Stringers Music, London www.stringersmusic.com

I took my grandson to check out the violins, we didn't have an appointment but the staff was kind enough to fit us in. The lady that served us was very helpful, she showed us 3 violins in our price range and allowed my grandson to have a play to see which one he liked the best, he even had a variety of bows to try out. She even played the violins so we could hear the different in the sounds of each instrument. There was no pressure for us to purchase anything, after my grandson decided on his choice of violin and bow the manager let us have them on approval for 2 weeks. We then bought the violin and are very very happy we went to Stringers, the best violin shop in London with amazing, helpful wonderful staff.

I recently went to Stringers in London and bought one of their intermediate level violins that come as a package including the case and bow. I was reluctant to spend a lot of money, because I'm not sure whether my son is going to continue, and he brings the instrument to school. The violin was one of their 'Symphony' outfits, and I was incredibly surprised by the high quality of the sound! On top of that, the lady who saw us reserved a practice room for my son so he could have some privacy to try other violins, and gave us more care and attention than we had expected! I will definitely go back to Stringers in the future.

Bought entry level violin and viola from Stringers in London. They had me in and out in a flash. I've heard of quick service but that was the fastest i've ever had. Maybe they were short staffed that day but the lady in the shop couldn't be bothered at all. I wasn't spending big money just buying entry level student instruments so she obviously felt that I wasn't worth spending time on. The instruments were set up well and easy to tune but after time sounded foggy and scratchy probably due to the horrible thick lacquer that they were covered with. Luckily I sold them both. I should have done a lot more research before my purchases as the shop were no help at all. Anyway I would NEVER shop there again as the service and help was awful and the stringers own brand student instruments are quite bad and sound worse.

Stringers in London is relatively new shop as it only opened in London 3 years ago. However, it's doing really well mainly because the staff there take so much trouble with their customers. They have a main shop which is open from Monday-Sat and also another studio with high level professional stringed instruments (that one's by appointment only). I went to the main shop which is near Baker Street as I was looking for a cello student of mine. The lady who helped me there took so much time showing me lots of different instruments (many of which were Stringers' own brand and very reasonably priced for the quality of the instruments) and she also took time out to play them to me so that I could listen from a distance which was a great help. They've got an on-site workshop too so I always send my pupils there for any work they need doing on their instruments.

I'd say that Stringers is a very welcome addition to the violin world in London!