Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am an experienced (though not professional) violinist and this is spectacularly good for the price. This video of me playing a bit of Strauss on it to show what it sounds like. Granted, it is a cheap violin, so you have to expect a cheap violin. It's fairly lurid bright orange, the case feels like it's made of polystyrene, and the feel is cheap all over. HOWEVER, it plays remarkably well. Well enough that I actually actively enjoy playing it. I bought it because I am travelling at the moment and didn't want to bring my normal violin with me. I'm not a professional violinist but a serious one who has been playing for 34 years. I was not expecting this violin to be enjoyable to play - I was just expecting it to be adequate. But I can make a quite nice tone on it. I read a lot of the reviews of this violin and some of the problems reported might be because of variations in factory production, but might also be because you have to really know how to set up a violin in order to get it working properly. The first time you tighten the strings is quite hard work and quite painstaking. You have to take your time, go gradually string by string and you have to expect the pegs to slip a lot at the beginning. There is a method to getting them to stick where you push and twist at the same time. You also have to adjust the bridge as you go, because if you start with the bridge upright, it will start tilting when you tighten the strings. The other thing is the bow - you have to spend about 10 minutes applying rosin the first time you use it. One of the other reviewers says that their child's violin teacher says the bow is unusable. I'm not sure what this means - I can use both of my bows perfectly fine. Granted they're not fabulous, but what are you expecting? This is a violin set with two bows, two sets of strings, a shoulder rest and a case for $100. My normal violin bow cost something like $1000 all by itself 20 years ago, and really serious violinist probably spend $50,000 on a bow. So after putting rosin on this bow for about 10 minutes, I got a pretty good sound out of the violin, although yes, the bow hairs are not very even and they're a bit thin.