I have recently begun studying the six sonatas and Partitas for violin by Bach and have come to a delemma. I have tried the Stevens mallets on itn and they sound wonderful... for about ten minutes. They are just not durable enough for me. Is there a set of mallets out there that feel and sound the same as the stevens but are more durable? any info would be greatly appreciated.

try out the Ford mallets by Innovative.

I am not too familiar with Stevens mallets, but maybe you might want to try the Robert Van sice mallets. They are Vic Firth, but I think Adams actually makes them. Anyways, I beat the crap out of them, yet I have not seen one thread on the thing break. They are durable, and more importantly they sound awesome. My 2.
~Behzad