I got my Walter Mahr baroque violin today, and I'm in love. First of all, the instrument is gorgeous, aesthetically. The varnish is a deep, reddish orange, the figuring on the back is tiger-striped. The fingerboard and tailpiece are ebony - I'd have preferred ebony veneer over maple, but this is quite lovely in any event.

The sound is quite nice to my ear. Rather than tune it to the "canonical" baroque tuning, A=415 Hz, I tuned it up to A=432 Hz, just shy of modern concert tuning, and to where my new Highland pipes like to tune. It's got a lot of projection for a baroque instrument, and is light as a feather. The nut-to-bridge distance is barely smaller than a modern violin, so good intonation comes fairly easy. Double-stops are very easy, almost too easy, on this flatter bridge. And the lack of a chin-rest presents no problems to me.

I've been playing on it all evening, and I think my old student violin is getting lonely...