NUD......Waiting on KoAloha Mango Tenor

Uncle Leroy

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HI all,
I just ordered a KoAloha Mango Tenor from The Ukulele Site. Now the wait. The hardest part, the longest mile. You know what I mean. I ordered it with a low-G tuning. Does anyone here own one of these? What are your impressions? Thank you for sharing.
 
Nice, looking forward to your NUD write up.

I feel like KoAloha missed the boat a little bit with these in terms of timing. From what I could gather, they had some difficulty procuring mango for a while, which is why there was such a long wait since their last run of mango. And it seems to me mango was really popular a year or two ago. I was actually waiting/hoping for mango KoAlohas to become available, but I ended up buying a mango Rebel instead. Seemed like it would be the closest thing. I would have preferred a KoAloha to the Rebel, but having one, I don't feel the need to get the other. Although I wish I could do a direct comparison between the two. This year, I wish KoAloha had just focused on cranking out more anniversary editions. Maybe in different configurations. Even a mango anniversary run would have been cool.

Anyway, congrats on your new uke. Like I said, if I didn't have the Rebel version, I'd have grabbed one of these too. I almost wish I didn't so I could get one. I think they would've flown off the shelves faster a year or two ago, but that's just because of trends. Also, I'm probably in the minority here, but to me their mango models generally look better than their koa.

If you can, please share sound samples when your tenor comes in--there doesn't seem to be a ton of sound samples of these mango models.
 
KoAloha sells all the ukuleles that it manufactures to its dealers, who often are short on stock. They also have a maximum capacity production. So if mango were in short supply, they made koa ukes. Either way, they sold them all.

They also had a given number of silver anniversary models they would produce and sell. I believe I heard in a NAMM post that it was 200 tenors and concerts and 100 sopranos. What was a delightful surprise was that they recently produced a very limited run of red label silvers, many of them mango woods. I just received one with mango soundboard and maple body. And it is wonderful.

So Uncle Leroy, I expect you will love your incoming uke. The mango will tone down the bright highs just a bit without losing any volume and sustain (probably). Looking forward to hearing about it when you get it.
 
Congrats on your new uke! I hope you love it as much as I like my Koaloha mango tenor. Funny enough, this particular uke has gone through a few rough patches one of which resulted in some damage to the body when I lent the instrument to a friend. But in spite of its scars and now less than perfect finish it is still probably my favourite uke to play.
 
I expect that in this crazy year, with all the COVID lockdowns, there weren't many manufacturers cranking out anything. Hopefully, with all that downtime, some of the best uke makers had time to dream up some new designs, or tweaks/improvements to their existing models. If so, 2021 could be the best year for UAS ever!

Yeah, I’m sure it was a tough year for manufacturing. Optimistically (naively?), I’m hoping most of my UAS will have subsided by 2021, even though next year’s just around the corner.


KoAloha sells all the ukuleles that it manufactures to its dealers, who often are short on stock. They also have a maximum capacity production. So if mango were in short supply, they made koa ukes. Either way, they sold them all.

They also had a given number of silver anniversary models they would produce and sell. I believe I heard in a NAMM post that it was 200 tenors and concerts and 100 sopranos. What was a delightful surprise was that they recently produced a very limited run of red label silvers, many of them mango woods. I just received one with mango soundboard and maple body. And it is wonderful.

So Uncle Leroy, I expect you will love your incoming uke. The mango will tone down the bright highs just a bit without losing any volume and sustain (probably). Looking forward to hearing about it when you get it.

To be clear, I’m not trying to denigrate KoAloha on their timing. My understanding is that the mango they use is from fallen trees, which would make sense of supply being tricky. It just felt like mango as a tonewood had gone through a really popular season, and that current mango models are selling more slowly than their koa counterparts. Still, I’ve no doubt they’ll all disappear soon enough.

The original numbers given by the dealers at the start of the year (pre-pandemic) was 500 tenors, 300 concerts, and 200 sopranos. I remember some folks lamenting the ratio of tenors to sopranos, but I guess that’s what sells.

I was also happy to see the mango and maple Red Labels. Congrats on getting one of those. You should definitely do a write-up. Or did you? Sorry, I’m just coming back to the forums after some time away.

I love seeing KoAloha produce limited runs with woods they don’t normally use, like maple. Or just when they do any different iterations of their already wonderful instruments. With all the mango they seem to have, I wonder if we’ll be seeing some Naupakas again.
 
My understanding is that the mango they use is from fallen trees, which would make sense of supply being tricky.

That's done with koa rather than mango. If I'm not mistaken, mango trees are cut down for timber after they stop producing fruit which means that getting the material for producing instruments etc. is very seasonal, which in turn would be the reason why KoAloha, among other manufacturers, seems to produce mango ukes in waves.

Looking forward to the NUD. I was eyeing on a KoAloha mango concert myself earlier in the year when they announced they would have a batch but sadly I saw none available in Europe.
 
Thanks for all the comments and advice. I should receive the uke shortly after Thanksgiving. I do plan on sharing a video review after a few days with the instrument.
 
My KTM 00 arrived yesterday.....actually, its a warranty replacement. Wow - what a great company. Love their service. They totally stood behind their work and sent me a replacement uke that sounds incredible. The process was handled so very well. I'm sure your will enjoy your mango - and if you ever need to avail yourself of their warranty - my experience says you will not be disappointed.
 
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