Carbon Composite Acoustic Violin 5 String

I got this fiddle for a couple of reasons, first so I would not have to worry about damaging one of my wooden fiddles if I happened to take it out and get it too dry, too moist, too hot, too cold, or drop it. The only wooden parts on this one are the sound post and the bridge. Second reason is that it is a +/-$500 five string fiddle and I've found nothing playable anywhere close to that price for a luthier-made wooden five string.Out of the box it was impressive. It was well packed, set up and ready to tune. Since it has planetary tuners its Glasser (Wittner style) tailpiece with five fine tuners is more of a convenience than necessity. Once adjusted the tuning appears stable, though there is some unevenness of feel in initial adjustment. Weight is OK, color is good, fit and finish are great.I had to change the bridge, still am tweaking the new one, which is about two millimeters too narrow. The factory bridge had an accentuated "violin" bridge shape, which doesn't work for a fiddler who's played for years with a smoother arch shape. The factory bridge gives an insufficient angle between E, A and D strings, too much angle between C, G and D. This made the D string too high from the fingerboard, G and A moderately too high, E too low, C OK.I would have liked the fingerboard angle to be lower but was surprised that it works for my playing style. I can play it but I really prefer the old style low fingerboards which went out of fashion a long time ago. (Apparently you can still buy fiddles with lower fingerboard angles but they're sold as baroque violins with a price tag to match.) Surprisingly the wide neck is comfortable and intuitively easy to play.In general it has a good solidly centered tone, not fantastically rich but as good as any $500 student fiddleI’ve played. I rate the tone about same as or not as quite good as my previous knock-around fiddle, a pretty bulletproof post 1891 German one I had rebuilt in the 1980s. It isn't as good as either one of my two mid 19th century fiddles. Definitely it is better than an advanced student model Chinese fiddle I got about 25 years ago. (That latter comparison is by recollection only, since the Chinese fiddle got too dry and its back split - see the first sentence of the review.) (Edited to add that both it and my old fiddles don't come close in tone to a luthier made fiddle I recently got. But, go back to the first sentence again. The Glasser is really less fragile. But it would do best to be electrified.)For slow tunes it is not as easily playable as either of my good old fiddles, but I attribute that to me not being quite used to the fifth string and not having the bridge quite right yet. The C string needs to be played assertively as my skill level with it is low and my favorite old 55 gram wooden bow doesn't seem to have enough mass to play it softly. It seems to do better with my 60 gram carbon fiber bow. For fast exuberant tunes it plays as well as my rebuilt fiddle; I don't play aggressively on the two old ones.Overall tone of the instrument is mellow for the most part, mostly equal across the strings, not muddy, not too bright, not too sweet, with some darkness and edginess played slowly (pleasant edginess, like the violin in the old movie "Jeremiah Johnson but not that overly scratchy tone that some bluegrass players strive for). Played loudly it comes across as almost bell like, but in a good way.This is not a paid review. I bought this instrument for the regular Amazon price. And I'm an amateur fiddler, not a professional musician, and certainly not a violinist.