Jim S.

I purchased a Sound Smith archtop tenor ukulele and was very disappointed in both the setup and the quality of pickup installed. The instrument arrived not set up, and Soundsmith only offered a short YouTube video, suggesting I could do it myself. I have set up instruments before and had the bridge properly set, but the intonation was off on the first and second frets by approximately 10 cents, even though it was accurate in the open position and 12th fret.

In addition, the only setting that did not produce a hum on the single coil pickup as with the Tone knob in the minimum position. Once moved even a little bit the pickup hummed and it got progressively worse as the tone knob was advanced.

When I returned the instrument, Sound Smith owner Shannon insisted that humming is perfectly normal for a pickup, and that the setup was perfect. She charged me for both directions of shipping (although it was supposed to be free shipping, according to the ad) and threatened to charge an additional 10% restocking fee, which she said would be more than the shipping. The shipping was almost $30 so I'm not sure how that pencils out on an instrument that was $267.

Since I live in Oregon, I would have gladly patronized their store in Bend had they simply returned the instrument rather than insist that it was perfect when it was clearly not.

Buyer beware.