Review: Two weeks with Thomastik Rondo Gold strings
I bought a set of the new Rondo Golds two weeks ago. My first impression was that they felt somewhat thicker under the left hand than did the Dynamos that I had played for about seven months. Yet the Rondo Golds felt very flexible and yes, I think they had more high frequencies and maybe more gold (whatever that is), but no metallic sound at all. I played them twice in a community orchestra rehearsal and found them to sound quite brilliant yet not too shrill, but a bit too loud for my taste (I guess they will tame down in a few more days or weeks).The Rondo Gold set comes with two different E strings. The gold-plated E was of course very brilliant and a bit more prone to whistling (but as usual, this might just be what I expect and therefore I hear it that way). In comparison, the tin-plated E seemed to blend very well with the rest of the set. When I used the Rondo Golds with the Pirastro Gold E, the Rondo Golds sounded somewhat hard in comparison, even after two weeks of playing. Indeed, I found they had a certain hardness in their sound that I also observed in Evah Pirazzi Golds. Both sets are advertised as being more "golden" (darker?) variants of their brighter sister sets Rondo and Evah Pirazzi green. Maybe the sound of those strings simply becomes somewhat harder if the high frequencies are reduced?
I then switched to Rondos that I had played for about six weeks so far. I thought they were a bit thinner physically and had a mellower "sweeter" sound (more high frequencies) – I guess one can hear this on my recording (see below). Rondos also seemed to have a somewhat lower volume; coming from the Rondo Golds, the higher registers on A, D and G of the Rondos sounded relatively thin to my ears.
After two days, I switched to my old Dynamos – I'm still a fan of their warmish neutral sound. The only thing I was missing was the full and brilliant sound of the Rondo Golds on the higher register of the G string. I soon discovered that I was also missing some volume on D and A, so I switched back to Rondo Golds and will play them for a while. From the recording and from my personal feeling, it seems to me that Thomastik made the Rondo Golds a slightly more "soloistic" string than Rondos and Dynamos. One can hear on the recording that the response to bowing is a little delayed in comparison, which might be caused by a slightly larger diameter of the strings (if this is correct), aiming for a higher volume. Nonetheless, response is still excellent, and it is easy to play at very low volume and still have a satisfying sound.
Of course, it is unfair to compare Rondo Golds that were played for two weeks with Dynamos that are seven months old. I'll make a second comparison in about six months! The following recording was made when all three sets of strings had about the same age of two or three weeks (I recorded the Rondos and Dynamos earlier this year, using the same room and settings).
UPDATE: Four weeks with Thomastik Rondo Gold strings
I've now played Rondo Golds in several orchestra rehearsals and in a quintet rehearsal (Mendelssohn Op. 18). When playing quintet, I thought the sound of the Rondo Golds was surprisingly similar to the sound of the cello; and with the empty G and D, they had a certain bell-like character like Evah Pirazzi Golds (only in the Evah Golds, this character seems to disappear after the first few days...). I generally thought that Thomastik may have planned the Rondo Golds as an alternative to Evah Golds. However, I thought that both sets of strings are not for me and my violin, because both had a certain hardness in their sound that did not disappear after four weeks. At least it did not disappear in Rondo Golds: my quintet colleagues said the strings sounded good but slightly metallic, but that this might eventually disappear after the first days of playing them (but I had already played them for four weeks!).
So, I agree to where Thomastik has placed Rondo Golds in their string chart: to me, they are dark sounding strings (I think in their chart, "warm" means reduced high frequencies = dark. And yes, gold is probably darker than silver). Also, Rondo Golds did have this cracking at the beginning of a bow stroke that I knew from low tension strings and from gut strings. However, unlike Evah Golds, I thought that Rondo Golds also had some sweet high frequencies and a satisfying sound in pianissimo. It is just that when practicing Mozart Divertimento (KV 563) these days, I thought that the strings sounded too dark and not mellow enough for me, so today I switched to Peter Infeld strings.
Replies (41)
Stay tuned for ... Rondo Adamantium......
As an aside, I see that Larsen has just released Il Cannone Gold strings, complete with the world's first gold-wound D string (not joking). They have an unusually high string tension, even compared to some of the other strings discussed in this chat.
Now, I see kids on the lawn that I have to go yell at.
Buri.
I've tried many different strings and my experience is pretty much on pair with the idea I got from comparing them on YouTube videos. Trust me when I say it, yours are too similar to each other, because of the distance and because you don't push the sound out of your instrument. Just a scale with a deeper sound would be better.
I don't agree with the idea that strings only sound different for the player, it's definitely noticeable for the listener.
@Jacob: I did not write "strings only sound different for the player", I wrote "more important at the ear of a player", and I think I stand by that. It's not only the sound, it is also the response and the feeling in the left hand in which sets of strings strongly differ to me as a player, although for the most part, the audience will not notice. In the audience, for example with good headphones, I might be able to recognize that Augustin Hadelich plays on Evah greens and Isabelle Faust on Dominants; but I think I can only hear it because I know they are using those strings. I cannot that easily hear that Hilary Hahn plays on Dominants as well – maybe her sound is so full, or deep, that characteristics of the strings tend to disappear for me.
HH doesn’t sound like soap to me. I am always impressed by her ability and yet go away thinking she has outgrown her -violin- and yet doesn’t really seem to notice it. My impression is she is using her amazing technical resources to produce the colors she hears -in her head- but they don’t really come out of the violin which I find slightly one dimensional. Listening to the del Gesu Raymond Chen tried on one of his youtube videos , I immediately flashed back to the HH sound and thought that had so much more to offer. Surely she can afford $12 000 000 now? Or is she saving it for her kid’s education?
Cheers Buri.
PS Sorry Ray. I knew it was a Guarneri from the sound. Still can’t play like you though. Give me a thousand years or so.
I was looking for a string that was warmer than the Rondos and slightly less tension which compelled me to try the PIs. These Rondo golds seem like they could be a better option for me since they share similar DNA with the normal Rondos.
With PI's my 1820 Morlot sounded smooth but dull; with Tonicas it sprang to life.
Dynamos may be a bit lower tension than PIs and Evah Pirazzi Gold, but are still high tension strings, higher than Dominant Pro, which are already quite higher than the classic Dominants.
My 19th century violin has more volume with classic Dominants and Perpetual Cadenzas, when I try Dominant Pro the sound gets much darker and seems to build up inside and not come out, because the pressure is overloading the violin.
https://www.pirastro.com/public_pirastro/pages/en/Gold-00006/
https://fiddlershop.com/products/larsen-il-cannone-gold-violin-string-set
They're even using porn-like adverting strategies ffs:
https://larsenstrings.com/
Loot at those tensions:
G: 4.8 kg
D. 5.1 kg
A: 6.0 kg
E: 9.0 kg
That is insane! Are they going to be classified as "medium"? LMAO
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