@gordon shunway - as you say -

But when you are a beginner, dissatisfaction with equipment really is not a good substitute for practice.

I intended this to be good advice, but I have spent most of a week wondering how to word it so that it doesn't sound like criticism. I don't suppose I have succeeded.

Likewise with rosin/string combos. Don't worry about it.

  Absolutely perfect     

  I too understand the "continued search for a better sound" - be it strings, rosin, technique.   I stopped beating-myself-about-the-head with a wet haddock and decided to "live with what I had" when I was as a raw beginner.   In truth, for me, it is only now, after 4 years that I am starting to get confident about different strings, rosins and so on.

  Having fallen into the trap (during the wet-haddock incident) I do now have a collection of string sets, and it's only really now that I'm starting to appreciate the difference - sometimes it's how the string is played - in the early days - I "couldn't get it to work properly" (for want of better words) - now I can.

cid said
Actually, IMO, the trying of new strings, I don’t think is done by violin students in the attempt to make the violin give that professional sound.  We know that won’t happen. We know you have to practice. 

As a learner, I want to hear the best sound or tone as I can get as I learn. I don’t sound like a violinist of experience, or a student who has been at it for years, and that is not the point. I just want to be able to tolerate the sound as I improve. Why should only the better violinists have that option? Shrill and tinny sounds bother me. Hollow sounds bother me in instruments. So, even as a student, I have a pretty good instrument, still student, but not beginner grade. I try to find strings that at least don’t turn me away. 

I also have found, through the Obligatos and further investigation, that different brands, and strings within those brands can bow easier or harder. For example, I tried the Obligatos because I like the mellow warm sound, not because I think it will be the magic pill, so to speak, to becoming better. What I found was that they are harder for me to bow.  In fact, in reading up on it, I found that that is supposedly the case. The string does affect that. 

So, as a newbie student, I still feel that my experimenting with strings is just as useful and beneficial as it is for the more experienced student or experienced violinist. 

It does not have to do with trying to take an easy route, so to speak. We new students understand that the string will not do that. We just want it to sound as nice as it can in our amateur status. Hearing that tone we like makes it easier and more enjoyable to practice. Why should we have to listen to awful sounding strings? Why should we have to listen to a tone or color(?) we don’t like simply because we are students? That certainly does not make me want to practice longer. You don’t know what a string will sound like on your violin unless you test it out.

Experimenting with different strings make it fun, creates more practice time, and actually has gotten me a lot faster and better at changing my strings. 

It is not about all of a sudden sounding like a professional. It is about being able to hear the best sound we can, enjoying the instrument and learning about strings.

Does this make sense? I think that concept is not understood, or is misunderstood by experinenced musicians of any instrument.   

@Mouse - makes sense to me !   Humans, being inquisitive by nature, are generally driven by a desire to make or do things to the very best level they possibly can, and at the same time, achieve a feeling of overall satisfaction.  

From my own point of view however, to stop whatever it is I'm investigating becoming an obsession, there are occasions when I have to stand back and live-with-it - whatever it is that I have achieved - knowing I have learned something in that investigative/experimental phase - and revisit it later.   As I say - I would NEVER stand in the way of folks experimenting with things - it's that inquisitive part of us that helps us grow and understand !

[ Yes, and I'm the chap who last year painted one of our rooms with a pastel shade of emulsion - you know- it just didn't feel right - and two weeks later we emptied the room and re-did it in the same color but mixed 50/50 with white....  Now, THAT'S persnickety ]

Yes,  @Gordon Shumway -   I would tend to agree.  

Interestingly, although the Kaplan Amo strings are often simply referred to as synthetic-core at the point-of-sale, the E is not (so I guess it's expected that people know this, or have researched the manufacturer's specifications) - quote from violin-review - 

The two sets are named Kaplan Amo and Kaplan Vivo.  While the silk wrapping on the Kaplan sets for Viola and Cello are Black and White at the tail end the Amo violin set is Black and Copper while the Vivo is Black and Silver.  Both sets look very similar on paper.  They both have identical tensions, they both come with a tinned steel E-string, and they rest of the set is a Zyex core.  The tension is on the higher side of most synthetic strings sitting just below Evah Pirazzi.

I mention the Amo strings only because they were fitted on "The Traveler" when I hosted her - and - sure enough - I got the whistle !   Mind you, I was multi-tasking, what with walking at the same time as playing, indeed, even walking backwards in places LOLOL - the whistle is evident at 29 and 47 seconds in to this recording of The Traveler...  ( It was also darned cold that day - so if you detect any vibrato that would be down to me shivering, and not my technical expertise...   j/k - there was no vibrato, nor was it attempted !!! )