The Martin sisters

I had both of these out today, so thought I'd grab a pic. On left is Martin T1K, with recent UPT tuner mod. On right is early 40's Style 0 soprano. Surprisingly, both have almost equal volume...loud. Tried a bunch of strings on the T1K: Martin, Worth Browns, LW, now finally the Nylguts, which sound great on it, and I usually don't prefer them. Wanted to try them, since Kanilea specs them on their fine koa ukes. They sound full and rich, whereas FC strings did not, at least on this uke. As Baz mentioned in his review, the T1K can sound trebly, almost like a soprano with flouros. Not so with the Nylguts, IMO.

While there is a clarity and ring that I like with fluorocarbon strings, Nylgut do really suit some instruments better. Of course, personal taste can also play a big part in that as well.

Not sisters but Great Grandmother and great grand daughter relationship. JK.

I have the same experience that Martin ukulele seems to be suited to fluorocarbon. The only exception that works on my Martin c1k is the kamaka black nylon Low G strings. It doesn’t have the sustain and ring at 12th fret and higher, but it produce a sweet round tone for finger picking. Sometime the fluorocarbon is too harsh and bright for some gentle melodies.

Saturday night I checked out a friend's 20s 2K Martin, it was strung with Nylguts, sounded absolutely great, I was surprised as I use fluorocarbons on my vintage Martins, He said it was the best sounding soprano he has ever heard and now I don't doubt him. I'm rescuing a similar one now and will do a string test when it is ready.

PetalumaRescuke said:

Saturday night I checked out a friend's 20s 2K Martin, it was strung with Nylguts, sounded absolutely great, I was surprised as I use fluorocarbons on my vintage Martins, He said it was the best sounding soprano he has ever heard and now I don't doubt him. I'm rescuing a similar one now and will do a string test when it is ready.

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Cool Dave, I look forward to hearing about your string test especially if you test both Aquilas and flouros on your koa vintage Martin soprano rescue. I usually don't like Aquilas on mahogany ukes, using flouros instead. But they sound great on my koa TK1.