Good Twin Meets Evil Twin

There’s been some fun deliveries at Chez Amateur Bard. I bought a beginner level violin (Franz Hoffmann Prelude) from Shar for my sister’s birthday present (with her knowledge and permission; surprise instruments are Not Recommended lol). It’s on the left in the above picture. On the right is… a VSO. Yep.

Back when I was pet sitting, one of my clients would give me wamazon gift cards as a bonus. I stopped buying from them because I Am Deeply Opinionated, so I never used the last one. I found it while doing a deep clean and decided to be a little selfish and frivolous. I ended up having to pay tax out of my own pocket, but I can live with that. I’ve been so looking forward to seeing what $50 of violin looks like. (Theoretically, this one was listed at $60 but on sale or ‘on sale’ for $50. I do most of my VSO window shopping on the Bay of E, so I’ve got no idea if it’s a legit sale or one of those obnoxious tricks to make you think you’re getting a good deal.) I was also curious because this didn’t use the same stock photo that I see all over the Bay of E (maybe some day I’ll put up my collection of screenshots of shame)

It’s pretty interesting because at first blush, these two instruments look to be similar grades–but on closer inspection the VSO really lives up to, or down to, its status as ‘yeah maybe a nice wallhanger.’ And I can tell you one thing for sure: The Prelude sounds waaaay better than the VSO–if for no other reason than the pegs on the VSO are totally untunable.

I want to do a full comparison between these two, and I’ll probably throw Opus into the lineup for a chuckle. (It’s not that Opus is such a high quality instrument, but rather Opus is the low end of the ‘student’ violin class and even that is a jump up in terms of just material and labor quality.)

Enjoy this amusing preview of the hot mess that is my sparkly new VSO: