There have been a few postings lately along the line of "I found their right strings and my uke came alive" and I just wanted to add my experience.
The time I bought a uke that was a real step up was a Kanile'a Koa Super Tenor. It was a great uke, but I never really bonded with it, even after a few weeks only playing that uke.
Time passed. I ended up getting another 'upgrade' to a Collings UT2 K. This uke was a real dream - almost magical in its rich and delicate tone. This one was a keeper.
Which made me start rethinking my Super Tenor. The 'high end' spot in my fairly limited lineup was firmly taken by the Collings. As an experiment, I decided to move to a low G tuning on the Kanile'a.
I ordered a C3 set of Savarez from JustStrings. They were OK, but the low G was wound and quite squeaky. So I went one more step and got a Freemont squeakless low G.
And that did it. Not only did the squeak go away, but the sound of the low G was now well balanced with the other strings. And the uke sounds totally different and great - rich a complex. (I probably should have figured that out with the Super Tenor configuration.) Completely different from the Collings - which should be a big lesson to those nay-sayers who think all ukes sound alike.
I even have started to really like the appearance of the Kanile'a - there are some nice dark veins in it that change everything in that area too.
So you never know. Looks like they are both keepers.
The time I bought a uke that was a real step up was a Kanile'a Koa Super Tenor. It was a great uke, but I never really bonded with it, even after a few weeks only playing that uke.
Time passed. I ended up getting another 'upgrade' to a Collings UT2 K. This uke was a real dream - almost magical in its rich and delicate tone. This one was a keeper.
Which made me start rethinking my Super Tenor. The 'high end' spot in my fairly limited lineup was firmly taken by the Collings. As an experiment, I decided to move to a low G tuning on the Kanile'a.
I ordered a C3 set of Savarez from JustStrings. They were OK, but the low G was wound and quite squeaky. So I went one more step and got a Freemont squeakless low G.
And that did it. Not only did the squeak go away, but the sound of the low G was now well balanced with the other strings. And the uke sounds totally different and great - rich a complex. (I probably should have figured that out with the Super Tenor configuration.) Completely different from the Collings - which should be a big lesson to those nay-sayers who think all ukes sound alike.
I even have started to really like the appearance of the Kanile'a - there are some nice dark veins in it that change everything in that area too.
So you never know. Looks like they are both keepers.