Pono Koa Tenor: Another Ukulele Upgrade

After a few weeks of playing the OU5 concert ukulele I found out that I needed more frets up the bridge to do a lot of Jake Shimabukuro's pieces. I then decided to upgrade to a tenor ukulele.

After reading through the ukulele forums and consulting with a few people who know more ukulelia than I do, I decided to go for the Ko'olau Pono tenor. There was a solid mahogany version [PT] sold at Bounty Music for under $300. However, I opted for the koa version [PKT] with the gloss finish for about $30 more. I also got the hard case although there was already a gig bag included.

The PKT came with Ko'olau Gold strings with a #3 wound string. The sound was beautiful with these strings. The sound projection from the PKT was impressive to me who was used to trying to coax a little more volume from my OU5 concert by strumming or plucking harder. With the PKT, there was also a crispness in the sound. However, as I soon found out, the strings were a little bit too hard on my amateur fingers.

I've played electric, acoustic and classical guitar before but I've never had so much fatigue and soreness from playing for long lengths on these strings. Also, I was not used to the squeaking sound that the wound string makes when I do slides and chord transitions across the fretboard. These squeaks are OK for guitars but they have no place in a ukulele. Part of the reason I went from a guitar to a ukulele was to unload the complexity of a guitar's 2 additional strings. The sqeaks are an additional baggage that I can forget about.

Although there are Ko'olau Gold strings that have the #3 unwound, I still decided to ditch these strings. In any case, I have replaced the Ko'olau strings with Aquila Nylgut strings. These strings were a little more gentle on my fingers. Maybe someday when I'm a little more seasoned, I will go back to the Ko'olau Golds which I still believe are excellent strings.

Below are some views from the PKT:





The sound from the PKT is fabulous coming from someone who started with an OU5 concert uke. I've gotten used to the Aquila strings and they do seem to have a sharper and clearer tone to them. The PKT stays in tune for quite a while now that the new strings have stabilized. I usually still check the tuning out of habit and I rarely do any adjustments anyway.

There was a discussion in the EZFolk forum about the type of wood used in the PKT. I checked with teh dealer and they stated that the PKT is actually solid mahogany with a koa [veneer] top. In any case, it looks and sounds great.