Quality high end tenor advice (Anuenue or ?)

[Milesaway71]

You might check with David Ingalls at Ono ukuleles. He has some new designs that sound terrific. He might have a spec, 18" long tenor. His Wahoo model has an 18" neck. John Kinnard sometimes has spec instruments on his site. There is an 18" neck tenor model he makes.

Thanks Kenn I have an 18" scale King tenor... my daily is a little over 17, maybe 17&3/8 I forget. Once you get into 18, 19, you'll be fine with big hands imo, but I find 17 a little small and 18 on the too wide range.

We are looking at high end production vs custom arena here.
How close can you get, with productions, to custom level.
I think that back in the 2000's, you could buy a few customs and be pretty assured that if you didn't want to keep it there would be people happy to take 'em off you for close to cost price. The known builders had waiting lists, some over a year long.

Today the popular builders, factoring in how much work it is (close to what it takes to make guitar!) need to get top dollar. They may have special computerized machinery to cut some of that time down but that costs money and it still takes a while.

Interestingly, when I priced out a basic uke on Maestro custom worksheet, the price was way over what they are selling their pieces for.
The UT-KO Hawaiian koa tenor model is only like $1300 or 1400; a couple grand less than a one off Kamaka. Priced out it would be at least a grand or two more in Maestro's custom page.
The question is how close is it in quality, and they say the head builder hand tunes the soundboards of all their ukes.
What I'm seeing is a specially designed, great sounding (hopefully) uke with features that are out of reach for most players at a much lower price.
I'm betting, based on reviews and some insight into the head builder there, these are above average, as good as, or possibly better than Anuenue. They both have the same philosophy; go to China, Taiwan, Singapore, get good luthiers, make really good ukes for less. They make a living.

At the same time we may be talking about undercutting the market for American builders? Unless you are one of the K's, in Hawaii, or so well known that you can get 5 to 7 grand an uke, the custom builders will be doing it for love and not money. My daily driver, William King, he quit about 10 years ago because as a one man operation and after a few years of great success, llong list of orders, couldn't make enough money to put his son through university. He went back to full time IT work.

 

[Cadia]

I tried out the custom page and you'd be surprised how high it will get for what you already have on your, or other high end models. I like the Koa UT-KO tenor.
How does the action come? I like it as low as possible without any buzz.
If these pan out they could be the best bargain for the money.

The action is nice, low, as I also like it. No buzz. I don't know what Matt from World of Ukes might've done to it in setup. But I suspect not much, because I contacted him on a Saturday, and he wasn't going to be in his shop til Monday. Monday the uke was ready for shipping. He does change out the stock Aquila strings that Maestro ships with to his own clear fluorocarbons. The string choice is nice, though I would like to see if Uke Logic soft tension or Living Water changes the tone. Not that there's anything lacking in the tone. A nice feature is how smooth the satin neck is. I thought at first the neck finish was glossy, because it was so super smooth. But it is indeed a satin finish.

As a comparision, my Kanile'a came set up rather high.