Yes, what you see is what you will get, as we take time picturing every single instrument so buyers can see the exact violin being showcased.

We have one simple philosophy: Making better instruments, selling at better price

As the market is flooded with mediocre instruments, disregard the price tag it is put on. What is difficult to come by is a well built instrument, made of quality seasoned tonewood, fine tuned to its best playability, yet still at the price “friendly” to the musicians.

Our goal is never making and selling massive quantity instruments, but to assure each single one has its best price-quality ratio, so the player can enjoy it in their long musical journey.

A quality instrument should be capable of a good range of tone color, sufficient response, and decent playability throughout all positions. For that reason, classical repertoires are more ideal to demonstrate the capability of an instrument, rather than a fiddle tune, which are typically being played in first and third position. That being said, you can absolutely play a fiddle tune on a violin- we have a great number of buyers who are fiddlers.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the violin is that there is no single design that represents the “perfect” instrument. Different Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesù models, different periods, arching, f-hole designs, varnish styles, and countless acoustical details all contribute to unique tonal personalities.

Just as there is no single style of music, there is no single violin that is ideal for every player or every repertoire. A violin that excels in Baroque music may offer a very different experience from one designed for the Romantic repertoire. More importantly, every violinist responds differently to every instrument, making the exploration of sound one of the most rewarding parts of playing the violin.

Over the years, we have found that this is one of the main reasons many customers eventually own more than one Infinite Strings violin. Rather than replacing one instrument, they enjoy exploring different historical models, tonal concepts, and acoustic personalities.

Different Historical Models

Many customers enjoy exploring different Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesù models. Each historical instrument possesses its own personality, and many players appreciate experiencing these differences through carefully crafted acoustic copies rather than simply visual reproductions.

As Their Playing Evolves

As musicians continue to grow, so do their expectations. Some begin with one collection and later move to another, while others commission a custom instrument built around their personal tonal preferences, playing style, and favorite historical model.

Different Musical Purposes

Professional musicians and experienced players often own multiple violins for different musical situations, including orchestral performance, chamber music, solo repertoire, teaching, recording, or travel. Having different instruments allows them to choose the right voice for the music they wish to perform.

Confidence Built Through Experience

For many first-time customers, purchasing a violin online naturally involves some uncertainty. Once they receive their first Infinite Strings violin and experience its sound, craftsmanship, and performance firsthand, many discover that it delivers far beyond what they expected within its price range. As a result, choosing a second or third Infinite Strings violin often becomes a natural decision, whether they are looking for a different historical model, tonal character, or a custom-built instrument.

Sharing Music with Others

Many additional purchases are not for the customer alone. Over the years, we have been fortunate to work with teachers, collectors, and music lovers who purchase violins for family members, students, or talented young musicians they wish to support.

To us, one of the greatest compliments is not simply selling another violin, but earning the confidence of musicians who continue to choose Infinite Strings throughout their musical journey.

Many of our customers have been playing the violin for years, often decades. They include professional musicians, teachers, advanced players, collectors, and aspiring musicians.

One thing they all have in common is that they have choices. Many have played instruments from local violin shops, established makers, and well-known workshops before choosing an Infinite Strings violin. About half of our customers also purchase from overseas, despite having access to excellent instruments in their own countries.

So why do many of them choose Infinite Strings?

From the beginning, we have focused on one simple goal:

To build the best sounding violin possible within each price range.

Everything we do serves that goal, including:

• Premium tonewood selection. We use well-aged European tonewood throughout our collections. Italian spruce is introduced in our Master Build collection, while our higher-end instruments feature premium Italian spruce and aged Bosnian maple—materials more commonly found on instruments costing several times more.

• Acoustic craftsmanship. Built by senior luthiers and award-winning makers using traditional methods, with careful attention to arching, graduation, plate tuning, and other acoustic principles.

• Traditional oil varnish. From our mid- to higher-end collections, we use traditional oil varnish with natural drying methods instead of the faster finishing systems commonly found in commercial workshops.

• Professional setup. Every violin is individually adjusted, bridge-tuned, play-tested, and fine-tuned by both the luthier and experienced players before leaving our workshop.

• Customization. Many of our violins can be built around the player’s preferences, including tonewood selection, historical model, varnish style, and tonal goals—a level of flexibility rarely available within this price range.

Every decision we make is guided by one objective: to build a better sounding violin. That philosophy has shaped our work from the beginning and continues to guide every instrument we make, regardless of price.

Every violin is built for a different player, and over the years we have been fortunate to work with musicians from many different backgrounds. Although their goals may differ, they all share a serious appreciation for sound, craftsmanship, and long-term musical value.

Professional Musicians

Many of our professional customers already own instruments worth tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many initially purchase an Infinite Strings violin as a second instrument, but later discover that our violins are fully capable of professional use—from chamber music and orchestral performance to solo repertoire. Many players find that our instruments deliver the power, projection, and tonal character they would normally expect from violins costing significantly more.

Furthermore, many professional players have commissioned custom instruments tailored to their tonal preferences, musical needs, and preferred historical models, particularly within our award-winning collections.

Please see our list of professional musicians and organizations that have chosen Infinite Strings.

Teachers & Music Educators

Many violin teachers purchase our instruments for themselves or recommend them to students ready to move beyond entry-level violins. Interestingly, many first discover Infinite Strings after hearing one of their own students perform at a recital, competition, or youth orchestra concert, and being surprised by the sound. Over the years, many teachers have introduced multiple students and families to Infinite Strings.

Advanced Players & Serious Amateurs

Many of our customers have played for years, often decades, and have usually owned or played instruments from local violin shops, contemporary makers, and established workshops before purchasing an Infinite Strings violin.

Because they know the market well, they are often looking for a professional-level instrument that delivers exceptional sound and craftsmanship without the traditional high-end price. Once they experience an Infinite Strings violin, many discover they can achieve the performance they are looking for without investing in a traditional high-end instrument.

Collectors & Historical Violin Enthusiasts

One of our largest customer groups consists of collectors and lifelong violin enthusiasts. Many are retired professional musicians or experienced players who have always dreamed of owning a faithful copy of a great historical instrument.

For these customers, appearance alone is not enough. They are looking for an acoustic copy—an instrument that captures not only the visual details of the original violin, but also its tonal character, response, and playing experience.

Many also enjoy comparing different Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesù models, appreciating how each historical instrument possesses its own unique personality and sound.

Aspiring Young Musicians

Many young musicians choose Infinite Strings while preparing for youth orchestras, conservatories, competitions, and college auditions. At this stage, students often need an instrument capable of serious musical performance, yet comparable instruments can cost significantly more.

Infinite Strings has helped many talented students gain access to instruments that would otherwise be beyond their reach, allowing them to continue their musical development with instruments capable of professional-level performance.

Supporting Young Musicians

One of the most rewarding parts of our work has been working with musicians, teachers, collectors, and music lovers who purchase our violins not only for themselves, but also to support talented young players. Over the years, many Infinite Strings violins have found their way into the hands of aspiring musicians through these generous customers.

Over the years, professional musicians from around the world have independently chosen Infinite Strings violins for concerts, orchestral performance, teaching, recording, and everyday professional use.

The information below is compiled from verified customer reviews, customer correspondence, and publicly available professional biographies collected over many years.

Professional orchestras and organizations represented by our customers include:

• American Ballet Theatre (Former Concertmaster)
• Cyprus Symphony Orchestra
• Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra
• Santiago de Chile Philharmonic
• Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra
• Guiyang Orchestra
• Orquesta Sinfónica de Salta
• Lincoln Symphony Orchestra
• Boston Sinfonia
• Grimsby Symphony Orchestra
• Thompson Valley Orchestra (Founding Music Director)

Professional backgrounds represented by our customers also include:

• International concert soloists
• Recording artists
• Former concertmasters
• Music directors
• Founding orchestra directors
• University and college violin instructors
• Master of Music (MM) graduates in Violin Performance
• Conservatory-trained professional violinists
• Elite violin coaches

This page represents only a portion of the professional musicians who have chosen Infinite Strings over the years. It is updated periodically as new verified reviews and professional backgrounds become available.

One piece of advice we often give musicians is simple: invest as much as you comfortably can in your instrument. A better violin can inspire you to practice more, respond more naturally, and continue supporting your musical growth for many years.

Regardless of your budget, you can be confident that your investment goes directly into the instrument itself. Whether through better tonewood, more experienced makers, greater attention to acoustic work, professional setup, or simply the countless hours required to build a better sounding violin, every Infinite Strings violin is designed to maximize what your investment can achieve. The difference lies in the materials, craftsmanship, and level of refinement incorporated into each series.

Italian Replica

Serious instruments at a student-friendly price.

Each violin is entirely hand carved from well-seasoned tonewood and professionally set up before leaving our workshop. Combined with a level of workmanship and tonal quality rarely found within this price range, the Italian Replica Series delivers serious musical performance at student-level pricing.

Designed for students, adult learners, and advancing players seeking an instrument capable of supporting years of musical growth.

Master Build

Where historical inspiration meets professional craftsmanship.

Each Master Build violin is individually handcrafted by experienced makers using premium Italian spruce and traditional violin-making methods. This is where our historical models become significantly more refined, combining premium materials with greater attention to historical accuracy, acoustic character, and tonal personality.

For many teachers, serious amateurs, conservatory students, and advancing musicians, the Master Build Series represents one of the best balances between performance, craftsmanship, and long-term value.

Private Stock

Professional-quality instruments at a musician-friendly price.

Built with individually selected Italian spruce and aged Bosnian maple, every Private Stock violin follows the same philosophy and nearly the same making process as our highest-level instruments. Careful tonewood selection, acoustic work, and tonal development are carried out with one objective—to create an instrument capable of professional-level performance.

For many musicians, Private Stock represents the closest experience to our highest-level instruments while remaining considerably more accessible.

Award-Winning Series

Personal instruments handcrafted by award-winning luthiers.

Each instrument is individually built by internationally recognized, award-winning luthiers using exceptional materials and the uncompromising standards they apply to their finest work.

Instruments from this series have been selected by concertmasters, professional musicians, and serious collectors seeking the highest level of tone, responsiveness, and craftsmanship.

Many custom commissions also begin here, allowing players to specify their preferred historical model, tonewood selection, varnish style, and tonal goals.

Which One Should You Choose?

The best violin is not necessarily the most expensive one. It is the instrument that best matches your playing level, musical goals, tonal preferences, and budget.

If you’re not sure where to start, simply send us a message. We’d be happy to recommend the instrument we genuinely believe is the best fit for your needs—not the most expensive one, but the right one.

The difference between each line is a combination of tonewood usage, varnish applied, and workmanship for each category. In general, higher-end models are made of higher quality tonewood, and take a longer time to complete. That being said, we take just as much care with our lower-end, more cost efficient models. All of our instruments are crafted with essential playability and efficient tonal production in mind.

We use a combination of German, Spain, and USA made varnish, spirit and oil, or mix of both.

In general the oil varnish takes much longer to dry, and can produce a richer, complex tone. Though both oil and spirit varnish come in different grade, a higher end spirit varnish is definitely better than lower end oil varnish, as some Cremonese makers are for sure using spirit varnish and have achieved ideal appearance, and promising tonal result.

One extremely important aspect in varnish, is the ground coat, which seals the wood and has a huge impact on resonance. Testing and experiment is necessary for ground coat formula, since different tonewood will have different response to same ground coat/varnish; while too thick the coat will suppress the vibration, and too thin will make the tone overly aggressive.

We acquire tone wood directly from sources in Europe/East Europe, ranging from Russia, Germany, Italy, Swiss, and Bosnia. One very important process is to stock the tonewood and let it naturally, prior put into making. Minimum 8-10 yrs while the higher end model is well over 20 yrs.

55 mm is the starting point, and it can go up to 57 mm and down to 52 mm, depending on the strings and the desired pressure you want to apply to the instrument.

Age, origin, and density defines the quality of tonewood: ideally well seasoned, with “desired” density is suitable instrument making. In general, the softer, lower density wood is more favoured for bass frequence, and vice versa. This is why we always go through the “pairing” process, to match the top and back according to the density/flexibility, so to achieve optimal resonance in tone production.

An instrument made by one single luthier from the beginning to finish: ideally done by the luthier who has good knowledge, massive experience in each step of making, so the maker can have total control from tone wood selection, arching, graduation, to the varnish.

Depending on each maker’s approach, some are making one violin at a time, while some are making 2-3 instruments at a time, for a better balanced, consistent tonal result. The average time in making also varies, as some prolific makers can make up to 3-4 instruments per month, excluding the varnishing time.

When purchasing a violin, one of the most important questions is not simply how much it costs, but what that price is actually paying for.

At Infinite Strings, our philosophy has always been simple: most of the value of a fine violin should go directly into the instrument itself. From the very beginning, our goal has been to build the best sounding violin possible within each price range.

Premium Tonewood

Everything begins with the wood. We carefully select well-aged tonewood for every collection, with Italian spruce introduced in our Master Build collection and premium Italian spruce paired with aged Bosnian maple for our higher-end instruments. These materials represent a significant investment and provide the foundation for the violin’s tonal potential.

Time, Precision & Experience

Building a fine violin takes hundreds of hours, but more importantly, it requires precision.

From arching and plate graduation to acoustic tuning and final tonal adjustment, many of the most critical decisions are measured in fractions of a millimeter. During graduation, it is common to make repeated refinements within a tolerance of 0.1 millimeter, constantly listening, evaluating, and adjusting the instrument until the desired response is achieved.

The goal is never to remove more wood—it is to remove only the right amount.

The People Behind the Instrument

Much of the cost of a fine violin comes from the people who build it. Experienced luthiers, award-winning makers, and skilled setup specialists each contribute to the final result. Their knowledge, craftsmanship, and countless hours of work cannot be replaced by machinery alone.

Acoustic Work & Professional Setup

The final sound of a violin depends on far more than its appearance. Bridge fitting, soundpost adjustment, tonal refinement, play testing, and professional setup all require experience, patience, and careful listening. Every Infinite Strings violin is individually adjusted before leaving our workshop.

Our Philosophy

Many workshops produce a large number of instruments and encourage customers to compare multiple violins before making a decision.

Our approach has always been different.

Rather than investing our resources in producing more instruments, we prefer to invest them where musicians can hear and feel the difference: better tonewood, more experienced makers, more time devoted to acoustic work, and greater attention during the final setup.

By keeping our focus on the instrument itself instead of unnecessary overhead, we are able to offer a level of materials, workmanship, and acoustic refinement that many players would normally expect only at much higher price levels.

After all, it makes far more sense to build one exceptional violin than to ask customers to search for the best one among ten or twenty ordinary instruments.

A great violin is not found. It is built.

As violin making is a high complex process, that requires different skill sets to complete an instrument, a workshop setting becomes the solution in instrument making, to fulfill the availability purpose. It could be a team of individual makers, who take turns working on different component of the instrument, or several luthiers just focusing on their specialized parts. By any means, a smaller than 5 people setting is more ideal to achieve better consistency, as well higher quality control.

Yes, each instrument will bear a label, indicates the specific series and model name. On our higher end instruments, a maker signed label will also be included, to represent the individual maker’s work.

Yes, we record or videotape each violin individually, so buyer can see or hear how the violin sounds under “real” performance setting.

We do not add after effects to the audio, simply way too time consuming and lose the purpose to faithfully represent each instrument’s character. What we do is using “instrument” mic with total flat frequency response, so to capture the sound accurately; direct into the computer/software with no further editing. Usually the player would record the track within two takes, not knowing the instrument beforehand. Maybe not a perfect performance, but suits the purpose of auditioning the instrument.

Contact us and we will see what we can do.

Typically, a Guarneri would be ideal for small-handed players due to its shorter body length and slender pattern design. Many of our female buyers are satisfied with either the Vieuxtemps or Heifetz pattern, while the Cannone can still work well for the same purpose. The neck shape is always cut at a U/V profile, for easy chordal playing. Something else to consider is the response of the violin: the more efficiently that the instrument vibrates, the less your bow hand has to work, and that will help to ease the left hand significantly.

It is best to use a headphone to listen to the audio/video performance clip: due to the high resolution file of the clip, we would recommend adjust the volume to around 50% loudness of your phone or computer, to get the most accurate tone of the performance clip. As at 50% loudness, that will eliminate the difference between phones and speakers, nor too much or less the gain to alter to voice, for the most faithful sound presentation.

It takes about 14 days to a month to finish the white instrument, while the varnish process varies and depends on the material.

The price of the instrument reflects:

1. The cost of tone wood material, varnish, fitting, and strings.
2. Maker’s commission, depending on the expertise of each maker.

Usually the higher end the model is, the longer it takes to finish the instrument, ranging from 1 month to 3 months. What you pay for is the combination of raw material, and maker’s labor in crafting the instrument. That means even an one thousand dollar violin sounds as good as a three thousand violin elsewhere, we are still gonna sell it for cost of making the instrument.

We put great attention into packing, to assure the instrument deliver at ready to play condition: instrument is put into a solid foam case, with bubble wrap and foam material used with in and out the case, so the violin will have no room to move during transportation. Upon receiving, simply follow the unpacking instruction and the violin is ready to play with no further adjustment needed.

The key to a proper set up, besides standard measurement, is to adjust the overall tension that applies to the top and back of the instrument. This includes the bridge height, string length/after length, and sound post position/length – which 1mm difference could make quite an impact on overall sound. We achieve the ultimate set up based on our extensive knowledge of the density/flexibility of used tone wood, and tonal character of the violin.

All violins will be shipped with a case, no bow. It is best to pair our instruments with a quality bow, either wooden or carbon fiber: the usual “free” or give away bows usually won’t have proper balance or weight, which leaves little to no usage, and not recommended.

A one piece back usually comes at a higher price when we purchase the tonewood, depending on the origin and availability. However, regarding tone production and the acoustic aspect, there is no difference between a one piece and a two piece back.

Yes, we ship internationally on a regular basis to players all over the world from our Los Angels workshop

Professional Shipping & Packing: Each instrument is packed securely with specialized materials both inside and outside the case to ensure maximum protection. Every violin arrives ready to play immediately upon delivery.

Delivery Estimates:

• Domestic (USA): UPS 2-Day Shipping.

• International: UPS Expedited (approx. 5 business days).

We typically ship within 1 business day of receiving cleared payment.

No. Our recordings are all authentic and unaltered. A quick trick in spotting if a recording is a faithful presentation or not, is to listen.

Since we have been in the industry for over a decade, we often see our used instruments being sold for resale at a decent price. However, sometimes we’ve seen them sell for higher than the original purchase price, because they’ve been upgraded to higher end fitting and strings, etc. Since we are our own manufacturer selling our instruments at a direct price, you will always have the advantage, in terms of price-quality ratio, over what is available in the current market.

Yes, we take custom orders for returning buyers, typically for the private stock level instruments.

Not necessary one is “better” than the other, as we have very strict control on tonewood selection, varnish used, to building method that applies to different series of the instruments.

From the making perspective, they are pretty consistent in terms of build quality and overall playability, if made under the same maker/workshop.

However, it is true that no two violin sounds “exactly” the same, even made by same luthier and used identical tonewood: this is why we record every single violin, using classical repertoire ( the best way to exam a violin’s capability), so buyers can hear the subtle tonal difference between each instrument.