Ozark Ukulele

Their eBay post say "Made in the EU". Is Romania in the EU? Reminds me of a Romanian made Hora (Amigo in the USA) 'ukulele.
 
Ozark do rebrand Romanian Hora stuff, so do Gremlin/Hobgoblin with their Ashbury brand. This may well be a Hora instrument.

Ozark source stuff from all over: China, Romania etc. Some of their instruments are fine, some are not.

EDIT TO ADD: Ozark deal in many folk and bluegrass string instruments: ukes, mandolins, banjos, bouzoukis etc etc. Eagle Music Shop in Huddersfield carries a load of their stuff.
 
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I was looking at this same uke but in the Soprano size. I only had a cheap soprano until recently which I played non-stop but I upgraded to a Kala Concert which is my main player now. However, I wanted to see what spruce sounded like and I wanted to upgrade my soprano to something slightly better. Did consider a Lanikai or Kala saprono but then I'd just end up with another Mahogany or Nato uke? So are Ozark not a good brand as far as ukes are concerned because I understood their banjo's are quite reasonable?
 
Nowadays Romania has become part of the EU... So it's probably just rebranded stuff.
 
Is it just me, or does Ozark Ukulele just sound WRONG? ;-)

Not if it's a banjo ukulele... :)

As for Romanian stringed instruments I've had a little experience with a few. Most were doorstops but some weren't too bad.
 
Khazakstan saxophones. - Hand made from recycled US drones and chinese land mine casings.
 
Let's not do that ignorant thing where we generalise about all instruments from a country.

Some Romanian instruments are great (as are some Korean, Indonesian and Chinese instruments). I had a Gliga Romanian fiddle that was outstanding quality for the price.

Some of the Hora stuff is a bit wobbly, but that is at least partly down to lax QC by the importers. I have had a couple of mandolin family instruments made by Hora and one mando was actually very nice when properly set up. One bouzouki was rather less so.

The problem is not that all stuff from a given country is junk; the problem is that the box-shifters buy the low-end stuff in bulk to get the benefit of economies of scale. As part of this economic exercise they scrimp on the quality control side, relying on low prices to attract sales, rather than a rep for quality.

A person who likes an instrument to play well out of the box may find that the low-end Ozark/Ashbury/Countryman etc stuff is not for them. Experienced tinkerers, modders and set-up experts may find that they get a real bargain once they've done some rectification work on the basic instrument.

Ozark, Ashbury, Countryman, Stagg and a number of smaller brands just re-badge mass-manufactured stuff from the same SE Asian and Eastern European facilities. The main differences are in minor spec and quality control.

With Ashbury (one of the Hobgoblin house brands) and Ozark, some of the higher end stuff is really very acceptable with just a set-up, but by that point we reach price levels where there are other good quality alternatives to consider as well.

Some good, some bad.
 
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