Ukes with Radius Fret Boards?

I will answer your questions about the Enyas, I also have owned Ponos. I went to a radius because barre chords were so much easy with it for me as well. I own 6 tenors and 2 baritones with radius then there are the Enya X1 round soprano, pineapple soprano and concert. The Enyas for the most part are well made but on the quiet side. The radius is either shallow or the fretwires small but I don't find the radius as helpful as some others. It might just be the shorter scale length with less space between fret wires because all my other ukes are larger sized.

I never got around to measuring the radius of the Enya I used to have, but it sure didn't feel like the 12" I'm used to on my Gibsons. Whatever it was, it wasn't noticeable when doing barre chords, and I didn't find it any easier than my other ukes with flat necks.
 
Regarding the Enya, it's well made, the neck is comfortable, but the radius is too small to matter much.

Thanks Don and everybody else who weighed in on Enya... sounds like the dream of a radiused fingerboard on an inexpensive ukulele is too good to be true.

A note on Pono: Only a handful have radiused fingerboards. Looky here and scroll down to the list of models:

http://koolauukulele.com/pono-f-a-q/
 
Thanks Don and everybody else who weighed in on Enya... sounds like the dream of a radiused fingerboard on an inexpensive ukulele is too good to be true.

I think this is the wrong conclusion...it IS true. The X1 series has a radius fretboard. What may not be “true” is that you will prefer a bowed neck.

I owned a very nice Cedar Pono for about a year, which I bought and sold here on UU. It was (and still is) a gorgeous instrument...but I never really connected with it and while that model had the radius fretboard, I preferred the KoAloha sound of my Opio Tenor and KoAloha’s straight fretboard doesn’t bother me at all.

Besley was kind enough to donate his Enya to our school, and that instrument suffers from a slightly bowed neck. Without kicking up a hornet’s nest, we have NOT seen any other issues with Enya necks on these forums or the others I follow. But I can attest that the thing is bowed. It is playable, but the bow likely decreases any benefit of the radius.

I also have one of the Enya X-1camp ukuleles that were $29 last summer (in addition to the 13 I bought for my school), and the neck is wonderful to hold on that instrument, and the fretboard has a radius, but I woudn’t say I prefer it over my Martin S1 which does not have a radius fretboard.

But I am 100% certain that there are players who find a radius fretboard more comfortable to play, and I wouldn’t buy or not buy a ukulele because if its radius fretboard. I’m more likely to pass on a ukulele because of how the fretboard is decorated (e.g. some of Bruce Wei’s inlays are too much for my tastes).
 
Is it all Pono models or only the pro classic models that have the radius fretboard?

All of the Pro Classic and Master Series, all of the Electric Solidbody models, and then some "upgraded" base models like the AT-CR, ATD-CR, and MTD-SP.
 
I have a Kanilea Tenor with a radius fret board and a Kamaka Tenor with a standard fret board. I don't notice too much difference. I recently tuned the Kanilea down a whole step and it's a tiny bit easier. I found that the Kanilea has a nicer ring to it with the lower tuning.
 
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