Ralf, that's pretty; and I love the wide fretboard!
Appropriate for a uke to be made from koa as well!
Appropriate for a uke to be made from koa as well!
Koa Question
- Thread starter ReevesRd
- Start date
ReevesRd
Senior Member
Yairis are great guitars. I've read the same about his laminates. I have a DY-87 TBK.
SFIV1967
Venerated Member
Yes, and directly from Hawaii. I met the owner couple, Kristen and Joe, at NAMM 2013, lovely people.
Ralf
Made in HI too?? Outstanding!
I had a Takamine F370SS, a solid Spruce top over solid Koa back and sides dread. I never really bonded that much with it, but in terms of sound, it was most like a rosewood dread. Attack was maybe a little bit sharper than a rosewood dread (benchmard was my DV-52), but if so, not by much. I must reiterate my opinion that the top is somewhere around 90% of where the sound of a guitar comes from. If the Koa influenced the sound, it wasn't by much.
Pretty nice looking wood.
Pretty nice looking wood.
SFIV1967
Venerated Member
Yes, in Kāneʻohe on Oʻahu.
Kanile'a ‘Ukulele | Hawaiian Made Ukuleles | Handmade Ukuleles
Are you in search of Hawaiian Made Ukuleles? Kanile'a's Ukulele Store & Factory is Located in Kaneohe, Oahu where we offer some of the best Hawaiian Ukuleles on the market.
www.kanileaukulele.com
Ralf
freddyfingers
Member
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2019
- Messages
- 218
- Reaction score
- 173
- Location
- Virginia. The State, not the woman.
- Guild Total
- 5
Koa was not on my list when i set out to get a decent acoustic guitar end of 2022. For years i spent money on decent electrics, but never upgraded my mid 80’s takamine. So when oppurtunity finally arose, i went out to play as many decent high end (was thinking a new Martin D35, or Taylor equivalent) The stores near me, either 45 minutes away or over an hour, had awful selections. Being big box stores, for some reason they do not maintain their high end acoustic like one would hope. So the few Martins they had and high end Taylor’s had bad action, old strings, and none had the punch, power, clarity that i was expecting from a guitar in the $3000 to $4500 price range. I know thats not the guitars fault as i have heard martins and Taylor’s sound like cannons. It would not be surprising that none of them had high end acoustic guilds. however, each store had a koa version sitting around. Both guitar centers had a 326 series and sam ash had i believe a 700 series koa. For some reason even with old strings and poor action the sound just stood out to me. From my sitting position the guitars had a sound that i could hear as the sound i wanted. Perhaps people sitting in front of me hear a different sound as its meant to project that way, but from my ears it was unique. So I read a bit about koa, still dont understand all the qualities they posses, or don’t possess , like being a hard wood and not opening up as much as the top of a martin will over years, but i also read that they do open up but take a longer time as the nature of the wood is hard. So i put that aside as cork sniffers arguing about these little things that people like me may never notice and i searched for what i thought was a cool looking and playing koa guitar. I settled on the K26CE from Taylor. For a few reasons, i thought the extra sound hole was cool, not for me, but to those hearing it as i play, the woods look spectacular, and it has a shorter scale, which i needed as all these high end sound monster acoustics use 12’s or thicker and im just not used to that. Ordered from a store that didnt have to charge me sales tax from their state, gave me a decent discount, and at the time Taylor had a promotion of getting one of their GS mini’s for a song and dance if your purchased another. by the time it arrived, took a few months as it was being built at Taylor, completed in October 2022, i got the guitar for a lot less than asking and basically a free 900 dollar mini koa. Win win. its stunning to look at, plays very well for a guitar with 12’s, and has the sound that i like. So thats a short story made long. Didnt look for one, but wound up getting one. On the down side, a nerve issue in my inner right arm stops me from playing wide bodied guitars. This one is deep and wide, great volume, but the top rests on that nerve.
