This beautiful brand-new violin is perfect for beginners. The posted pictures are not the actual photos but are practically indistinguishable from the violin you would receive. This violin has a wide dynamic range, giving the performer the ability to become an expressive player. It is at the top of school-grade quality instruments and its visual beauty is as good as it gets. This violin should be reserved for beginning and intermediate players, but should be replaced by the time a player reaches high school or three years of playing.  Why Chinese Violins Are Better There was once a time when China was the maker of the world’s most inexpensive violins with a price tag to match. Unfortunately, these instruments were also the most difficult to play and had the poorest sound quality of any violin on the market. But, for the last twenty years Chinese violin makers have vastly improved their craft by investing in better quality wood and materials, and by educating themselves in the Cremonese tradition without raising the cost of their violins. Today, China is the world’s largest producer of violins, and has earned the reputation of providing the highest quality student instruments at the lowest prices. Furthermore, ten percent of the award winners at each of the past three VSA (Violin Society of America) competitions have been from China. All things being equal, Italian and German violins will cost three to four times as much as their Chinese equivalents.  In other words, the consumer operating on a fixed budget will always find the best quality violin in his or her price range to be Chinese. The Downside of Chinese Violins A violin can be made of the best materials by the best luthiers, and still sound inferior to another violin a fraction of the cost. This is because the single most important factor in determining the sound quality and playability of the violin is the “set-up”. But, because of the sheer number of student violins China must produce to meet the needs of their buyers abroad, most makers do not have the time to do a proper set-up on every violin they produce. Unfortunately, the cost of a professional set-up done by a qualified luthier on a student-grade instrument will more than likely exceed the price of the violin itself. And, sometimes, for no reason, a violin may just turn out to be a dud. When this happens, it may take a month to send an instrument back to China, and the reverse shipping charges subtracted from the amount of a refund may make it not worth the bother. The Set-up and its Effect on Tone and Playability Most student-grade violins are sold to customers needing to (1.) have the tuning pegs fitted and lubricated to facilitate tuning and prevent slippage; (2.) the fingerboard may need to be replaned to remove the nots and dips that interfere with the playability of certain note; (3.) the bridge almost always needs to be recut and positioned to ensure that each string is at the proper height above the fingerboard. A bridge that is to high causes the player to have to work that much harder to depress the string, causing intonation problems and physical discomfort to the player. (4.) The “nut” at the end of the fingerboard will need to be cut to the right depth to ensure the string will not be high enough to cause discomfort, but high enough not to buzz; (5.) the luthier must be able to play and analyze the tone well enough to tell if the sound post needs to be adjusted; (6.) the luthier should take this opportunity to replace the strings with a new set of synthetic core strings. The number of procedures each violin needs in order to play and sound its best will vary, but can cost as much as $500 to be done right. The Upside of Buying a Chinese-made Violin From Me I am a professional-level violin player who has played and taught privately for the past twenty years. I have also done the set-up on many of my students’ violins. It is my job to make sure the customer is happy and ensure that the violin plays and sounds its very best. It is a scary thing to buy an instrument without seeing or hearing it first, but the fourteen-day approval period should more than make up for this disadvantage. And, it will be much easier for to swap or return a violin to me than to send it back to China. But I will not sell a violin to a that I would not be happy to own myself. Ergo, you can be confident in knowing that I have attended to every detail of the set-up, and that I have played the instrument for myself and it has met my approval.