I’ve always felt that the concert size was right at the sweet spot when it came to ukuleles. I do love my sopranos, and sometimes it seems nothing will suit my mood better than a tenor. But the concert, in my opinion, is the ideal size for this instrument, not only in terms of playability, but also in terms of tone. It is not so much larger than a soprano that it becomes noticeably more difficult to carry. It seems to my ear that the concert is less prone to sounding harsh than sopranos. It is easier for me to fret accurately. And it still has the playful character of a soprano ukulele.
I’ve always wondered about the original and early Sopranos and concluded that the makers set themselves the target of producing the smallest practical guitar like instrument possible for finger picking and singing with. They achieved that but without much room left for error, well not if you want a sweet sounding instrument that plays well.
Edit. The way forward for me on that issue has been to try to upsize slightly from the original (smallest possible) design by buying the biggest versions of Soprano available within my budget (i.e. widest body + single piece top, deepest body, and approaching 14” scale). IIRC Uncle Rod had someone build him a Soprano with a Concert body, he’s pleased with it. The Ohana Vita is similar, I wish that they were more available here and that they didn’t have a narrow nut.
The original Concert was, I think, a scaled up Soprano and now the neck joint is typically moved to the fourteenth fret which (IMHO) makes it noticeably bigger overall. In my view a short scale (14 - 15”) concert with neck joining at the twelfth fret (eg. Gretsch G9110) has some of the Sopranos compact portability. However such things are relatively rare, none of models available to me here have appealed enough to purchase and long neck Sopranos (with I believe slight too compact sound-boxes) are common instead.
Some Sopranos are, to my ear, quite harsh and not what I want at all; other folk like them like that and think a Soprano should be jingly but I don’t. I think that a Soprano is one by size name only (rather than a voice description) and should have a good bass response rather than being all treble - so a balanced tone. To get that tonal balance I believe that a large single piece top is needed, just like a loud speaker needs to be bigger for lower frequency sounds.
Some Sopranos are difficult to fret, part of that is the compact scale length but I think more of it is the closeness (to each other) of the strings. However I re-space the strings further apart and the compact Soprano scale also allows my fingers to usefully reach frets that would otherwise be just beyond my finger tips, so compact can be good. Some Sopranos do not speak well at the higher frets, the remaining vibrating string is short with little energy in it and their sound board build might be less than ideal. Concerts and Tenors work better up the neck, but there is a price to pay and compromise to be made for that.
I’m still playing a Soprano by choice, they suit my needs. However one has to choose carefully and to some extent you’re ‘working’ towards or even at the limit of what sounds this deliberately small ‘guitar’ can reasonably be expected to produce.
@Bill Sheehan. I’m pleased that my text prompted a ‘light bulb’ moment for you. Thought we have the Atlantic between us we share a common language, it’s just that sometimes the words don’t mean quite the same.