Kala KA-SCAC-B8 Solid Cedar Top 8 String Baritone Ukulele

The Kala baritone ukulele has long been the benchmark other brands have worked against when designing the perfect mid-priced ukulele. Especially for 8 strings baritone ukuleles, where your choices are either non-existent or over a thousand pounds most of the time.

The 8 string ukulele market is so much smaller than many of the other sizes. Kala models always stood out to us with their combination of cedar and acacia. This KA-SCAC-B8 Kala 8 string baritone ukulele sounds balanced but loud and sweet.

The tonewood combination, in itself is not revolutionary so much as it is an evolutionary chapter in the history of the ukulele, our ears have learned not to treat them like mandolins and ukes like this really hit the spot for so many people.

If you want a confident sound suitable for complex noodling, fingerpicking, classical or just a good loud strummer; Kala have had this model up their arsenal. Dual courses of DGBE strings are a winner in our books!

Kala are one of those brands that really make the effort needed to stop their ukuleles getting a bit samey or boring. Popular opinion about these models and other recent new releases were that replacing the slotted headstock with a similar looking but slightly trimmed and lightweight slotted headstock. The tuners are lighter than they used to be too which would make it more comfortable to many players and better balanced overall.

Switching the red padauk binding to a darker, more elegant looking rosewood is a lovely touch as well that gives the ukulele a more grown up feel to match the sound it produces. This model is now known as the KA-SCAC-T8.

Finally, Kala have changed the neck and headstock to satin but kept the body as a high gloss so you get the feel of a lived instrument and the sound and brightness of a spangly bright new one at the same time. Listing shows a typical example.

Specification:
Scale length: 20.0625 inches
Overall instrument length: 31.1875 inches
Body length: 14.0 inches
Number of frets: 19
Width at upper bout: 7.6875 inches
Width at lower bout: 10.125 inches
Width at waist: 6.5625 inches
Body depth: 3.125 inches
Fingerboard width at nut: 1.5 inches (38mm)
Fingerboard width at neck/body joint: 1.875 inches