Lehua Long-neck Soprano
The Lehua Ukuleles long-neck soprano is a fine ukulele for under $200.
“All Lehua instruments are made in Portugal from beautiful Australian Blackwood, botanical name Acacia Melanoxylon, with very similar tonal and appearance characteristics to Koa Acacia, a close relative, the material of choice for Hawaiian ukuleles. All Lehua ukes are solid wood with no laminates or plastic anywhere. The necks are made from seasoned mahogany, for strength, and have a rosewood or wenge fretboard with accurate fret placement. The bridges are also rosewood or wenge, depending on availability. Both wenge and rosewood are very attractive hardwoods that make excellent fretboards and bridges. Lehua uses only high quality gold plated tuners which hold their tune very well. All instruments have a great looking durable matte finish. They are all strung with the traditional style of black nylon strings. Each instrument is individually set up by Lehua here in the U.S. after receipt from Portugal, for maximum playability.”
The above paragraph is Lehua’s own description of their products and it rings true as far as I’m concerned! I’m pretty stoked on these ukuleles as they are constructed of solid woods with bookmatched tops and backs. The Australian Blackwood is a beautiful wood that is very similar in appearance and sound to all wood koa ukuleles. The quality of construction seems top notch upon close inspection, it’s got a nice slim neck, a narrow headstock and traditional style ukulele tuners, most appreciated by those who don’t like ‘ears’ on their ukes!
It’s plain appearance with no binding and basic inlay around the soundhole make for a classic looking instrument. A perfect match for those that don’t like too much bling on their ukes. The only problem I see with the lack of binding is that you’ll have to be a bit more careful so you don’t ding it up when your moving it around.
The long-neck is a concert sized fretboard and scale on a soprano sized body. It doesn’t look weird at all, if it was a tenor scale, that would be a different story! The neck joins the body at the 15th fret and has a total of 19 frets. It’s overall length is 23 5/8″ (60 cm) with a scale lenght of 15 9/16″ (39.6 cm). I can’t tell if the fretboard on this ukulele is rosewood or the wenge noted above, only because I’ve never seen wenge and don’t know if it looks just like rosewood or not, so basically, it looks like rosewood (but could be wenge if wenge looks like rosewood!).
I have included a video below where I am doing some basic strumming and picking of the strings to give a general idea of the sound. I have also included the Kala Brand soprano koa model so you can compare the sounds together. The Lehua sounds a bit deeper in tone than the Kala, probably due to the Lehua’s body being deeper and a bit longer, though the Kala’s body is a tad wider. Like the Kala, the Lehua has a tapered back, but not as drastic as the Kala. Another reason for the deeper resonance is probably the solid wood construction versus the laminated wood construction of the Kala.
For around $200 the Lehua seems to me a great deal and a very nice ukulele. I am currently only carrying the soprano and long-neck soprano models because I wanted to see what the Lehua’s were like. I will definitely be carrying the concert and tenor models in the near future! In fact, I might even buy one for myself!
Here’s the video, once again, this isn’t a performance, it’s a sound demonstration!
