TL;DR - The core instrument is great, but the fit and finish and some of the parts could use improvement.
I grabbed one of these to replace a cheap e-bay Chinese viola that the electronics had finally given out on. Overall it's worked out quite well for me, I'm running Chincello strings on it so it's dropped an octave and the sound is very good. The EQ is fine for a two-band EQ, and it's nice to have a volume slider easily accessible. You can hit it with your left or right hand fairly quickly and accurately.
To answer a few questions:
- There is no external power switch, but it doesn't drain the battery as long as you unplug the cable. That's the trigger to connect the battery, so don't leave a cable plugged in if you're not playing it.
- The bow's a piece of junk, yes. It's usable, but crappy.
- The tuning pegs aren't great out of the box and the bridge may not be set to your liking; like any other instrument you buy online it's going to need a bit of fiddling (no pun intended). Take it to a luthier for a setup, or watch a few youtube videos and DIY.
- If the bridge leans more than a few degrees, the sound will take a nose-dive in quality and/or cut out completely. I thought something was wrong with my home-built amplifier, but in the end realized it was just a bridge adjustment. Make sure the bridge is seated well on the pickup.
All in all, a pretty solid instrument, though a little bit pricey. I decided to go for it after burning through a cheaper instrument and haven't regretted it.
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