As someone who picks up and abandons hobbies regularly, I second this unless he really know that he wants to do it.
To quote the sage wisdom of LoverBoy : You gotta start from the start!
Get the cheap one. If he likes it, he can move up.
EDIT: Anybody wanna buy the expensive-ass Martin guitar my wife bought for my kid that he played twice?
It’s not just the raw sound - with a string instrument you need a certain base level of quality in things like the tuning pegs to maintain tuning. You want something that’s of sufficient quality the player doesn’t spend more time tuning than playing.
As an amateur violinist who’s obtained violins of various price ranges, I would say don’t go absolute rock bottom. The quality of the materials affects the sound as much as the player’s ability; they may be getting good but a warped fingerboard (to cite one personal example) will do a lot to negate the effects of whatever skills have been acquired.
The rental approach sounds like a very good idea - pay for a couple months up front, and then the recipient can decide if they want to continue.
The other thing, looking at some reviews of super-cheap violins, is that they break if you look at them funny. This can make tuning them impossible. The highest reviews tend to be from cosplayers and the like, who are looking at the purchase less as an instrument and more as a prop.
Yeah, if there’s a sincere desire to learn to play, this is a losing strategy. Even for a complete beginner, the instrument has to be of a minimum standard of quality, for all the reasons given in this thread. A cheap instrument will interfere with the ability to learn and succeed and will make quitting much more likely.
Trying to think of an analogy: if you were trying to get someone to develop a taste for wine, would you buy them a $200 bottle, a $10 bottle, or a $2 bottle? I’d go for the $10: if they don’t like it, there’s no great loss, but if I bought the $2, they might really just not like the taste of sweetened vinegar.
I agree in general but since this is a hobby you’re gifting, I think it’s a reasonable concern for this particular situation. Learning the violin takes quite a bit of dedication and this friend is described as “has mentioned wanting to play the violin in the past”. Unless this guy is already playing other instruments, I fear any violin is destined for the back of the closet.
Disclaimer: my wife makes violins, so I’m habituated to favor viloins over “violin-shaped objects.”
You have to distinguish between the fiddle, and the set up. One of my wife’s favorite players is a $50 Chinese box “in the white” (unvarnished). She put on a finish that was probably worth $250, carved a bridge and set it up (easily another $250), and it sounds great. She takes it out where it might get beat to shit. If it does, all she has invested is $50 - and some time.
A fiddle that is supposedly set up and ready to play for $25-50 is going to sound crappy, likely will not stay in tune, and will likely be difficult to play. Not good things for a beginner.
If you bought a 50 fiddle and took it to a shop, they could probably make it playable for a couple hundred .
As others said, the best bet is to rent - but difficult to make a gift of.
You can get a very playable fiddle for $2-300. A lot of folk buy cheap Chinese boxes, then finish and/or set them up themselves to retail.
Set up is key. For example, I have a cheapish ($1000) upright bass. I keep wanting to replace it with something pricier. But my blasted wife has it set up so beautifully that I have yet to find one I like the sound/playability of better. :o