Among other things, I got some "Magic Rosin" for xmas.  A thoughtful gift from my wife, and a type of rosin I had wondered about before.

Probably the most unusual thing about it is that it is water clear.  They make use of that property with their neat gimmick of putting interesting artwork, glitter, mirrors, holograms or photos under the rosin. 

A nice look, which of course gets pretty much ruined as soon as you actually use the rosin as rosin.  But a nice touch, anyway.

The company does give out a free sample.  Well, it's free other then shipping and handling.  But since they have two different formulas/types of rosin, that allows for buying a regular sized one for one kind and getting to try the other kind as a small size as well.  Not a bad deal.So I was given both a large/regular sized "Ultra" formula and a small size of their regular/original one.

With my usual rosin, which is Hill Dark, I get no noticeable dust and it has a definite dark tone color, a bit of growl and rasp to it that I generally like.

The Magic Rosin "Ultra" is the grabbier of the new rosins, but still nowhere near as much as the Hill dark.  Sound is smoother and to my ears, a bit softer.  I would call it a "more transparent" tone, in that it has less of a noise component (or that's how I'd describe it if it were a synthesizer, since I don't know the violin terms for sound/tone/timbre differences).  It takes a bit more bow to get as much power with it as the Hill, but that could be nice for some things.

The standard formula, I didn't care as much for.  Definitely a bit more of a light rosin sound, and I found it maybe a little hissy for my liking.  I could get good clear notes, but it just has considerably less "traction" than I am used to feeling.  To be fair, though, humidity is low here this time of year, and in more humid weather it might be just the ticket. 

Both of the Magic Rosins have a little bit of dust, but it's not a lot.  I usually get almost none, compared to things I've tried like the cheap rosin that came "free" with my electric, for example.  That stuff tended to have fairly large grains in the dust, quite a bit of dust and a very hissy tone when I used it.  

So I'd say the Magic Rosin seems to be decent quality.  Different sound and feel than what i am used to, but I like the "Ultra" pretty well.

Another noticeable factor is that neither of the formulas of Magic Rosin have any noticeable smell to them.  I suppose that might be important if you really don't care for the smell of rosin.  

My wife was rather surprised that she could hear the difference between the rosins when I changed between them.  For any beginners who have maybe tried only one kind of rosin so far, yes it does make quite a difference to the sound and how the bow feels on the strings.  If you have something like the "free" rosin that seems to come with most inexpensive violins, getting a new rosin of any of the brands people speak well of will be about the cheapest upgrade you can do that will make an instant difference to your violin's sound.  The good news is that even the best rosins don't cost all that much, I think around 20-30$ for a 'cake' that will last quite a while.  Many brands that experienced players swear by can be gotten for around 10$ or so, sometimes a bit less.  So it can be a very reasonable "treat" for yourself sometime when you are ordering some other item or visiting a music shop.