Most expensive Uke you bought, that is unworthy of its price

My most expensive uke is a 17 fret Ken Timms style 0.
Unworthy for sure, because it is worth twice what I paid for it :)
 
Having re-homed a half-dozen or so higher-end ukes over the years, I'd have to say this is probably the case more often than not. Every uke that I've bought sight unseen has been re-homed - not because it wasn't worthy of the price, necessarily, but because it ended up not meeting my expectations of the brand (or perhaps not living up to my perception of the hype).

Out of 30 ukes I have owned all except one were bought sight unseen and unplayed. We have no selection of higher end ukes up in Canada that I am interested in. So it is buy it try it, sell it or keep it. I own 19 of those 30, these are all keepers. Eleven were rehomed so I am batting about 60 %, which is not bad. Most were bought used so I didnt lose much in resell.
 
I don’t see the purpose of bad mouthing a product that wasn’t right for someone in particular but might be right for someone else. If you don’t like a product express it to company that produced it as constructive criticism. Bashing it in public doesn’t downgrade the instrument it downgrades you as a person. Why not ask a positive question about the most expensive uke you bought that was worth every penny, that one I’ll happily answer....my Beau Hannam custom Selmer Mcaferri Tenor

I wasn't bad mouthing or bashing Blackbird. They make great ukes and are very nice people. My point is that I used to be in the camp that the Clara was impervious to the environment and that is not the case. It can handle changes is climate and humidity without issue, but like most synthetics, high temperature is a problem. At 180 degrees fahrenheit, the material is susceptible to move. I can only conjecture what happened, but when temps get over 100 in the southwestern deserts a car interior can get up to over 180 degrees. Add string tension and you might have a problem.

It is not unlike someone getting a custom longboard and sticking it in a van on a hot day. Chances are the board will twist. No one is going to (shouldn't) run back to the shaper and accuse that the board is defective. In the same way Blackbird isn't responsible for what someone does with one of their ukuleles.

John
 
This..


I do think in ukulele festivals semi prof players should offer a paid service where they play your uke to let you know the additional mileage in ones instrument that one had not tapped into.

It's a good idea, but even that does not always work. When I was going to buy my first 'expensive' uke, I spent some time at HMS and Music Guy Mike (RIP) gave me the 'backwards' test. I picked out a few candidate ukes, turned my back, and he played each of them. One of them stood out, and I ended up buying one used a couple of months later.

But I never really connected with that uke. It played well, it was beautiful, but it did not make my heart sing when I picked it up. I eventually ended up getting another uke that did inspire those feelings.

I was going to sell the previous uke immediately, but, for some reason, I decided to try a different string combination, changing it from re-entrant to linear. ZING! It was a completely different uke.

I eventually ended up selling it because I like my other uke(s) more, but it was a journey. Now I have a few ukes which I am wild about.

- Rick G.
 
It's a good idea, but even that does not always work. When I was going to buy my first 'expensive' uke, I spent some time at HMS and Music Guy Mike (RIP) gave me the 'backwards' test. I picked out a few candidate ukes, turned my back, and he played each of them. One of them stood out, and I ended up buying one used a couple of months later.

But I never really connected with that uke. It played well, it was beautiful, but it did not make my heart sing when I picked it up. I eventually ended up getting another uke that did inspire those feelings.

I was going to sell the previous uke immediately, but, for some reason, I decided to try a different string combination, changing it from re-entrant to linear. ZING! It was a completely different uke.

I eventually ended up selling it because I like my other uke(s) more, but it was a journey. Now I have a few ukes which I am wild about.

- Rick G.

For the uke you eventually bonded with, wouldn’t you be curious to hear what It would sound like when Mike played it?

My suggestion was not for the purchase decision but to see what a uke can do..

An Indian classical mandolin player was fooling around with my fluke.. it blew my mind.. never imagined it to sound as different as it did from what I had heard before from the uke.
He had many slides and used more fleshy parts of his fingers.. I was glad I had the uke with me when we went out on a trip..
 
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I would gather that my Kamaka is more unimpressed with me than I am with it.
 
coincidence... and I might get flak for this...but I was at a shop today and I got really excited when I saw they had three brand new Kamakas: soprano, concert, and tenor. I took each one down and played them for a bit, gave them each a good tryout.

I have to say I was pretty underwhelmed. The sop and the concert sounded nice, and the tenor sounded very nice, but I thought that the workmanship was kind of shoddy, at least as far as the fit and finish were concerned. The frets were dressed poorly, there were tearouts in the wooden edges of the headstock that were clearly there before the finish was applied... I was fully ready to lobby very hard to buy one, and had I fallen in love, my wife would have let me.... but I didn't see or hear anything all that special about any of them that would come close to justifying their price in my mind.
The Martin SO I played was also a disappointment.
So I bought a glow in the dark Waterman for knocking around the campground or serenading my wife while out in our boat.
 
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coincidence... and I might get flak for this...but I was at a shop today and I got really excited when I saw they had three brand new Kamakas: soprano, concert, and tenor. I took each one down and played them for a bit, gave them each a good tryout.

Did they have the stock black strings? Not flak but just an FYI in case you weren't aware - Kamaka insists on using black nylon strings that (IMO and I know others here will agree) really do not bring out the best in the instrument. Putting on fluorocarbons or even Nylguts will make it sound like an entirely different instrument.

That being said, as I think others have noted, each instrument will have a unique voice. When I've had the opportunity to try two or more Kamakas side by side, there was always one standout and one that, while it wasn't bad per se, just didn't do it for me.
 
And, there are also cats like me that like the black strings. Different strokes for different folks as they say!
 
I have 4 Mya Moes, 2 vintage Martins, a Clara, and a Pono ETSHC. Love them all because they sing to me but some don’t get played as much as others. The quality of workmanship is excellent on all.

But this is about the ukuleles I let go. A KoAloha Concert I purchased used on UU arrived pristine and on my first strum I said, “holy cow, this is my favorite ukulele!” However, after about a week I decided to sell it. (Jerry, you know who bought it) The reason I let it go was because it sounded too “perfect” to me. Intonation, spot on, etc. It just didn’t have color for me. And I didn’t sing well with it, which is one of my requirements because my singing needs all the help it can get. And yeah, it’s my playing, too, for sure. If I win the lottery I would buy another one just to have it on hand for the perfect happy times.

The other ukulele I bought, after listening to many sound samples, and sold was a mango Tiny Tenor. I still think mango is the best sounding wood of all the tiny tenors. It sounded great and was absolutely beautiful. And while I have friends who love their TTs, I hated the neck. Never liked playing it and sold it to someone I let try it. She really liked the neck and action. Set up was by HMS so it wasn’t that.

Meanwhile, I do feel the Pono, which is so much fun to play, seems to sound a little dead on the d note. Maybe it needs a new string or this is a pono thing I don’t know.
 
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With luthier-built instruments (often unique models) and expensive ukuleles you're unlikely to have a chance to play them before you get them (sometimes from around the world). There is no good way to predict how they'll feel or sound to you when you play them in your own home, using your own fingers. You can make a guess about size and wood, and some features you might value (radiused fretboard, side soundhole, etc), but sound and feel are hard to evaluate in advance.

Mivo, that is so true. I bought a custom built uke, before I was ready to do that, from a guy that had everybody jumping on his bandwagon. I paid the most I've ever paid for a uke, I had to make payments during the build.
I was really disappointed at some of the workmanship, so I sent it back for an almost full refund (I had to pay the freight).
I did the same thing again years later, another "half-custom" uke, for less money. I was slightly disappointed in one thing, but I kept that one.
Both of these guys were like 5 days drive away.
If I ever buy another expensive, or high end uke, it will be built by Donna LoPrinzi, because she lives right up the road from us.
 
Did they have the stock black strings? Not flak but just an FYI in case you weren't aware - Kamaka insists on using black nylon strings that (IMO and I know others here will agree) really do not bring out the best in the instrument. Putting on fluorocarbons or even Nylguts will make it sound like an entirely different instrument.

That being said, as I think others have noted, each instrument will have a unique voice. When I've had the opportunity to try two or more Kamakas side by side, there was always one standout and one that, while it wasn't bad per se, just didn't do it for me.

They were the stock black strings so that may have affected the tone - but to me, the biggest disappointment was the workmanship, not the sound. The tenor sounded great, I can only imagine how much better it would have sounded and played with a bit of work. But, perhaps naively, I expected a much higher level of craftsmanship from a company that has such prestige in the ukulele world.
 
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Workmanship should not be a problem in a Kamaka. The two I have seen in person (including my own, which is 4 years old) were immaculate. I hope this isn’t the start of a trend.

And yeah, those Kamaka strings lasted a day or two. I think they are so floppy you can’t get a good sound. Maybe a tenor does better, with the higher tension.
 
This is a very unfortunate post. Worthy or unworthy is so very subjective. It's hard to give a balanced view because of this.

The OP asked: “What is the most expensive uke you have purchased so far, that you think is worth way less than you paid for it?”

The way I see it is that everyone buys a ‘lemon’ or ‘pup’ from time to time, here we are just too polite to admite to it and say who the supplier was - well that or we don’t want to risk legal costs. For what it’s worth I happen to know someone who bought a Luthier made instrument at a Uke Festival. They thought it was great in the crowded sales hall but once played at home for a couple of weeks they were both disappointed with it and puzzled at how they’d spent so much on that Uke, they later sold the Uke at a loss. Someone else higher up the thread also had a poor experience with a Luthier built instrument - they thought the Uke wasn’t worth what they paid for it.

What something is worth is subjective and an opinion but it is OK to have an opinion, what’s not how it should be is when someone is slammed for making a negative comment that matches their experience and perspective. To my mind it’s far too big an ask to suggest that an expressed opinion should (always) give a balanced view, so long as it’s an honestly believed view that’s well expressed then it’s good enough for here. If a company or Luthier is happy to take the complements then, IMHO, they need to have the mindset that accepts the not so nice stuff too.

Sometimes we buy on reputation and marketing hype. Sometimes a craftsman or shop will do good work for one customer but not be so bothered about another. If you’re unfortunate enough to be mislead by clever marketing or to be ‘an unimportant customer’ then it’s likeley that you end up with less than you feel that you’ve paid for.
 
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I purchased a new KoAloha Opio, Acacia with Spruce Top Tenor (KYO-10S) for $730 USD after reading several very good reviews about it. It was described as having a very nice light satin finish on it that let the grain show through. When I received it, the finish was applied so thinly on the top that it didn't cover or fill the pores of the spruce wood. It looked pitted. And, the spruce looked like there were some cracks in the wood, but they may have just been the grain not being filled so the shadow of the finish combined with the straight, darker lines of the grain looked like cracks in the wood.

It sounded nice. Very bright. Played easily and the setup was perfect. But I couldn't get over how poor the finish looked. Then, I had a furniture-maker friend tell me that it was not the best finish application. My wife was unimpressed with it and said that it didn't look very nice. It didn't look like how an instrument that cost that much should look.

That reinforced my thought of, what's the point of a clear finish if it doesn't protect the wood? I sent an email to the store asking how it passed inspection & setup with such a poor finish. The owner replied that the finish was supposed to be that way. That's how Opio did it to keep the top resonant and produce the clearest sound possible.

So. I sent it back. Paid the restocking fee and bought a Pono.

Later, I apologized to the tech for questioning the thoroughness of his inspection. He said it was no problem, and admitted to me that they had several returned for exactly that reason: the poor coverage of the satin finish.
 
So, I'm going to freely admit that I'm a Koaloha fan here. I have three Koalohas, and my latest just showed up last week.

Their finish jobs have never been the best, in my opinion, going back a while. They had a reputation for spraying "orange peel" finishes back in the day. The satin finish on my brand new instrument also isn't the finest I've ever seen, I will probably be taking it to my local shop to see if they can buff it up a little bit. For a $900 new instrument bought from a retailer, the spray job is pretty spotty on the sides.

That said part of challenge here is I think that you didn't see it in person before buying. Koaloha on their Hawai'i and Opio models don't really aim to perfectly pore fill in their gloss finishes. You get a lot of texture in the gloss finish. Their satin finish is actually more pore filled than their gloss, in my experience. Their style these days really is to go really light with the finish for purposes of the sound, I don't think the owner was just trying to pull the wool over your eyes with that.

I hope that next time you will be able to buy in person so you can get a look at the instrument before you have to go through all that trouble! By no means am I saying you are wrong to have your opinion, it's just a bummer you had to go through the disappointment and time and restocking fee cost.

I for one have never been the biggest fan of the look of Koaloha instruments. I greatly prefer Kanile'a in that regard, not even close... but the reason I have 3 of one and only 1 of the other is all about the sound I like. But... the looks of an instrument are important too, especially when you're spending good money for it!
 
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If you buy a high end instrument and expect it to sound amazing, it has more to do with the player than the build.
 
I have enjoyed following this thread and appreciate the thoughtful comments. As a luthier coming up on 40 years of building, most match my experience. Here are a couple of stories from the other side of the fence. Managing expectations is part of our job. For me, I take the easy way out and simply state to my customers, if at any time they are not fully satisfied, simply return the instrument for a full refund. If it is returned within a reasonable time, I also refund all shipping costs. I had one instrument returned after 18 months, in that case, the customer paid for the shipping. Once after driving for an hour and a half to deliver a custom long neck soprano, the customer presented me with $40 in cash and wanted to know if they could pay the balance at $20 per month. I reluctantly agreed and received one $20 payment a month later. I did send a couple of emails requesting further pay with no results. About a year later the customer contacted me wanting to know if they could return the uke for a refund, and I promptly replied that I would be delighted to refund their $60 for the return on the instrument. A week later I got an email saying they had decided to keep it and sent me the balance owed, go figure! Another time, I shipped a highly customized uke to Europe. After receiving the instrument, I got an email saying it was a lovely uke followed by a list of minor cosmetic flaws they had noted. Not quite sure about the mixed message I replied that as the builder, I was aware of said flaws, and thanked them for their observations. Some days later I received another message, detailing some other more minor defects, and I promptly replied that if they were not satisfied to please send it back for a full refund including the return shipping costs. The message back said, oh no, they were delighted with it and would not dream of returning it, in their opinion it looked, played and sounded better than the instruments in their local stores costing three times what they paid for mine. All right then!
Brad
 
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