the ohta san scale

chuck in ny

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what would you say the advantages are of a concert with a 16" scale?
 
Former Ohta-San owner here - the advantage is that it's just an all-around great uke! The only reason I'm a *former* owner is that the scale length, while smaller than tenor, was still too large for my tiny hands to play comfortably, and it was causing me hand pain.

What I really liked about it was that it had great playability up the neck much like a tenor does (!4 fret join and more sustain than standard concert scale) but still retained a very ukulele-like sound, rather than sounding guitar-ish as many tenors do. So I'd consider playability higher up the neck, and more sustain, to be definite advantages.
 
I think it's the combination of the scale and the bell-shaped body that give sustain & clarity when playing finger-style and whopping volume & sustain when strumming. Strung Low G, it is 'big'.

Like janeray1940, my hands struggle with the scale length so I keep thinking I'm going to sell mine, but every time I play it I am smitten again.
 
I think it's a personal preference thing. As mentioned it doesn't fit everybody, but I think it's a great option. Just a little more comfortable to fret than a tenor to me but not as cramped as standard concert. String tension is also a little lower. For example my Cocobolo 16" feels good in C tuning but I like my tenors better in Bb.
 
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