L.Luthier Le Koa S Electro Tenor Ukulele Solid Spruce/Formosan Koa in gigbag #3

The stunning new Le Koa S tenor ukulele from L. Luthier is an incredible instrument. Seriously, I'm scratching my head here trying to remember when I had to describe such a good value for money uke.

L.Luthier are a Malaysian brand, which manufactures their instruments in China. Think aNueNue Moonbird build quality and finish, for literally half the price!

This electro tenor model, the Le Koa S, is made of top quality woods. It has a nice, tight and straight grained solid spruce top, and solid Formosan Koa (Pacific Island Acacia) on the back and sides. The two woods combine to make a very good sound indeed - the spruce gives real depth and presence over the whole frequency range, with a crisp attack and lovely long decay, even up at the dusty end.

This tenor ukulele would take a low G string really well, and we would recommend the Fremont squeakless string as being the best bet. But, high G sounds really good as well; strumming sounds just how you would want, with good note definition in chords and pretty harmonics in that nice decay, and picked passages sound lively and well defined, with plenty of volume on offer with very little effort. The intonation is really very good indeed, and will allow playing accurately in any position.

The choice of woods only really goes so far towards the performance of any instrument. It would have been easy for this uke to be overbuilt and quiet, but it is the opposite. The first shipment we had of these contained 3 tenors, which sold in the shop literally as we were unboxing them! All 3 customers were all attracted first to the looks, but then fell in love with the feel, playability and the sound. A lot of credit has to go to the builders and designers at L.Luthier, who have made a brilliant instrument, which has both style and substance.

The pickup system is extremely capable too. With any piezo/mic blend system, you will find that mixing in too much of the mic can lead to distortion, but mix in around 1/3 and it adds a depth and realism to your sound which is just gorgeous. Pics show the soundhole mounted tone and volume control wheels.

Highly recommended! Pictures show actual instrument you will receive.

Specification:

Solid European Spruce top
Solid Formosan Koa back and sides (Pacific Islands Acacia)
Mahogany neck
Ebony fretboard
Rosewood bridge
Bone nut and saddle
DERJUNG DJ326UAB-D6 open back aged look tuners
20 frets
Savarez 150R clear fluorocarbon High G strings
37mm nut width with 28mm G to A string spacing
431mm scale length
Flamed maple binding
High gloss finish
Satin finish to neck
Premium L.Luthier gig bag
Personal Soundhole
LU active pickup with condenser mic/piezo blend
255mm across bottom bout
74mm body depth