I just wanted to throw a big thank you out to Fiddlerman and team for making it possible for me to own a pretty nice violin at a very fair price.

I recently ordered a Holstein 3 star pernambuco bow and the Ming Jiang Zhu g909A violin.

The "G" in the model number denotes a Guarneri body style. Not exactly sure how this differs from a strad body but I love it!

I have played for roughly 6 years on various violins. I seriously loose count. Three of my violins would be in the 1000-1500 dollar range as basic intermediate starters in most violin shops. The rest of my violins are student beginner violins in the 200.00 range.

I have felt for quite some time my violin and bow were holding me back slightly. I didn't have 10-15K to spend on a violin so I simply dealt with things the best I could. To be fair, the other violins were playable just a little more difficult to play some things. Since I am just now beginning to get into third position scales I needed a violin capable of full expression on all strings at all positions.

There were a few adjustments I needed to make. On my last violin I used a middle chin rest. I didn't think to ask Fiddlerman for that , so I transferred the rest form my other violin temporarily. I have also been playing lately using only a sponge with no shoulder rest. The tone and feel of the playing experience seemed to open up for me playing without a mechanical contraption on the violin. I go back and forth, but right now this seems to be working for me ok.

I am very happy with the tone and setup of this violin. I notice my bow seems to hit the E string more when playing the A string than on my previous violin. This appears to be a slight difference in the bridge design that I'm "acclimating" to or trying to. Some of the difference may also be due to the Paul Infield strings Fiddlerman put on the violin. I don't usually play with these strings and have preferred Tonica most of the time. I attribute most of these things to me acclimating to a new instrument. The instrument is very responsive and sounds great!

As I understand it the Ming Jiang Zhu G909A violin isn't a workshop violin like the higher end Mings are, yet there is close supervision on the assembly with high end materials used. I think this makes a big difference in the way the violin plays and sounds. This violin has a wonderful "ring" and lots of harmonics on all strings.

I feel I made a good choice in this violin and in using Fiddlerman as my source.

I'll have to post a video sometime of me playing it.

Thanks to the Fiddlerman team!