Kala KA-15S-S Satin Spruce Soprano Ukulele

Previously I wrote a review regarding the Makala Shark Bridge Soprano Ukulele. Unfortunately, with that particular uke, it arrived in very disappointing fashion. The workmanship [or lack thereof] and quality control issues forced us returning it, and spending an additional $10 for the Kala Mahogany Soprano Ukulele. Let me just say that the differences between these two Ukuleles is truly like night and day… …for those of you who DIDN'T read my previous review, I will say that I've been a guitarist for over 25 years. I have a lot of experience in the construction, setup, and playing of acoustic and electric stringed instruments. Specifically I am a rock and metal player, but cull experience from nearly every genre of music. My wife and I were searching for an inexpensive beginner's ukulele for a 5 year old girl to use for her first foray into music. Upon ordering the ukes, we had them delivered to us so that I could go over them, make sure that they were properly constructed and setup prior to sending to her. Being that I have given MANY lessons in my day, and have encountered many different instruments, I know that THE most common reason that a student gives up on a stringed instrument is if it is poorly set-up [i.e., physically hard to play]. NO stringed instrument should require a Herculean amount of strength. The Kala Ukulele arrived very well packed…by both Amazon and from the company. Upon taking the ukulele out of it's second inner most packing box, I could immediately see that it was in fact made of mahogany [intentional mislabeling of construction wood is an unfortunate part of inexpensive guitars and stringed instruments]. Not only is this actual mahogany, but it is a very excellent example of mahogany. The wood is a deep shade of brown with a dark black grain running throughout. The pores of the wood [a tale tale sign of true mahogany] are very visible and clearly indicate that this is an excellent example of mahogany. The fretwork is EXEMPLARY. I've seen $400-$500 guitars have fretwork not as good as this. The brass frets are all properly seated and well finished. For anyone familiar with guitars and stringed instruments, fret ends [the point at which your hand makes contact up and down the neck] can be a very troubling point of contact with inexpensive instruments. However, these frets have been manicured to a level that there is no sensation whatsoever. Another point of emphasis: the nut. The nut, in my estimation is one of THE most important parts of any stringed instrument. A nut should be properly cut as to allow the strings to move without binding [binding creates issues with tuning and intonation] and the nut slots should be cut as so to allow the strings a downward trajectory into the tuning machines [maximizing resonance and projection of the instrument]. Again, this instrument is exemplary as it relates to the nut. The nut is a plastic "bone facsimile" and it is properly cut with an attention to detail I could never have expected at this price point. Tuning CAN be a bit tedious with this uke…the tuners are VERY pedestrian, but at $53 [most tuning machine sets cost more than this ukulele did] one shouldn't expect them to be more than utilitarian. Please be prepared for the tuning machines to slip a bit when tuning…it's very easy to get impatient, but if you take your time it will get to pitch. Once you've tuned the ukulele, as with any stringed instrument, it will be important to stretch the strings and then retune at least two additional times before optimal tuning stability will be achieved. Upon tuning the ukulele, and strumming some chords, I quickly realized what a gem this truly is. The uke is dynamic, resonant, and truly is the sum of all the aforementioned parts. Single notes sing out and have great harmonic content. Chords ring and project very well. I have played every note on the fingerboard and none of them are dead or have any intonation issues whatsoever. To put this in perspective, I just bought myself a guitar three weeks ago. It cost me $2,500. It is the epitome of modern guitar construction and is arguably the greatest stringed instrument I've ever played. But this $53 Kala Uke has a home, in my home, right next to that guitar. I'm not comparing the two; I'm simply saying that the playability is such that I WILL be buying myself one once this goes to our granddaughter. The "dollars per smile" ratio on this thing is incomprehensible. I can not say enough about this Ukulele and if you're in the market for a Uke PLEASE do yourself a favor and buy one. You will NOT be disappointed, nor will you regret it for one single solitary minute.

I bought this after reading many reviews on here. Yes, you will get your money's worth, in a good way. The design is much more handsome in person. The tone is clean and not too bright. I like a little depth to my tone. :) Several other musicians have commented on the nice quality of the sound. Unlike the toy-like ukuleles you find for $30 and under, this will hold tuning, and doesn't sound out of tune when playing higher on the fret. You may find that tuning the instrument to itself is better than playing individual pitches for each string. As soon as I got this in the mail I couldn't put it down. I was learning five or more songs a day, and playing them for friends and family. It has brought much enjoyment to my life and is helping me improve at accompanying my own voice. I also use it to teach music classes, finding it less cumbersome than a guitar when working with small children. I plan to purchase some through my school to prepare students for the world of stringed instruments. If you're looking for an instrument that's easy to learn, fun to sing along to, and puts a smile on many faces, this is a good fit.

Wow brilliant sound out of this little ukulele. Holds tuning nice, and the mahogany just makes a beautiful overall sound. Great price, very quick and safe shipping. Very pleased with this company all around.

I wanted to find a soprano ukulele which wasn't expensive, but was easy to play so I'd keep at it, and high enough quality and attractive enough that I wouldn't necessarily want to replace the instrument if I kept with it. I have had more than one unhappy experience with a "beginner" instrument which was so unplayable that it guaranteed I wouldn't make progress or want to continue. On a side note, I also needed an instrument with brass frets due to a nickel allergy. First off, I love the way this looks. I know it isn't solid mahogany, but that isn't obvious. The woods used in it have attractive figure, and are very nicely finished. The components all look good, and there are no rough spots or edges, nor is there any sloppy assembly. The sound is very nice, with the sweet highs and mellow lows which Kala advertises. If the laminated wood is absorbing sound, it sure isn't obvious: it definitely doesn't sound in the least bit dull or muffled. It has very good playability and intonation, and there's no buzzing on the frets. The nut and bridge height seem to be just right, and the fret placement seems to be spot on. The tuners are nicely finished and easy to use; and the uke is holding its tune very well. The Aquila strings it comes with give a nice, bright, classical ukulele sound. In short, I love this ukulele, and am perfectly satisfied with having chosen it.

This ukulele is great! It has a very bold sound for such a small instrument and is absolutely lovely to hear. The design is very elegant which I love, the wood looks very nice I found that with the guitar, it was very hard for me to play some of the lower notes and more complicated chords because I couldn't really reach them, but this tiny thing is great! I can reach it all no problem! If you want a simple and fun instrument I definitely recommend this, I spent quite a while trying to learn the guitar but with this I'm professing a lot quicker and I'm having so much fun doing it! It holds tune a lot better than I expected it would from the reviews, but it does of course need to be tuned quite often with how new the strings are I only have two complaints: One, I find that playing this instrument causes around the same amount of pain to the pads of my fingers as my copper stringed guitar. This could be because of a high action, but I'm not honestly an expert there so I'll leave a picture for you to decide. Two: in the inside there is a bit of an imperfection in the wood. I'm not sure if it will hinder the quality of sound but I'm kind of anxious about it This really is a great little instrument though, especially for the price I love it! P.S. There is an app called yousician that is great for learning to play the uke (it also has guitar, piano, and bass guitar) it's got interactive feedback and gives you an allotted free lesson time per instrument if you don't want to pay for premium, highly recommend

Received this today, right on time with Amazon prime. Packaging was simple and nearly fully recyclable cardboard. The ukulele was in fine shape and nicer than I'd imagined. I own a few instruments and have looked at a lot of them, so I was a little surprised at the apparent decent quality. This one has the nicer "aquila supernylgut" strings that are recommended in lots of buyers guides. I found a video on YouTube to tune it up quickly then downloaded a free app for future tuning. It sounds very nice! I play guitar a little, so I pretty quickly learned a few chords and plunked out a couple of songs in just a half hour or so. I was a little surprised at how small it is, but I didn't really look at the dimensions before buying (see photo with scale in inches). I'm sure it is a very standard size for a soprano uke, which is probably the most classic size and style. The quality control on this instrument is very good for something at this price. The edges of the frets were a tiny bit rough but not really bad at all. The string height above the fretboard ("action") was fine and very playable. The bridge and nut are apparently made of a better than average material ("nubone xb") -- they made kind of a big deal of including tags to promote them. Since there are lots of great reviews on this product, I thought a few photos would be of most value. I hope they help you decide. I would not hesitate to recommend this ukelele to a friend.

Let me just start off by saying I am by no means a professional in the field of music nor am I an ambitious music student studying to become the next Jake Shimabukuro. I'm just a guitar player (and not a good one) who wept and wept because I could not play the dreaded... barre chords. That's right, I wanted to learn to play the uke because my fingers are short and my hand is weak (that sounded weird). Thus. I began my journey to find the most awesome, chick-magnet, best-bang-for-your-buck ukulele on Earth. I searched on Google, hunted in Reddit, and crept through online blogs to obtain the answer. And after my extensive trip throughout the corners of Internet, it was clear... I just needed to find the highest rated ukulele on Amazon. All jokes aside, this is a rough estimate of why i bought the Kala KA-15S Ukulele. It had great reviews across multiple sites, it was made by a reputable company, and most importantly... it was pretty cheap for a beginner ukulele. I was looking for a quality instrument that I could practice with, but also inexpensive enough that I wouldn't feel guilty about it if I failed to learn. My first impression of the ukulele was the beautiful mahogany wood. I picked it up and held it close to my face... and sniffed it. Yes, I smelled it okay? Stop judging. Anyways, I started to play random notes/chords and sang "Riptide" to my SO. Was I off-key? Probably. Did I sound terrible? Maybe. But did my fingertips hurt? NOPE! I couldn't say that about my guitar, Yamaha FG700s, if you were wondering. I did eventually learn the basic chords like C G Am F and some barre chords like B and Bm later that night. And coming from a guitar, these strings were softer than a freshly baked Krispy Kreme Doughnut straight outta of the oven. No kidding. I could actually play simple barre chords for the first time ever AND I didn't cut through another layer of calluses on my fingertips. BOOYAH! (cyborg anyone?) In conclusion, Yes. This is the ukulele you have been searching for. Whether you are an experienced player or a beginner like myself, the Kala KA-15S really does stand out among the rest. I highly, highly recommend this without a doubt. Now if you excuse me, I gotta sing a special song to a special lady. Wish me luck :) Quick note: Tuning this particular ukulele is easy; I personally use an electronic tuner. But the A string seems to go out of tune more often than the other 3 strings. Not sure if that's normal, but just wanted to give y'all a heads up.

Very good buy, my son loves his and plays it daily. Beautifully made and worth every penny!

Para comenzar está de lujo! Suena perfecto y es muy bonito! Muy recomendable si quieres pasar buenos ratos con el ukelele.

Too good !! Loved the quality and everything else. It sounds cute, the wood quality is also good, the notes and everything, the strings are of plastic wires still sounds amazingg. And it's light weight, We usually carry it around on our picnics / outings.. loved it..

I'm gonna say it straight up before I give this review, I love it. I've played many guitars before but this was my first Ukelele. I adore the sound it makes. It sounds very rich and it projects across the room very well. I'm very picky on minor pitch differences since I've played piano and guitar my whole life and I hear nothing wrong with it. Everything sounds in tune, as it should. As people say, looks come secondary when it comes to an instrument. However, this I think this Ukelele is straight gorgeous. The mohagony really gives it the authentic Ukelele look and there are grooves on the body that gives it an awesome flair. It's very well built. My only concern is that the top string goes out of tune if you play it for a few hours, but I think it's due to it being new and the strings are still adjusting. Nothing to be too worried as you can tune it easy in 2 seconds and hopefully it will be fixed once its been played a lot. Other than that, I'm a happy camper. I love how portable it is, as all Ukeleles are! Plus, the sound just brings a huge smile to my face when I hear it. Totally worth the money, I can't recommend it enough for all those people that want to get their first Ukelele. That about wraps it up, I hope you enjoyed the review. Click the helpful button if it was helpful in your decision so more people can see it!

The best Ukulele ever,upper fast ordering and delivery service outstanding

Love it