and public schools lamenting the poor quality and performance of the rentals that most children end up using.

It's shameful that instruments for children are so often treated as unimportant or as a good place to cut corners. I offer my customers three levels of violin bridges to choose from, and although the blanks are different, I cut all of them with the same attention to detail and have done that since I started. An instrument that isn't treated like it's worth taking the time to make playable is detrimental to a student's  curiosity and progress. It would be unreasonable to expect every beginner to have a great instrument to use for learning, but it's completely reasonable to expect a standard of playability and workmanship. Rentals exist to make instruments accessible to just about anyone who wants to play. 

doryman - Posted - 01/19/2024:  08:05:51

Rich, what would those rentals sell for? At the big shop in our town, you can buy the rentals for approx. $500.

KCFiddles - Posted - 01/19/2024:  08:55:33

A couple of years ago, I bought out all of Krutz's distressed stock: violins, violas and cellos that had been accumulating for some time. They have good setup people, but they don't have people in the distribution warehouse who are good at repairs, especially varnish repairs. (The retail shop is a different entity.) I bought a whole bunch of instruments, several years' accumulation, for a song, since it had become obvious that it was never going to be economical for them to pay somebody to do the repairs. I fix some up on a "when I have time" basis, sell some off to other luthiers and fixer-uppers, sell some off as " for repair" on Ebay, When you get a fiddle for virtually nothing, you can afford to give somebody a break once in a while, especially since varnish repairs involve mainly waiting for the repairs to dry and settle in. Things like broken fingerboards and open center seams area different proposition. I like to handle those sales privately, because it's important to maintain perceived value. It's kind of a balance between charging market value and giving people a break once in a while, and having "seconds" to sell lets me have a legit reason to give people an occasional price break and still give them a really good instrument.

Edited by - KCFiddles on 01/19/2024 09:09:59

The Violin Beautiful - Posted - 01/19/2024:  16:05:56

quote:

---

Originally posted by doryman

Rich, what would those rentals sell for? At the big shop in our town, you can buy the rentals for approx. $500.

---

At one shop, the "standard rentals" were sold with with a case for $1000. The higher level were more like $1200-$1500 (or you could buy one that wasn't part of the rental fleet (a trade-in or new one) without a case for $1800. 

 

At another shop the standard rentals sold for $700 with a bow and case, but these rentals were inferior in every way. For only $300 less you could get something that wasn't set up correctly and was likely to have structural problems. Needless to say, I was very happy not to be involved in that rental program and even happier when I left that shop.

You can find violins for just about any price you want if you look around. What you get will be leagues apart. For centuries now it's been a common practice to make cheap violins look attractive on the outside while leaving the inside a nightmarish mess--my great-great grandfather warned against this practice in his brochure that he sent to potential customers upon request in the early 20th century, and you find comments about this in plenty of 19th century books about violins. 

Almost every day I get messages from various dealers offering full rental-level outfits for as little as $125. As many rental shops do, one could just order violins like that and hand them to customers out of the box with the factory setup and mark them up a few hundred, but the customer would suffer the consequences. Factories often rough out bridges without even fitting them to the instruments, and the sound posts are only fitted insofar as they're cut so that they'll stand up somewhere in the vicinity of the middle of the top. To cut costs, the strings that come with them are steel strings made to look like more expensive sets by copying the silk colors at the tailpiece. If you're changing strings to a playable set, you then need to take a set of strings into account in pricing. Then there are the fake Wittner tailpieces that are flimsy and the tailguts that are prone to failure. If you're conscientious enough to replace these things as well, that's another cost. If you're taking the time to get things right, the $125 violin quickly costs another hundred or two, and that's not taking into account any other operating expenses or profit. And a $125 violin isn't really all that appealing. 

 

The proof is in the trade-in or resale. See how much you can get for a used rental. Most of them are essentially worthless if they're ever brought back. You know it's a decent instrument when the shop is wiling to give most or all of its value back in trade and there's high demand even for a used one.

You certainly can get a decent violin for $500, but in almost every single case you're buying an instrument that needs work to be ready to play. "It sounds nice" is a way to get fooled into buying a dud. Good sound is only one of the essentials. There are tons of wrecks that sound nice, but that doesn't make them wise investments or even easy to play.

doryman - Posted - 01/19/2024:  21:25:53

Rich, and others, thank for your responses. Along somewhat related lines, can you help me with this...

What, in. your opinion, should a serious adult beginner/lower intermediate player (3 -5 years experience...me!), expect to pay for a decent instrument and, at what point are they paying for something that they will not derive benefit, because of lack of skill? I'm assuming that there is a law of diminishing returns, yes?

I take, from your previous posts here, that I could get myself into a decent violin for between 1k and 2k. But, would someone like me even notice a difference if I had a 5K violin, a 10K violin, a 20K violin? Or would one have to be at a very high level to appreciate any difference between a 1k violin and a 20K violin? I could even imagine that a 20K might be more demanding or impossible for beginner, but with greater reward for a virtuoso.

In my very limited experience, I've never even touched a violin that had more than a $1000 price tag on it and I can't really tell what sound is due to set up and what is due to the violin itself.

GeorgeH - Posted - 01/20/2024:  07:37:32

There are good and bad violins at all price points, even six-figures and up. Violins are priced by professionals solely on the following objective criteria:



- Maker or workshop

- Condition

- Appearance

- Model

- Size and specifications

- Geographic origin

- Age

- Provenance

That's it. 



They are not priced by professionals based on tone because tone is both malleable and subjective.

Violins are, however, usually purchased (sold) at the individual retail-buyer level based on the tone and playing preferences of the buyer, but the violins are already pre-priced by the dealers. Given 10 well-setup violins at the same price point, dealers know that it is impossible to predict which violin a buyer walking in off the street will prefer. People have different aesthetics in regards to tone as well as the criteria listed above. Some people like red violins and some like brown violins.



So people who say that their $1,000 violin sounds "as good as" a $10,000 violin do not understand how violins are priced, bought, and sold. Their violins sounds good to them, and that is what matters. I have heard $100,000 violins that don't sound as good nor play as well as a $2,500 off-the-shelf trade violin.



I have a very nice CA Gotz German trade violin currently for sale in the market place for $600. It was recently professionally set-up to exact playing standards, including a new bridge and a fingerboard planing. It was originally purchased for a teenage student who quickly gave up, and then the violin was stored for decades until he sold it as an adult to me. It is in excellent condition, and priced at about the wholesale price a dealer would pay it for. So, yes, good violins can be found for under $1,000.

Edited by - GeorgeH on 01/20/2024 07:42:47

NCnotes - Posted - 01/20/2024:  08:14:02

GeorgeH, that pricing criteria is very interesting! I went looking for a fiddle this summer and I tried about seven instruments under $2k (at local well-known music store) and all of them sounded worse than the one I play now…my family (who came with me) all agreed too. So my first thought is that I am going to have to up my price range (ack). But maybe I need to just keep looking…gives me hope…



Also, OP, when I was “stepping up” from my beginner violin, my teacher met us at the music store. She knew that nobody else in my family plays music. Anyway she helped me to pick a violin and bow ( over-ruling my mom, who thought I should have the bright shiny brand-new violin that cost less). I took home a battered scratched 75 year old German violin that I still play today LOL. (Thanks mom!) So I don’t know if your daughter’s teacher would want to help, but mine was a big help…

Edited by - NCnotes on 01/20/2024 08:14:25

GeorgeH - Posted - 01/20/2024:  09:10:46

quote:

---

Originally posted by NCnotes

GeorgeH, that pricing criteria is very interesting! I went looking for a fiddle this summer and I tried about seven instruments under $2k (at local well-known music store) and all of them sounded worse than the one I play now…my family (who came with me) all agreed too. So my first thought is that I am going to have to up my price range (ack). But maybe I need to just keep looking…gives me hope…

---

I am glad that you found an old German fiddle that you like. They are certainly out there, and many are affordable.

The thing to remember about sound and tone is that it is malleable. Everything about set-up can change the tone for much better or much worse, such as a slight move of the bridge, the cut of the bridge, tiny movement of the sound post, the placement of the tailpiece, etc. So a good violin might not sound its best if not set up properly, and most chain "music stores" are not capable of understanding or achieving this.  

But I think violins have a "core tone" that once achieved, it cannot be improved upon by set-up. Finding that core tone takes the work of a knowledgeable and experienced luthier. And once the core tone is found, it still may not be good! But usually the core tone in a well-constructed violin that works like a violin should will be good, and then it becomes subjective judgement.

In addition to tone, there is also playability, and it is heartbreaking to see purchased or rented violins from music stores that have bridges that are poorly cut so the strings are too high off the fingerboard. Not only can this make playing difficult, it can cause hand injuries. Same thing with bad fingerboards or neck angles. 

And then many of the bows are equally bad...

KCFiddles - Posted - 01/20/2024:  11:38:13

quote:

---

Originally posted by doryman

Rich, and others, thank for your responses. Along somewhat related lines, can you help me with this...



What, in. your opinion, should a serious adult beginner/lower intermediate player (3 -5 years experience...me!), expect to pay for a decent instrument and, at what point are they paying for something that they will not derive benefit, because of lack of skill? I'm assuming that there is a law of diminishing returns, yes?



I take, from your previous posts here, that I could get myself into a decent violin for between 1k and 2k. But, would someone like me even notice a difference if I had a 5K violin, a 10K violin, a 20K violin? Or would one have to be at a very high level to appreciate any difference between a 1k violin and a 20K violin? I could even imagine that a 20K might be more demanding or impossible for beginner, but with greater reward for a virtuoso.



In my very limited experience, I've never even touched a violin that had more than a $1000 price tag on it and I can't really tell what sound is due to set up and what is due to the violin itself.

---

A year and a half ago, I was down in Branson, MO, with a couple of friends, working on their fiddles.  These guys are full-time every day fiddlers, performing minimum six day a week, year around. I had brought some "good sounding fiddles" with me, and since I was working on their fiddles, I asked if they would go through the fiddles and give me some feedback on what they liked and didn't like about each one. I was really impressed by how quickly they evaluated the fiddles, and by how much their opinions coincided. (The third guy who evaluated these has been Fiddler of the Year at Branson for the past 12 years, but he was working.)  I had a camera with me, and asked if they would run through the fiddles in front of a camera for me, in order of preference. It took about 15 minutes to record  about 13 fiddles, and the results were interesting. You can see them here.. 

First choice was my everyday fiddle, an 1810 Mathias Neuner that happens to be my every day fiddle for a good reason. (The overall winner was late in the video, the "unknown Mittenwald" that I had about halfway restored, and didn't even have a price on.) But Second choice was one of my James River fiddles that I sell for $1150.  Next was a good Fritz Mueller that can sell from a couple thousand up to $10K, (and I have one of each.). After that was an Old Bohemian violin that had the name Biedermann written on the label. It' really pretty and I haven't priced it yet, or offered it for sale, but won't be too much. Next was a 1909 Vogt, normal value around $6K to $8K, then a Bernardel and an Eugen Wahl, and a 1908 H Th Heberlein all HIGH dollar, then one of my Southwind fiddles priced at $800, which was picked over a 1908 Heirich th Heberlein, and over that last Neuner & Hornsteiner.  

Needless to say, they were all good fiddles or I wouldn't have brought them for evaluation, and the fact  that $800-1100 fiddles got picked over $6-8.000 fiddles, all set up by the same guy, must say a lot. That fiddle I just discounted  off to Doug Brock that he likes so much was no fluke, and it's mate that I mentioned for this lady is no fluke, either. I just got it cheap and refuse to sell refurbished goods as first rate, no matter what, even though "good as new", no matter what some here may opine.

ChickenMan - Posted - 01/20/2024:  14:22:31

I'd also recommend Hoshaw Fine Violins in Randall Iowa. He's a great guy and does amazing work, closer to Decorah. I'd also say you could likely order from Mr Richwine without the drive and get more than enough instrument for a 5th year violin student.

KCFiddles - Posted - 01/20/2024:  16:51:00

My point of my first post was directed to doryman: 1: You can get a fiddle good enough for a pro stage performer for $800 - $1300, and 2: Price is not the only determinant of sound. For that matter, I've had any number of pro fiddlers tell me they Never paid more than $800 for a fiddle until they ran into me. You can spend way more than that if you want to, and I and any number of folks would be pleased to help in the process.

doryman - Posted - 01/20/2024:  17:33:26

quote:

---

Originally posted by KCFiddles

My point of my first post was directed to doryman: 1: You can get a fiddle good enough for a pro stage performer for $800 - $1300, and 2: Price is not the only determinant of sound. For that matter, I've had any number of pro fiddlers tell me they Never paid more than $800 for a fiddle until they ran into me. You can spend way more than that if you want to, and I and any number of folks would be pleased to help in the process.

---

Hi Michael, thanks, I did get your points...and I expected your answer would go something like what you, indeed, reported.  Since I  am involved in bluegrass circles around here, via my banjo playing, I DO have several friends who play the fiddle "professionally," whatever that might mean, and none of them have a fiddle that they paid more than $1000 for (I asked).

Right now, I very much like my old german trade fiddle, for which I paid less than $500 for...and I haven't played a fiddle I like more. My question was inspired by natural curiosity...i.e, What am I missing by not playing a 20K fiddle, other than 20K?! 

We don't really have this problem with banjos.  I think pretty much everyone would agree that you top out at around 3 - 5K and after that you're just paying for bling or because it has value as a collector's piece. 

Also, " and I and any number of folks would be pleased to help in the process." LOL

KCFiddles - Posted - 01/20/2024:  18:47:54

Thanks John, for validating my observations and veracity. I sold one of those guys a pretty expensive fiddle a while back, but it's not a stage fiddle; it's one he just likes to play. Another one has spoken for that James River for a stage fiddle/ backup. I've also sold violins over $10,000, and have one priced at $15K. I used to deliver instruments for my former boss all over the east half of the country in the early 2000s, and visited some pretty high level musicians, as well as observing and interacting with all the violinists who came through his shop when I was working there.  What you get when you spend that money is a violin that meets your needs. You have to have skills to get the best out of a $20,000 instrument, to get the dynamic, the tonal colors, the expression that you want out of an instrument, and there's not much real point in buying one until you can get some use out of it.  Did you notice how much life and joy Mark put into his playing? 20 years traveling everywhere with Roy Clark will teach you some good habits, and if you just listen closely to his playing, you will notice subtleties that you don't hear from other people. Nathan, also has a soulfulness in his expression that lots of people can't do, and a good fiddle or violin makes it easier to achieve that kind of expression. Wayne, Nathan, and Mark just blow me away whenever I can just get time to hang with any of them.  Last time I was in Nashville, I didn't get a chance to ask Joe Spivey of the Time Jumpers how much he paid for his fiddle, but when I complimented him on his sound, he did allow that he was playing a "Chinese Fiddle now." An acquaintance of mine just started full time with this legendary group, but he's long-time loyal friends with my friendly competitors across town.

Enjoy your old German fiddle. Find out, if you haven't who does work with the best fiddlers in your circles, and have them check your fiddle out. Remember, the favorite fiddle on that demo was an "unknown Mittenwald", and  no.5 was just an old, anonymous Bohemian fiddle rated  way over $6K+  fiddles. That's enough for now, TMI.

KCFiddles - Posted - 01/20/2024:  18:48:42

Thanks John, for validating my observations and veracity. I sold one of those guys a pretty expensive fiddle a while back, but it's not a stage fiddle; it's one he just likes to play. Another one has spoken for that James River for a stage fiddle/ backup. I've also sold violins over $10,000, and have one priced at $15K. I used to deliver instruments for my former boss all over the east half of the country in the early 2000s, and visited some pretty high level musicians, as well as observing and interacting with all the violinists who came through his shop when I was working there. What you get when you spend that money is a violin that meets your needs. You have to have skills to get the best out of a $20,000 instrument, to get the dynamic, the tonal colors, the expression that you want out of an instrument, and there's not much real point in buying one until you can get some use out of it. Did you notice how much life and joy Mark put into his playing? 20 years traveling everywhere with Roy Clark will teach you some good habits, and if you just listen closely to his playing, you will notice subtleties that you don't hear from other people. Nathan, also has a soulfulness in his expression that lots of people can't do, and a good fiddle or violin makes it easier to achieve that kind of expression. Wayne, Nathan, and Mark just blow me away whenever I can just get time to hang with any of them. Last time I was in Nashville, I didn't get a chance to ask Joe Spivey of the Time Jumpers how much he paid for his fiddle, but when I complimented him on his sound, he did allow that he was playing a "Chinese Fiddle now." An acquaintance of mine just started full time with this legendary group, but he's long-time loyal friends with my friendly competitors across town.



Enjoy your old German fiddle. Find out, if you haven't, who does work with the best fiddlers in your circles, and have them check your fiddle out. Remember, the favorite fiddle on that demo was an "unknown Mittenwald", and no.5 was just an old, anonymous Bohemian fiddle rated way over $6K+ fiddles. That's enough for now, TMI.

The Violin Beautiful - Posted - 01/20/2024:  19:06:36

quote:

---

Originally posted by doryman

Rich, and others, thank for your responses. Along somewhat related lines, can you help me with this...



What, in. your opinion, should a serious adult beginner/lower intermediate player (3 -5 years experience...me!), expect to pay for a decent instrument and, at what point are they paying for something that they will not derive benefit, because of lack of skill? I'm assuming that there is a law of diminishing returns, yes?



I take, from your previous posts here, that I could get myself into a decent violin for between 1k and 2k. But, would someone like me even notice a difference if I had a 5K violin, a 10K violin, a 20K violin? Or would one have to be at a very high level to appreciate any difference between a 1k violin and a 20K violin? I could even imagine that a 20K might be more demanding or impossible for beginner, but with greater reward for a virtuoso.



In my very limited experience, I've never even touched a violin that had more than a $1000 price tag on it and I can't really tell what sound is due to set up and what is due to the violin itself.

---

As far as price is concerned, it really comes down to your budget. If you have $20k to spend, you can get a fantastic violin, and if there isn't a noticeable difference in its tone from that of a cheap instrument, something is wrong!

You do largely get what you pay for with violins. While tone is not the driving factor for determining value, a bad-sounding violin is not desirable. Auctions are full of instruments that are genuine but can't sell because they sound terrible. There is a point where personal taste comes in, but it's not too difficult for most people to agree on what's bad.

You can hold yourself back by being too cheap and buying an instrument that doesn't give you room to grow as a player. If you buy something better than your current skill level it doesn't do any harm and you have a better chance of getting something that will at least hold its value if you make a good purchase.

I don't really like to correlate price brackets with playing ability levels. New players tend to start with less expensive instruments because they're not sure if they will continue long-term and they understandably don't want to sink a lot of money into something that doesn't last. This is where rentals can be useful; for $20 or $30 a month you can get something better than what you'd likely buy without having to pay the full price of maintenance and if you do end up sticking with it you can reward yourself by using accrued rental credit to get a nicer violin at a discount. However, there's nothing wrong with choosing to invest in a good instrument from the start if you have the means and are confident in playing for the long haul.

While a better violin can offer room for growth, it is not a replacement for practice. Purchase when you're ready for something better, not in hope of it making you better on its own. 

Lonesome Fiddler - Posted - 01/20/2024:  22:22:53

Maybe I'm just a sucker for good musical instruments (and good stereo), but I have to say that whenever I've spent far more than I should've for any musical instrument I've always been almost supernaturally happy. They bring out my best and they keep pushing me to make myself better. They give me sound that I'm proud to be a part of. They never fail to challenge me. When things are going right it's sheer bliss.

GeorgeH - Posted - 01/21/2024:  05:07:28

One  can find good and bad violins at all price points, even relatively “cheap” violins can be quite good as Michael and I have been pointing out.



One only needs to listen to the demos of the 5 and 6 figure violins offered at Tarisio auctions to clearly hear the differences in tones of these super expensive violins. Some are great and some are bad, but their tone is not correlated with their prices. It is the same when you listen to a selection of well-made trade instruments, or even violins made by a good modern manufacturer like Jay Haide. They vary in tone, too, but 5 and 6 figure violins are not likely to sound much better on average, and certainly not 100 times better. (I don’t even know what that would even mean.)



Even in the higher end of the market, the premier international auction houses generally sell around 90% of the instruments offered at an auction, and at prices often higher than high estimates. Violins are commonly sold that have not even been set-up and/or are purchased by buyers who have never played them because smart buyers understand the value is not based on tone.



At all price points, the first criteria should be to find a well-made violin of correct dimensions, construction, and condition such that it can be set-up properly to do what a violin is supposed to do as a tool for making music. That is the objective part. For example, a violin with a short neck or a very large body will be significantly devalued in the market place no matter how “good” it sounds.



The subjective parts are tone and playability, and these are dependent upon the player’s bow, skill-level, physical hearing ability, and personal preferences. The exact same violin is going to sound very different in the hands of Itzak Perlman than it is in the hands of Michael Cleveland, and both virtuosos are each likely to prefer different instruments for their style of playing.



(For an extreme example, listen to Tommy Jarrell try to play a multi-million dollar Stradivarius at the Smithsonian Institute. :-))



So just as some people prefer red violins to orange violins, some people prefer brighter tones to darker tones. Some prefer metal strings to synthetic strings. Some people prefer heavier bows and some prefer lighter bows. There are many many personal preferences that affect the tonal output of a violin, but these will not change the value of an instrument.

Edited by - GeorgeH on 01/21/2024 05:20:49

KCFiddles - Posted - 01/21/2024:  10:22:18

About 15 years ago, a young man auditioned and won a seat on the LA Philharmonic, becoming the youngest player ever to do so. He had set aside a very nice and expensive old Italian violin to auction on a $15,000 violin made by my former boss, and both the violin and the performance got very nice compliments from the judges. As I traveled around the country and worked in the shop, I saw the same sort of thing, time and again, of people setting aside very expensive instruments and choosing less expensive instruments that worked on a very high level, even better than the expensive, old instruments. We've suggested over and again, that the boss could get more money for his instruments, but he doesn't choose to.

OTOH, I used to work on fretted instruments, and one of the first friends I made when I opened my shop was one of the best and busiest jazz guitarists in the country. Lives in Kansas City and plays more gigs in New York than most musicians who live in New York. The guy came into my shop, and made every fretted instrument sound better than I had ever heard it sound before. His main ax for many years when I used to see him regularly was a $400 Kay archtop. He'd get the side eye in clubs and studios, but they'd keep calling him, because he could do anything they asked him to, musically speaking. (Names and dates available privately)