Koloa Baritone Ukulele, Solid Mahogany

This was my first experience with a baritone-sized ukulele and one of Koloa brand, but I have several ukuleles and guitars including solid wood instruments. I ended up going through three of these trying to find one that did not have some kind of problem until I decided to give up and sent each one back. All of them had finish problems. These ukuleles has a gloss finish and a dark stain, but there were patches where they did not stain and/or varnish the instruments - on the instruments I received, they were at the body edge or on the soundboard near where the body met the neck. These areas were about a centimeter or more in length. Also they arrived with scratches in the finish, some worse than others. I think the varnish the manufacturer used was not allowed to dry and harden long enough before they shipped them out of the factory or they used substandard varnish. I have instruments with glossy finishes that have hardly scratched and weren't "pre-scratched" for me - I can do that on my own, thanks. One of the instruments had a buzz on the 3rd string. One of them had a back that was not bookmatched. Two of them had a nice deep sound because of the depth of the body and one had a brighter sound because its action was higher. The inside bracing of one looked like it had either black marker or mold spots. Overall I thought the sound was pretty good but to me personally the deeper sounding ones had poor dynamic range - they were very focused in the bass and everything sounded sad/mellow on them. The brighter instrument was more fun and had more variation but strangely enough it was the one that developed the buzz. I know most reviewers have nothing but high praise for these instruments but my experience was different. It was a big disappointment because I had been admiring these on amazon for a while. I'll probably try a solid-top baritone in the same price range or a different all-solid next. If I wanted a throw around instrument maybe I would have kept one of these but at this price it's not really a throw around and who really wants to throw around a solid instrument?

Thought I'd take a punt with this solid mahogany baritone uke despite the slightly average experience I had with another uke from Amazon. This time though it was packed incredibly well. Boxed within a box.Speed of delivery was incredible. I ordered this on tuesday afternoon and it arrived friday just after lunch. It was shipped from Philidelphia. I live in New Zealand. The delivery cost is actually cheaper than it would have been for me to put gas in my car to drive somewhere to buy it (if you could actually find one here in NZ, let alone for that price).The uke itself is solid mahogany. Is not in perfect condition. There are a few minor finishing blemishes. But no dents or scratches or faulty parts. The strings aren't to my taste. Daddario's - just a bit too wound-guitar sounding. Will change to Hilo's. The nut is a little sharp on the edges and cuts into fingers - will have to sand down I think. Action is pretty good. Nice warm full sound. Brighter and fuller than my Makala mahogany laminate cheapie.I was sold on the price for a solid mahogany uke but have to admit the Hawaiian sounding name helped also. The power of marketing eh? If it was called Chang or Smith I probably wouldn't have touched it. But is in fact 100% made in China which I guess is the main reason its so cheap. So I suppose at this price some of the finishing issues can be ignored.OVerall a nice instrument. Should sound great with a new set of strings.

Buying a stringed instrument without playing it first can be pretty risky ... I know from experience. So, I visited a number of music stores in the Tampa Bay area looking for Baritone ukuleles and only found one, a Johnson with only three strings (Guitar Center in Tampa). After scouring the web I was eventually attracted to the Koloa KU-650 Baritone Ukulele because of its solid wood construction, bone nut & saddle and the favorable reviews. But when my wife insisted on buying me a ukulele (she buys all my guitars ... what a woman!) I decided to spend a bit more and purchase a Pono baritone from Hawaii Music Supply for $375 which included a professional setup. They ran out of stock as I was about to order so I upgraded to a deluxe model for a tad over $500, $500 being the wife's limit. Then Hawaii Music contacted me a week later to tell me that the unit I ordered was blemished and could not be sold. I fell back on the Koloa baritone from Amazon.The Koloa I received had a number of minor scuffs in the finish that I was willing to overlook as it was still an attractive instrument. After tuning it up and attempting to play it I found a serious buzz in the second (B) string starting at the fourth fret. I considered replacing the strings but decided against it due to a second problem. This instrument has good sustain, but unfortunately this particular one rang like a bell when the first (E) string was played up around the fifth fret. It just rang on and on and overshadowed any subsequent notes played on the D or G strings. I returned it along with the Lanikai case the very next day. Amazon was excellent about giving me a refund, much quicker than Hawaii Music Supply. If you're looking for a ukulele, do check out Hawaii Music Supply. They have an excellent website and the free setup is a good deal.