In article ,
Dersu wrote:
My son (aged 14) who is a promising young violinist has asked me to buy
him an electric violin. We have been told that an acoustic amplifier is
required and that the type used for electric guitars are not suitable
for violin. Can anyone recommend a newsgroup which I might try to get
advice on suitable instruments and amplifiers or even make
recommendations from personal experience?

Electric guitars use a pickup that works with the metal strings, so has an
input designed for this.

I'd guess that a violin would use a normal microphone, so needs an amp
suitable for this. So a decent all in one PA amplifier, which has a built
in microphone pre-amp, would be the answer. However, general purpose PA
speakers are designed to go rather lower in frequency than a violin needs,
so something specific for the purpose would seem the way to go.

What's available commercially I've no idea - obviously a shop that
supplies such things should know. Be an interesting project to build one,
though.

--
*Change is inevitable ... except from vending machines *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.