Hello everyone
I'm going to be purchasing a violin in the near future, after having trialled one for sale over the Christmas period. But, I don't know what to buy because I have a limited budget (under £200) and I want something that will last as I progress. Without the aid of a teacher I learnt to shift to 3rd position and scales etc as well as pieces of about grade 2/3 standard in the 2 weeks I borrowed the violin for, so I'm looking for a violin that will be suitable for a beginner to good intermediate player (eg up to about grade 6). So far, I am considering a Stentor Conservatoire with Dominant strings, the Espressivo violin outfit, a Prima Loreato and maybe the Piacenza violin outfit.

They can all be found at :

http://www.violinvaluations.com/trolleyed/74/index.htm

I was just wondering if anyone has had experience with these violins, and what they thought of them.
Thanks in advance,
FluteDiva!

Try http://www.elidatrading.co.uk/gliga.htm

Their violins are excellent value for money and several forumites use them.

When buying a half size violin for my son I found Tysoe Music (in Kent) very helpful. They had a range of older violins (admittedly more expensive) and it was useful to play and compare. In the end my son preferred the darker wood colour of the Conservatoire. For the standard of playing his violin teacher recommended the Conservatoire. We ended up purchasing a Conservatoire with the Dominant strings and are very happy with the violin. Bits of the Velcro in the case have come unstitched, but at this kind of price I would prefer that the makers invested more in the violin than the case.

I would also recommend looking on ebay, if you have the opportunity to try before you buy.

Good luck with your choice

Hello again

I just want to say thank you for your helpful replies - I really appreciate the advice you both gave. I think my choice will probably be the Stentor Conservatoire, but that could all be subject to change

Thanks again

Hi, both my daughters started with the conservatoire and did very well on it before progressing to other violins. Their only real complaint was that the case (wood frame) was pretty heavy when compared to others they tried
but they carried on regardless!!. There are things you can do to sharpen up the violin if you want, good strings always help and then maybe get someone who knows about these things to adjust or replace the bridge and sound post to improve the sound further, but I think they sound pretty good with just a set of decent strings.

These days they are supplied with a rectangular styrofoam case, which is their best selling point.

Liz

My son had a Stentor Conservatoire for a while and it took him satisfactorily through Grade 5. But we went for an upgrade after that.

well try a stentor. I bought one for £195 in northcote road music store in london. However the rosin and shoulder rest etc.. are an extra cost.

I do not particularly like taht shop though. You could try footes off regent street in london. The guy there seems to know everything and is a really nice guy.

If you've got 200 - 300 to spend, don't waste your money on a stentor - they're generally quite nasty instruments although the odd good one has got someone to beyond grade 5, it's unlikely that you'll want to keep playing on it much beyond grade 3.

Contact Liz at Elida trading - with a small budget like that she'll be able to set you up with something that will make you want to practise and will probably get you beyond G6 before you need to get a higher level student fiddle.

You won't regret dealing with them either, David and Liz are honest people with a passion for what they do.

Allan

My viola is a Conservatoire. It cost £200 all in, including a great case. It could jsut be that I got a good one, (which I deserved after the GHASTLY model I started out on!), but my teacher says she is amazed at just what a great sound it can produce - even in my hands and in a living room with suite, carpet, curtains and about 600 books! A violin would be even less, esp if you can get it from a warehouse of some type, and should be OK up to about G5 or 6 standard, esp with decent strings put on.

Thank you all so much for your helpful insights and opinions . I will deifinitely have a look at the elidatrading website. I have also been looking around on the web, and, as I mentioned before, I am conisdering the Hidersine Piacenza violin outfit. It has a really nice aesthetic appeal, with gold-coloured fine tuners etc, but, as it is cheaper than the others, am I right to be wary?!! I would ideally like to try before I buy one, as I would really like to have time to evaluate what I'm about to blow my entire Christmas and birthday savings on!! I should also mention that I am 15, so I don't really want anything too pricy as it would probably end up being lugged around to school etc.
Thanks again, everyone!

FluteDiva!! soon to be

I think it's a combination of factors, Elisabeth - you clearly got a good one and - to be honest - violas just sound better than violins in general, especially in student instruments (think shrill nasty e string... ). This, of course, is why the viola is so gorgeous... no e...

The Stentor violins can be really shrill and rotten sounding, and by the time you've added a good set up etc, it will end up costing more than one of Elida's outfits, which will sound nicer from the outset.

Allan




In a word, yes - if something appears to cheap to be true, it probably is. That said, I don't know anything about the Hidersine Piacenza outfit - fake Italian name on a chinese instrument, that's for sure, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Seriously - it doesn't matter what colour your fine tuners are! That's not a reason to pick one fiddle over another.

Besides, 200 - 300 is really just coppers for a violin, you won't need to worry about it getting left about - the Elida gems outfit is a great fiddle (friend of mine plays one in a session near me and it sounds great) but not so expensive that the world would end if it got dragged about a bit.

The other nice thing about Elida is - and I hope I'm not speaking out of turn here - they will allow you to trial an instrument before definitively making up your mind. I did this and tried out some fiddles of up to three times the price of the one I bought from them. They didn't even come close. I only upgraded last year when I was lucky enough to be able to buy an old French instrument - but that cost me around ten times the original price.

Give them a try and compare with the hidersine if the sellers will let you trial it. That way you could pick the one you like the sound of best.

Welcome to the neurotic world of fiddling!

OK, just looked at the hidersine - it might be ok, but the fine tuners are NASTY! They're added onto an existing tailpiece and will be heavy and far less effective than built in ones.

Just so you know!

Allan

I don't know much about Stentor but when I was looking for a violin and mentioned that make, I was warned to stay well clear. I haven't heard of the other two you are considering but although you can get some good Chinese violins, there are a lot of bad ones (I used to have one, best thing I ever did was sling it on the bonfire). Also, please be very careful of buying from ebay - I got a spare violin from there, looked ok but ad said it had good quality strings (no way), was tuned (no it wasn't). I recently did something very stupid and bought an oboe off ebay - it was an extremely costly mistake and I can't get rid of the thing now so please don't make the mistake I made.

There are some good violins out there that are in your budget. I bought my violin from a specialist violin shop for £300, it's an old French model and is more than capable of going to Grade 8 and beyond (whether I am is something else!) and my teacher has commented that I got a real bargain. They do exist, you just have to dig about a bit to find them!

Good luck with finding a violin - it's a fantastic instrument. Just wish I had more time to play.

Thanks Allan and Blackbird for your helpful replies - it's really great to come on here and get advice from people "in the know", rather than to just have to guess and get it all wrong!! I've now been totally warned off of stentors, as they sound (no pun intended) absolutely terrible and really not worth the money at all! I also want to say thanks for recommending the elidatrading website - I've been having a look around and I'm very impressed I did notice that they also have for sale an as new Antoni Symphonique violin (without case / bow) for £80, which seems a total bargain as I researched the RRP as being around £250!! It also looks absolutely stunning, but is it likely to be another one of those (groan) nasty Chinese cheapos?!! I'm aware that for my budget I'm probably not going to get anything spectacular, but I would like something half-way decent as I've wanted to play the violin since the Christmas before last!!!!!!
Thanks again for everyone's time and input, I really do appreciate it!

How very true! I feel exactly the same, which is why I went for viola in the first place! When I saw the title of this thread, my first reaction was to reply with: 'Forget violin and buy a viola instead'!!!!!!

As my sig line says, the C string is it!

Hello again FluteDiva - Antoni are making a bit of a name for themselves where beginners' instruments are concerned - they got off to a shaky start with a tesco instrument fiasco, but are now producing some nice instruments - a friend of mine has one of their cellos and for the very low price, it's an excellent student instrument. They are Chinese produced, definitely, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. If Elida have one for 80 pounds and they're selling at 250 elsewhere, then that's a consummate bargain, I'd say - Liz and David, as I've said, are very honest people and would never rip anyone off. I'd say you can't go wrong. Give them a call and ask their opinion on the instrument, they'll not try to oversell you something, if it's better than a more expensive instrument for what you want to do, they'll tell you that truthfully.




Oh yes - the C string rules. I wish I could find a wee place for viola in Irish music sessions - concerts are a different matter, but sadly in sessions fiddles are where it's at. Pah.

I am currently grade 6 with a stentor conservatoirse iwth dominant strings.

I reckon a conservatoirse could take you to grade 8 before u need to buy a better violin.

Great value for money and comes with a great case.