I`m looking to purchase a violin for my 4-year old daughter. She`s been taking lesson for about a year (actually started to "play" violin about 6 month ago). She is renting Suzuki violin now (1/16), but I`ve read a lot of good thing about Gliga and they are reasonably priced. I`m almost ready to buy one from the violinsolver.com. But since I know nothing about violin myself, and reading some of the entries in this forum and other site, I have some questions.
1. Should I get GEMS 2 outfit or GENIAL 1 -Oil outfit, or even GENIAL 2-Nitro outfit? I can`t really tell the differences by reading the description.
2. Also, should I ask for the adjusters (can it be done on the "outfit"? I`m confused on this - is having adjusters good or bad? Do I need them on all 4 strings?
3. Does the round and octagonal bows any different?
Thank you

Dear Nana,

The resident 8notes expert on Gligas is Liz, who does not seem to have picked you up on her radar.
I think (although I might be wrong) you will get more answers if you re-posted this question in violin forum - don`t worry about the duplication of the posting - It seems to be dropping out of the 8notes list pretty quickly.

I bought a 1/32 gliga genial for my son which was an excellent price (£115 complete outfit from Elida UK) and does the job fine, but is not noticeably nicer sounding than a 1/8 suzuki that I picked up from the newspaper. I have bought my wife a Gems II viola, which I suppose is difficult to compare directly because of the enormous size difference, but the sound, look and feel of the instrument is so lovely that I have decided when I move up a size on my son`s violin to get a 1/16 Gems II. I have changed my view on this. Initially I thought it really doesn`t make a difference what instrument you play on at this stage, but my son has commented that the tone of my violin is nicer, and if I put it down he tries to grab my bow and play it where it lies. I suspect that some of the cliches about beginner violinists sounding horrible are based on the assumption that that is entirely due to how bad the beginner is, when in fact there is a real element of how nice the instrument itself sounds, however bad you are. I understand the difference between Gems II and Gems I is not that great, but there is a huge difference between Gems and Genial, perhaps the biggest step up in the entire range.

sorry - on your other questions, I would think you need to check you`re getting a tailpiece with 4 adjusters, and I think a bow with an octagonal cross section at the heel is a slightly higher spec. than a round sectioned one, and is easier in my view for correct placement of the right little finger.