This is a stunning, Japanese made all solid koa soprano, made using 5A grade, gorgeous looking koa from Hawaii. It’s part of Kiwaya’s ‘Strummer Series’, a series of modern Japanese instruments that look forward, delivering richness and sustain. In fact, everything to make them great for fingerpicking and chord melody. But perhaps the 'Fingerpicking and Chord Melody Series’ didn’t sound as catchy. Don’t get me wrong, this KPS-5K has a lovely, full and lustrous sound when strummed, but a name that suggests that’s all it is good for is completely off the mark!

This soprano ukulele positively shimmers and shines, giving you a lovely Hawaiian sound that seems to be both light and airy, and full at the same time. It’s very pretty indeed, with some lovely warmth underlying a breezy sweetness. There’s plenty of volume too, from the light, resonant build.

Kiwaya’s KPS-5K is a really beautiful thing to hold and to look at as well. It has a slightly wider, 37mm nut - which is quite rare with a soprano size uke. But the neck profile, which is quite shallow gives you the best of both worlds. The nut width gives you a little more room between the strings, while the shallow neck allows you to curve your fingers round more easily to reach the frets - so it’s not a challenge for people with small fingers either. Visually, the koa does most of the talking, but there’s extra shine from the perfect gloss finish and sparkle from abalone purfling and maple binding.

The KPS-5K is supplied with a good quality hard case, and has Gotoh UPT tuners. These rear facing geared tuners are brilliant - the Rolls Royce of the ukulele tuner world. Or whatever the Japanese equivalent of a Rolls Royce is anyway, as they’re also engineered in Japan.

The only drawback is the price really. Koa is expensive. Koa with this level of interest in the grain is incredibly expensive. Japanese expertise is expensive. Ukuleles that sound as good as this are… well… expensive! But, the credit card bill will be paid off eventually but the enjoyment of the Kiwaya KPS-5K will roll on and on.

At the bottom of the page you’ll find a series of optional extras that are easy to add to your basket. These are standard across all ukes, so you can ignore the hard case option as it has one already.