Sound Differences With All Laminate Koa vs Laminate Mahogany vs ... ?

After reading another thread (Shady uke companies...) I'm curious if the top layer of an all HPL uke makes any difference. If not, why waste a wood that's in short supply when another wood can be used? I understand it's marketing driven, but still ...

Thanks to Barry Maz's review, I bought an inexpensive Enya soprano HPL that I've been very happy traveling with. In the review he uses the phrase "outer koa graphic" which adds to my confusion. When an add reads "Laminated Hawaiian Koa Wood" is it a graphic or a thin piece of Koa on top?

Perhaps a luthier, or someone who has played two of the same with different HPLs could answer this.

Ed1 said:

After reading another thread (Shady uke companies...) I'm curious if the top layer of an all HPL uke makes any difference. If not, why waste a wood that's in short supply when another wood can be used? I understand it's marketing driven, but still ...

Thanks to Barry Maz's review, I bought an inexpensive Enya soprano HPL that I've been very happy traveling with. In the review he uses the phrase "outer koa graphic" which adds to my confusion. When an add reads "Laminated Hawaiian Koa Wood" is it a graphic or a thin piece of Koa on top?

Perhaps a luthier, or someone who has played two of the same with different HPLs could answer this.

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With HPL (even the Martin ukes) the "wood" pattern is printed on, whereas with higher end laminated ukes it is usually a veneer of the actual wood. The marketing description only refers to the design/decoration and not to actual materials used and it has nothing to do with any tonal qualities. Good laminated ukes often use materials like poplar or birch for the cores under the veneer that are excellent tone woods, they are just not pretty. That's why laminate ukes often sound very good, you just have to get over their often gaudy decorations.

The top layer of the model you referred to (and in fact all HPL ukes) is not wood. In fact there is no wood in them bar the bracing. It's a graphic printed on the HPL which is compressed paper in resin. It could be anything printed on the outside.

With a laminate wood ukulele the inner sandwich can be anything really and the outer is a very thin veneer of the wood it resembles. As to whether the outer veneer changes the tone - possibly, possibly not. More likely the construction of the rest of the uke and how the laminate sandwich itself is made will contribute more. As such, laminate wood ukes can and do sound different, but do they take on tonal properties of the wood on the outer veneer? Not really.

As the other posters have said, we are talking in this area, three things

1. HPL is paper and resin and not called a laminate like wood. It has pattern and they look good. I’ve played the Enya HPL tenor and while quieter than my other tenors, it has good build and well made and sound is good.
2. Laminate , I’m sure all would agree there are different products. I don’t understand but there would be cheap, ok and great laminate. I’d love a thread by supplier or builder who know the difference. You likely have bottom end laminate onthe really cheap Uke. Kiwaya (sp) would be Japanese and and from what I’ve read on forum sound really good. Then I’m sure , stuff that is in between.
3. What Ono is doing, using a tone wood of lesser cost, then adding very thin lawyer of high quality wood on outside is a much different process and sound. They sound fantastic. Look up and listen to HMS podcast when they had DAve from Ono ukes in Oregon on their show. Very nice sounding ukes and as DAve say, it’s not a cheaper process just his quest to make a batter Uke. I paraphrase of course.


This area is very miss understood. Good topic to post.

Do these comments also apply to the Kiwaya's HPL ukuleles? The grain on those looks a lot more detailed than the Martin or Enya HPL instruments.

I wasn't aware Kiwaya made a HPL uke? They make wood laminates though

bazmaz said:

I wasn't aware Kiwaya made a HPL uke? They make wood laminates though

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Like this one: https://worldofukes.co.uk/soprano-ukuleles/famous-by-kiwaya-fs-5-soprano-ukulele
"Kiwaya are particularly know for is the brilliance of their laminates. They’re super-strong, yet thin, with high pressure used to create a material that is both resonant and still economical."

That's not HPL - that's laminate wood.

See above for what HPL is - there is no wood in it - completely different thing.

(EDIT) - I think the confusion there is that World Of Ukes use the words 'high pressure'.

HPL stands for high pressure laminate but is a proprietary term for what is effectively fomica - sheets of paper and card in a resin pressed together. It's strengthened card of the sort that is used on kitchen counter tops.

Laminate wood ukes vary from the cheap ones that are plain ply wood, and what would call 'professional or musical grade' laminate. That is the stuff Kiwaya use (and also Taylor guitars). It's the same wood sandwich but pressed very strongly together to create something very thin and very strong.

It's totally different from HPL though.

What I've learned from the answers here and from spending a few hours googling the interwebs, is:
1. HPL can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. The process to make it can be slightly different and it's thickness can be very different, but it's all high pressure laminate.
2. The word laminate, however, can be as misleading as the company using it wants it to be. A corrugated cardboard box is a laminate. "Laminate wood" isn't much better because rough plywood fits this category. Unless you know what is meant by laminate (as is pointed out above for the great ukes made by Dave Ingalls), there's no way of knowing what you're getting.

So for me, "sound" is the most important quality in satisfying my UAS which means I'll continue to use the reviews of gotaukulele, HMS, and folks here before buying.
Thanks for your help.

Check out Bonanza Ukuleles https://www.bonanzaukuleles.com/
To get an idea of what you can do with HPL.
Instead of Coffee Beans or funky graphics, think of pictures of mahogany or Koa wood grain. They can be very convincing.

Wood laminate is layers of thin wood glued together with resin and pressure and heat. Unless it's a bottom of the barrel cheap uke. I have seen some super cheap ukes that were heavily-painted material over Medium Density particle board. Sounded very muffled.

My first ukulele was a Fender Nohea which they touted as being "all-Koa." It was in fact, all-laminate with a koa face. It sounded ok. Very much a laminate sound.

One mfg had previously described their instruments as: solid ash wood with a mahogany veneer. (If I remember the woods correctly.) The implied feature being that the Ash was the important solid tone wood and the mahogany, more or less, was just for decoration.