[Ruff]

Hi. I am interested in possibly purchasing a K. Yairi Rag2 acoustic guitar. I would appreciate any comments about the sound or quality of this instrument. If anybody is aware of a review site or sound demo it would help me. I can be reached at [email protected] or please respond on this forum. Thanks.

 

[Stephenlouis]

I love the old K.Yari's .I hear these rag2's are a dream to play, easy on the hands, small scale very nice sound. ..but I have no first-hand experience, just heard good things. Yours must be the early 90's? I wish you luck in your hunt for information.

 

[Eric Reesor]

I had a similar Sadao Yairi parlour sized 12 fretter made in 1969 by the same small group of Japanese luthiers. It was not the 300 dollar laminated Brazilian rosewood one it was one step down with laminated mahogany back and sides and really nice spruce on the top. It was the sweetest sounding little guitar I have ever owned. I learned to read for guitar on it and was playing some Bach and other stuff like Freight Train on it when I traded it.

I switch to a nylon Yairi in late 1971. The S Yairi 12 fretter small guitar was 200 without the case back then and it blew the doors of anything except perhaps really good older Martin 00s at that time. It was not loud but that was not the point it had a voice like an angel with good silk and steel and sounded great with good amplification and good mics in on stage. No cavity boom or other crap if you knew what you were about.
Minimum wage was $1.25 PH at that time and my rent was over a hundred bucks so I traded it with 50 bucks for a Sada classical that was about 250 with the case new at a little guitar shop in Gastown. BIG MISTAKE,

The small old S Yairi guitars are now coveted by studio musicians to say the least. I had my brother build a similar one that I gifted to one of my grandsons. Here it is https://chrisluthier.ca/chriscell.html

The family output of Yairi was very interesting and Kazou Yairi was the nephew of Sadao who oversaw the show because he was the master luthier who studied guitar building with a passion. Their family name became famous and their production really ramped up as the 1970's progressed. All the while most of the snobs that couldn't play a lick but had Martins and Gibsons called them Japanese crap guitars or the usual song of the day that the Japanese stuff is just cheap knockoffs of the real thing. Things have changed somewhat today but not that much..... LOL

Like all things guitar unless you play it you cannot know whether it will be worth it. But some of the early production guitars from about 1965-1973-4 can be worth a considerable sum of money if they are still in great playing condition and well played in. K Yairi guitars can be really good but the ones that are worth the most are usually the older S Yairi stamped guitars.

 

[sambonee]

Pics??

 

[Eric Reesor]

The S Yairi one I had did look similar to this one but with a gloss finish and a tortured plastic turtle shell style pick guard. I have seen some with straight black pick guards. Most of them had guards from the factory because the top finish was really great and nice and thin when new. This one on ebay is a nightmare if you are into the Willy Nelson style of playing a guitar with a pick and still worry about puttin' a willy hole in it. I suspect that this one on ebay K.Yairi RAG-2 Acoustic guitar | eBay has had a little bit of a refinish and the pick guard removed and not replaced with more modern guard materials.

They were great little guitars provided some fool didn't put mapes or whatever monster guitar killers on em bend crap out of the neck or lift the nut and bridge play them with nothing but a stupid slide, which I have also seen happen to them over the years!

Nothing over bronze wound lights or preferably a set of good stiff silk and steels or you risk moving things around too much. They were built with light xbracing which really ticked off Martin and Co because they were spot on to a Martin 1930's 00 spec and could easily sound as good as one. The sound was not bassy enough for most but what a wonderful recording guitar if you can play full finger style on steel strings well.

 

[Ruff]

The S Yairi one I had did look similar to this one but with a gloss finish and a tortured plastic turtle shell style pick guard. I have seen some with straight black pick guards. Most of them had guards from the factory because the top finish was really great and nice and thin when new. This one on ebay is a nightmare if you are into the Willy Nelson style of playing a guitar with a pick and still worry about puttin' a willy hole in it. I suspect that this one on ebay K.Yairi RAG-2 Acoustic guitar | eBay has had a little bit of a refinish and the pick guard removed and not replaced with more modern guard materials.

They were great little guitars provided some fool didn't put mapes or whatever monster guitar killers on em bend crap out of the neck or lift the nut and bridge play them with nothing but a stupid slide, which I have also seen happen to them over the years!

Nothing over bronze wound lights or preferably a set of good stiff silk and steels or you risk moving things around too much. They were built with light xbracing which really ticked off Martin and Co because they were spot on to a Martin 1930's 00 spec and could easily sound as good as one. The sound was not bassy enough for most but what a wonderful recording guitar if you can play full finger style on steel strings well.

Thank you for the great information. Love the guitar you gifted to your grandson. What would the price range be to have a similar one built? Again thanks for the post.

 

[sakana]

There is no shortage of Sada Yairi nylon strings on Yahoo Japan, and I bought my share while living in Japan. Plan was, to have a Sada from each year of the 1960s, but that was never fulfilled. I did have quite a few though, earliest was a 1961 with figured mahogany back and sides. The only Sada I kept and brought back to Canada is a 1971 rosewood. I saw several types of Yairi labels in Japan, close to 10 or so different ones. While I was there, precise info on the Yairis was very difficult to come by, even for the Japanese people who were members of web sites there. I heard Sada and Kazuo were cousins, brothers or uncle and nephew. One of the Japan Vintage books I have has an entire interview with Kazuo which may or may not reveal some truth but I can't read enough Japanese to know for sure, and I was told he did not like to speak of the connection between the two. Members here may be surprised how little some old Sada nylon strings can be had for in Japan, I know some members on some sites I joined when I lived in Japan did not believe me when I posted new guitars and how little I had paid for them. Along with the different labels I saw there were also several headstock shapes. My 1971 has a hand written label, some I owned in Japan had the blue labels and all were dated, leaving no doubt as to the years they were built. Never saw a Sadao that was of poor quality, each one was top notch. I would be wary of the new S. Yairis, the ones I saw were MIC and/or not nearly as well made as the old ones.

 

[Eric Reesor]

Thank you for the great information. Love the guitar you gifted to your grandson. What would the price range be to have a similar one built? Again thanks for the post.

Sorry I cannot do that I would be breaking the forum rules which I chose not to do. I am not anonymous, when it comes to music and neither is my brother the luthier we don't believe in being such.

 

[Eric Reesor]

I did post one little bit of miss info in a previous post, it was an Aria classical that I traded for my S Yairi steel string parlour guitar for not a Sadoa Classical. Like I said getting rid of the S Yairi parlour guitar was a mistake. My memory failed me because it was so long ago. The Aria classical solid cedar top was fairly decent but not on par with any of the very similar in appearance Sadao Classicals that were fairly scarce at that particular time in Vancouver.

Yes my link to wiki about the real history of the family Yairi is under dispute but then again their instruments have been a hot topic in the halls of Martin and Gibson for a very long time to say the least.🐱🐱🐱 That is most likely why Sadao was so secretive at times. Back then tribute built guitars were highly disrespected as they are to this very day in some circles. Now most luthiers are moving to the Larrivee school when it comes to bracing and other important aspects of how to achieve truly great sound on a steel string guitar. When it comes to great traditionally built Classical and flamenco guitars the story is somewhat different thank heavens!

Playing on a high end old solid top and back Yairi guitar is a dream of mine and for good reason. It was a great little Yairi that made me realise that if I ever wanted to play Bach on guitar and improvise based upon the harmonic structures I'd better learn to read music effectively, cause tab really didn't cut the mustard especially with his lute music to say the very least.

 

[Ruff]

Sorry I cannot do that I would be breaking the forum rules which I chose not to do. I am not anonymous, when it comes to music and neither is my brother the luthier we don't believe in being such.

My mistake, Eric. I am new to the forum and was not aware. Thanks for all the great imput.

 

[Eric Reesor]

Thank you.

 

[Eric Reesor]

There is no shortage of Sada Yairi nylon strings on Yahoo Japan, and I bought my share while living in Japan. Plan was, to have a Sada from each year of the 1960s, but that was never fulfilled. I did have quite a few though, earliest was a 1961 with figured mahogany back and sides. The only Sada I kept and brought back to Canada is a 1971 rosewood. I saw several types of Yairi labels in Japan, close to 10 or so different ones. While I was there, precise info on the Yairis was very difficult to come by, even for the Japanese people who were members of web sites there. I heard Sada and Kazuo were cousins, brothers or uncle and nephew. One of the Japan Vintage books I have has an entire interview with Kazuo which may or may not reveal some truth but I can't read enough Japanese to know for sure, and I was told he did not like to speak of the connection between the two. Members here may be surprised how little some old Sada nylon strings can be had for in Japan, I know some members on some sites I joined when I lived in Japan did not believe me when I posted new guitars and how little I had paid for them. Along with the different labels I saw there were also several headstock shapes. My 1971 has a hand written label, some I owned in Japan had the blue labels and all were dated, leaving no doubt as to the years they were built. Never saw a Sadao that was of poor quality, each one was top notch. I would be wary of the new S. Yairis, the ones I saw were MIC and/or not nearly as well made as the old ones.

My primary classical for years was a stellar Tama tc15 cedar. It is old in the tooth and has been refinished French polished, but it still blows the doors off most of today's classics until you get up over 7 to 10,000 Canadian and order a new fangled double top classical cannon guitar. But I know that some of the old Yairi's were almost as good as the design used by Kohno who built the Tama production classicals.

Who actually built the incredible legendary Tama steel strings that really ticked off Martin and Co is another matter because they to could be incredible and consistently blew the doors of factory D18s hands down!!!!. Just maybe people trained by Kazou and Sadoa??? and his school of builders, who knows for certain. But the great Tama steel string guitars did disappear from history quite suddenly for some very strange reason or other which I cannot fathom... Guess I must be getting stupid in my old age LOL Might need to troll the Japanese web sites to see if I can pick one up on the sly. I dread the thought not arff arfff... Dreads are not really designed for anything other than chord play melody and single note chord melody and are useless for much else because of the skinny neck. IMO
If I ever did by a dread I would much rather play it with a electric wheel bow than fingerstyle. It would be easier and sound better I have no doubt. As far as dreads like D18's and the like.. this is a much better use.

Notice that this magic below is certainly not being done on a DREAD more a little like a wider neck with almost classical body shape, OM size and under with a wider neck is the sweet spot in steel strings always has been and is why I moved away from them cause you couldn't get a decent wider neck steel unless you had one made and that really ticked me off with the guitar industry in North America general.

But back to Yairi and how good they really were back in the late 1960's and into the 70's. Sadoa was sometimes better at making spruce topped instruments that really sang than Mr Kohno and everyone who played them frequently knew this could be the case.

With a good spruce top it is more of a crap shoot for the luthier to say the very least, if you don't tune the bracing chances are it will wind up sounding like a factory Larivee classical, which is OK but not stellar. Well built cedar top guitars always afford more sound but do not improve as much over time as do spruce guitars. The very same thing goes for steel string guitars. If a spruce top steel string has sweet even sound with great sound as you play up the g string and d string up neck right off the bat, give it a few years it can become really, really good. Cedar top classical and steel strings pretty much what you play is what you get.

Some older guitars with a very heavy plastic finish can improve with refinish, but by and large the early Yairis were finished very thin and refinish with french polish would not help them open up more. So like all things guitar you cannot know for certain until you actually play it what it will sound like in your hands.

 

[sakana]

there are small kanji n the labels of some Sada guitars, one kanji says the wood was selected for it tonal qualities and other kanji means it was chosen for it beauty. I know the old Yamaha Dynamics used Ezo spruce for their tops. the oldest one I had was a 3 digit serial number, which Japanese guys said was early to mid 1950s. But even for the Japanese people getting reliable info on the Yairi saga is not easy, or it wasn't, we have been away from Japan for 5 years now so I am a bit out of touch, but I have read that Yamaha did not get a dedicated acoustic guitar factory up and running g until 1967 so just who built those early Dynamics seems to have down to two places....Tenryu or Suzuki, according to the Japanese guys who research this kind of stuff. No one can say for sure and Yamaha is not spilling the beans.

 

[Eric Reesor]

Tenryu or Suzuki, according to the Japanese guys who research this kind of stuff. No one can say for sure and Yamaha is not spilling the beans.

Suzuki goes back a very long way when it comes to guitars. I do not know if they produced luthier hand made at all or ever. I do know that years ago I had students that came with Suzuki guitars built in the early 1950's. Naturally the Suzuki violin method and guitar methods have had a tremendous influence at primary school level for a very long time. Most schools had them for all their violin students and if there was a teacher who could read music on guitar then chances your child would get a Suzuki on loan from the school music program our here in BC anyway. My suspicion is that some associates of Suzuki did the custom builds even back then and that most very early high end steel and classical guitars were not ever up for export to North America. The story of Tenryu is not a familiar subject for me, a good fly fishing friend of mine from Akita Pref. didn't know much about anyone except the Suzuki story, which everyone in Japan knows a little about. He did play steel string when he was young.
It makes sense that Yamaha would have used local spruce early on before they started building pianos and then started buying sitka from the Queen Charlotte islands and North Vancouver Island.

 

[sakana]

my oldest Sukuzi was from 1948, still playable when I sold it in Japan. there was more than one Suzuki family building guitars as well, along with violins. my current oldest is a 1950 Kiso-Suzuki pick guitar built in Fukushima that I brought back with us.
I said in a previous post that the Yamaha Dynamics used Ezo spruce but after looking at notes, it was Ezo pine for the tops. Japan made a lot of things that were never intended for export, the domestic market was very strong plus there was a time, not so long ago, when people outside Japan thought all the Japanese built was cheap crap found in the 5 and dime stores after the war but they certainly did build top quality guitars, I saw and owned some while in country. people used to scratch the Yamaha name off the headstock like it was something to be embarrassed about, but nowadays there are many people after the older MIJ guitars. one thing that is certain about many old Japanese guitars is that very little seems to be certain.