Which is your best violin?

• Author: jehpin
• Filed under: Violin Posts
• Date: May 7,2007

Q: I find it hard to tell which are your best violins. I get the impression that the Performa are best, but at the same time the PDF file does not compare them to your other fiddles. For example, which is better, Composer or Performa? I know it often depends on the music you want to play, but in your opinion what is your top class violin? Thanks! — Dave

A: Hi Dave,

you are right again. It’s really hard to tell which are the best violins sometimes. You see, I represent 7 workshops so far and they each have their unique style of making. From my client’s feedback, the Performa offers the best value in terms of tone, although they are varnished in just one way. The Alpine 87 is getting very popular too, despite its higher price, but the buyers are all repeat buyers. So I guess they discover the true value after they play for some time and they come back with their friends’ orders.

The Composer is geared towards a shop who wants to sell many type of varnishing with the same tone, rich and powerful. This allows the reseller to have many different styles of varnishing and colour to suit many advancing students. In terms of tone, this violin is bias towards the higher registers, allowing easy playing, especially for advancing students. I send you one MP3 of music played by my client T. Gentges. You can see his playing style is suitable for this violin.

For top class, try the Alpine 87 (regular or master) or the Performa 5 star (for best value for money). The Vecchio is a good violin too. But the workshop is my newer discovery for less than a year so I am still gathering feedbacks from clients.

–Jehpin

Contact me if you want the sound sample by T. Gentges.

Custom Violin: 7/8 Violin for M. Wilson (Australia)

• Author: jehpin
• Filed under: Performa, Workshops
• Date: May 6,2007

Click for larger image.

Client’s Feedback

Hi Jehpin,

Hope you are well. Just wanted to say thankyou for the violin. It arrived very quickly last week, and I’ve been getting some really nice comments from members of my string ensemble.

I put Obligato strings on it as I thought the Evah Pirazzis might be too powerful. It already has a very powerful and warm tone and good resonance, and by day 3 of getting it, is starting to open up and I’m finding it very easy to play on. It also looks great!

I took it round to my violin teacher, who also owns and operates a violin shop in Sydney. He was impressed with the quality and value for money of the custom made instrument. He even asked me for your email address and website to make enquiries, which I have passed on to him.

The only disappointment was that I noticed that the violin did not come with a label inside the f-hole. I thought that was a pity considering I would have liked to have had the maker’s name acknowledged somehow. Is there a label that he has that you could send me?

Thanks and best wishes,
M. Wilson