Yamaha V5 SC44 Violin 4/4

As a complete violin beginner with a reasonably trained ear, I decided on this one to have my first go a a violin family instrument. I generally find the sound of beginner and intermediate instruments somewhere between uninteresting and painful, and was expecting to have to pay a lot more for something I could put up with, but this one sounds significantly more balanced and "musical" than any others in the price range, so that was an easy decision.

Most important for the beginner: From the perspective of a complete beginner, the instrument seemed well set up and easy to play out of the box. Both tuning pegs and finetuners work great, and the violin stays in tune very well, as long as temperature and humidity is reasonably stable. A year and a half, countless practice hours, a few strings sets, and some different chin rests later, I still haven't had any issues with the violin itself.

It does need better strings, though! So far, I've used Dominants (substantial sound upgrade, easier to play) and Evah Pirazzi Gold (expensive, much harder to play, but huge upgrade of the sound!). My favorite E string so far is Warchal Amber "whistle free," which sounds and feels a lot like a synthetic core string, and actually does make it near impossible to get unintentional harmonics or whistling on this violin.