Good morning all!

I'm looking to get a relatievly budget priced viola to start learning on and I've found a deal on E-bay that seems good - £70 inc P&P. Has anyone bought any instrument at all from First Brass Instruments Ltd? If so, can you recommend their quality, service, reliability etc?

Also, the make is a Vurtuosi Deluxe. Any comments on that? Being a total beginner, I don't mind it not being top notch until I can make a sound worth listening to, but I don't want something really pants either!

Thanks in advance for your help here.

If it is of the virtuosi make then don't - they are all imports, can't remember where from, but they are definately imports - The guy who runs the company is a local brass instrument repairer who has started his own brand of instruments imported from wherever - probably not your best choice - probably safer with something like a yamaha ( do they do strings??)

Hope you find what you are looking for!
jonscott14

Can you tell me why this is a problem? I mean, the vast majority of instruments come from overseas, so I'm not clear why one would want to avoid a range that was imported. Would be grateful for more advice there.

Well the quality is generally lower, there are some companies such as Yamaha and Bach (american) that produce many quality products - but there are also alot of companies that have recently set up to make money by importing cheap low quality instruments from abroad, particuarly LEDC's/developing countries, (what ever it is politically right to call them) where the labour is cheap and the quality is often low. Its a tricky case, with some big names moving production to other countries - i.e. besson, for the benefits of a cheaper and unionless workforce. You have to look carefully between companies that have moved to just make a profit through producing quality instruments cheaper, or those who are there to take advantage of not only the host countries economic position, but also to take advantage of thier customers by producing cheap intruments which are bought for high prices.
The simple message is "look carefully"

Thanks for the advice, Jon, I will bear it in mind. I know there has been talk of poor quality instruments, esp. Chinese made ones, but I think that we probably need specifics on any given brand before just writing it off as it's an import. There are a lot of excellent foreign made brands, so I'll see what I can find out about this one before making a decision either way.