Comparison BigIsland Honu trad, Koalana, Koaloha, Moana concerts

I'm lucky to have four different ukes for comparison at home. So I made a video to share.
The ukes are:
Big Island Honu traditional - Koa
Koalana CK - Sapele (mahagony)
Koaloha KCM-00 - Koa
Moana CK-200 - Maple

Those are all solid wood ukes, recording and string conditions were the same for all (ZoomH2 about 2 m away, Aquila strings).

Just take a look if you're interested:



Cheers,
ruukie

Ruukie, thanks for the comparison. They all sound so nice. Great playing.

Which one is your current favorite?

To my ear I liked the Koaloha the best. Also, it seemed to me that for you, the KoAloha was the most enjoyable to play when you were finger picking. after that (for me) would be the Big Island, then the Moana, and then the Koalana. All sounded good on the video but I have found that video is not the same as live -- so there it is --- my picks

Not sure if it is my new speakers or good recording equipment (probably both), but I think the sounds of the ukuleles were captured well enough for me to discern differences in tone between all of them. To me the KoAloha sounded the best from a blind listening perspective.

I liked the Koalana and Moana too, but the sound on them just wasn't as clean as the KoAloha (just a tiny bit of muddiness in both of the tones). The Big Island had clean sound but the tone seemed a bit muted to me.

Great comparison and thanks for sharing the video!

Thanks for watching and commenting on the video!

I like to do those comparison because the sound of ukes is different for the audience than for the player and I wanted to know both. Nevertheless, this was not intended to be a competition. They are all great ukes with different characteristics. One should take into account, that those ukes range from $200 to $700. I love them all. although I'd like to say that the Koaloha is exceptional. After this has been recognized by many listeners I knew the recording quality was not too bad

Thank God that preferences and tastes are different It's just a ukulele but we love them!

They all sounded EQUALLY WONDERFUL ! But different ! Thats what it is all about !