Good luck and don't listen to criticism. After all, your ears are closer than theirs. Seriously though, my fiddle took me around the world a couple of times and all over Australia for thirty odd years (bloody odd years!)so I guess I'm fairly qualified to advise you. I have to disagree with Greg, though I know many would agree with him. My experience as a player and as a teacher is that you should get the best fiddle you can comfortably afford. It's bloody hard to get a good sound out of a fiddle when you start off and almost impossible from a cheap one. It can be really discouraging if you are listening to Kevin Burke or John Sheahan and hear their rich tone when all you get are tuneful screeches. Secondly, the thing that staved off divorce for a year or two for me was the discovery of wooden clothes pegs. Clip one firmly on your bridge and you can practice all night with very little volume but still sound reasonable enough to practice your tone. I still carry a peg in my case for sessions for those times when I'm backing a quiet singer and want to play dramatically without drowning the singer. After that it's up to you but take heart! Once you get past the first 25 years or so it gets a bit easier.