Review: Bows: Joh. Krause vs. Coda Aspire

Subject: Bows: Joh. Krausch vs. Coda Aspire
From: NicoleC
Date: 13 Aug 02 - 10:08 PM

The project: Need new intermediate violin bow. Have lousy Chinese Cremona violin with very harsh high end tone and no low end tone to speak of. (That's my next project.)

I ordered a couple of bows on approval from Stringworks, and I have another unlabelled pernambuco bow which is being rehaired.

Going in, I THOUGHT I wanted a very light, moderately flexible bow... for high end comparison, I have my instructor's Nuremberger bow, which costs about $1500. For low end comparison, I have my existing $19 fiberglass bow.

First, the Joh. Krausch bow, $180. This bow is VERY light (about 56g) and quite flexible. I immediately felt that the bow seemed a little awkward, and it didn't have much hair. Although the bow was superior to my fiberglass bow, it felt mushy and the tone wasn't much better than the fiberglass. Most disappointing. This is not a bad bow, nor is it an expensive one, but compared to the Coda bow it did not stand up well.

The Coda Aspire, $220. This was the first bow I received, and as I was pulling it out of the box I was already impressed. The balance felt wonderful and it was a great weight (about 60g). The bow was a lot stronger than I expected, but did have some flexibility. It has a LOT of hair. Tone is quite good. I have heard that the composite material bows have a tendency to have a harsh high end, which worried me. After all, so does my fiddle. But since I am planning on a fiddle upgrade as well, I decide to try the Coda anyway. It's true, the Coda's tone has a bit of unbalanced brightness on the high end, but it was superior to both the fiberglass bow and the Krause. On the low end, the Coda was pulling tone out of my fiddle that I didn't think existed. Overall I was hearing harmonics and richness I didn't think this fiddle was capable of. The Aspire is also quite a bit louder. (In another 50 years, my Cremona might be a half-way decent instrument.)

From a balance and feel perspective, I personally felt the Aspire was superior to the Nuremberger (about 62-63g), although the Nuremberger has much nicer tone. The comparison of tone is not quite fair, as I have only had the opportunity to play the Nuremberger on my instrument once -- usually I've used it a much nicer violin. The Aspire felt like an extension of my fingers, and I could forget about "working" the bow altogether. I was very pleasantly surprised, and would recommend the bow to any student or intermediate player -- or anyone on a budget. For $220, it's quite a bargain.

The unmarked pernambuco bow feels like it might be a good one, too -- I'll post a comparison of it to the above Thursday or Friday. The wood has a nice zing to it, it's straight and the camber is good. I doesn't appear to be too old and all the parts are in good working order, if dirty. Someone has recently cleaned the bow, but when I take the frog off, it looks like it's silver mounted from the color of the tarnish. More on that bow when I have a chance to play it. The gentleman rehairing my bow has an excellent reputation (and prices to match), but as the bow was *free,* spending $65 on a rehair doesn't seem to bad.