Talk to anyone young or old. If they have an opinion on violins, they will tell you a good violin can't be purchased for less than 500$- that you're just wasting your money on anything that costs less. Some examples can be found here.
"No to the $100 dollar violin. Seriously. Just send me the C-note and let me blow it on vodka for all the good it will do either of us. You have to spend more. Period."
Some divergent ..rebels suggested Saga Cremona, a Chinese made violin, as one of the few produced in a range of 200-400$ that were reasonable to use; but just that, only reasonable.
Through searching word variations on ebay and google products I happened upon another Chinese company called Yita Music. They made violins, violas, and cellos shipped directly from China. The violins were gorgeous and priced in a 70-300$ range with shipping oddly shifting from 50-100$ depending on which currency you paid with (pounds being the most). The seller has thousands of reviews that are glowing and thankful, and really only a handful of detractors that are bound to come with that volume of sale. A quick search revealed a lowfi website www.yitamusic.com, and some more positive chatter on violin forums. Good enough for me I started making bids on their advanced T19+ series violins and ended up with this particular 4/4 Stradivari Copy.
162 + 59 shipping = 221$ 2 weeks of shipping total in my hands.
As I had read, the pegs were somewhat cheap. The bridge shipped down and would have to be setup. The rosin had shattered into something only partially usable, and the scroll had a strange nick in it as if it had hit a belt sander right before being shipped out. Though these things were minor, and otherwise the violin 'lulu' was beautiful. But what do I know, so I took her to be looked over by Bob of Dahl Violins on a sunny afternoon in downtown Minneapolis. At his studio just blocks from orchestra hall I took notes on his thoughts, and lost said notes in the ocean that is my room.
But, I remember most of what about Bob had to say. A pleasant fellow who apprenticed under the original owner Dahl, he hummed about his business.
Here's his pros and cons.
cons
As I had read the strings are cheap Chinese strings that will never produce good sound, and as such it was hard to determine the sound of the violin with them on. He suggested a good set to replace them (lost that name..), and even that I get them online.
The tailpiece was a similar story, which he suggested be replaced with a Wittner? that has fine tuners on all the strings.
The high e string hadn't been given enough allowance to pass around the peg, and he had to dig a hole out of the scroll for it to fit.
The nut had to be lowered
He said the bridge should also be lowered whenever the new strings were purchased.
Pros
Bob was impressed with the spruce flaming of the violin, the German oil varnish job, craftsmanship in the scroll and other joined portions. The fingerboard was of good quality and well straight. Agreed as I had read that the violin was very loud, but again couldn't be sure on the sound with existing strings. He considered the bow of a reasonable 100$ quality, but did not think it was made of Brazil wood as advertised. And considering a relatively cheap case like the one it was shipped in would run another 50$, that's the cost of the violin right there. His most telling observation was that this violin was by far better than a 500$+ violin someone had brought in earlier that day.
Twenty dollars cash in Bobs hands and this fiddle hits the road.
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an addendum to this will be posted when the violin has been broken in. I have read that Yita Music is very responsive to any problems and will send replacement parts or entire instruments if there is a problem.
