Oddly enough, my Larrivee spruce & mahogany soprano uke sounds the most guitarish of any uke I have or ever have had... The tonal palette, dynamics, and its hint of darkness all contribute to that I think. I have it strung in Aquilas with a low G. More sustain and a lot of depth of tone.
I have an all koa Larrivee soprano though that sounds much more uke-ish, but stiill has a touch of guitar to it in terms of its depth of tone with lots of overtones and dominant tones.
Both Larrivee's are in the permanent herd. Neither of these ukes are plunky in sound, instead they tend more towards sustain and overtones rather than punch with a rapid decay.
I've played LoPrinzi's, Collings, Kiwaya's, Guild's, KoAloha's, Kanilea's, Martin's, Mele's, Ohana's, Makai's, Bushman Jenny's, Kelii's, Pete Howlett's, plus others, and they all sounded much more ukey regardless of whether they were baritones, tenors, concerts, or sopranos...
I appreciate ukey ukes and guitarish ukes and I own ukes with all sorts of flavors.
My goal is to slim down though... two soprano ukes for the office (one re-entrant and one lowG - a Kelii and a LoPrinzi soprano),
the two Larrivee sopranos for home,
one concert or another soprano but with 14 frets to the body with a sweet and very balanced tone across all the strings,
one tenor (possibly the upcoming carbon Blackbird travel uke which appears to have a unique and powerful voice),
plus one more soprano uke (probably my Ohana spruce top) for traveling and the beach - a knock around uke, so to speak.
All of them are or will be strung with low G except the koa Larrivee and the Kelii.
I've given up on baritones as they tend to be so boomy.
As you can probably tell, I'm still refining what my permanent herd should be - I want the different ukes to complement but contrast in tone.
