Sadao Yairi and Kazuo’s father, Giichi Yairi, both got their instrument making start with the then Suzuki Violin Company in the 1920s, both men eventually leaving to start their own businesses, building a variety of traditional Japanese instruments and guitars. Kazuo, along with his three brothers, took over from his father in the mid-sixties, quickly building K Yairi up to be one of the world’s most revered acoustic guitar brands. Uncle Sadao continued his own business, (S Yairi), but was never as successful as Kazuo, with the S Yairi brand folding in the early eighties. (The name has since been utilised on a range of Chinese-built instruments)
Some of the very best ever produced
From the very start, K Yairi guitars were fully hand-built, utilising only air-dried timbers, with both traditions continuing to this day. As any luthier will tell you, an instrument made with air-dried timbers will always sound better than something that has been kiln-dried. Up to the third decade of the twenty-first century, many guitar experts, luthiers and players say the early K Yairi guitars are some of the very best ever produced, anywhere in the world. Here's a great video testament to the continuing K Yairi legacy: LINK
Big name players
When a guitar is played by the likes of Paul McCartney, (he emplyed Yairis on both ‘Blackbird’ and ‘Yesterday’), Johnny Cash, the Grateful Dead, Ani DiFranco, Carlos Santana and countless more, you can pretty much rest assured it’s good enough for you, too. Big name players have been attracted to K Yairi instruments since they were first marketed outside Japan, back in the mid 1960s.
Absolutely stunning
There is no way whatsoever of getting around the fact that this DY51 is absolutely stunning. We spent the better part of a week scouring the internet for photos of others, and this is – without a doubt – the most stunning of all. The tight to medium grained Cedar top is very nice, but the burled Mahogany back & sides, (plus matching headstock overlay), are completely out of this world!
Triple layers
For his higher-end models, Kazuo Yairi adopted a technique from Ramirez classical guitars, whereby he constructed triple layers of cross-grained slices of the one timber – in this case the burled Mahogany – achieving a brilliant triple result: the strength approaches that of steel; the tone becomes considerably amplified; plus an impenetrable humidity barrier is created.
Features
The high-end features continue elsewhere: a beautifully playing one-piece Mahogany neck, (hand-carved in the Yairi workshop, of course), with a striking volute; 14/20 fret Ebony fingerboard with mother-of-pearl snowflake inlays; 7-ply binding, front & back; hand carved braces; black-lacquered Cedar bridge; bone nut & saddle; Maple/Ebony/Maple back stripe; and the Yairi headstock logo and emblem in premium cream mother-of-pearl. The majority of these came with tortoise scratchplates, however we have seen a handful with the clear version.
Pickup
The guitar plays and sounds like a Martin D-28, (dare we say, possibly even better!), with absolutely gorgeous harmonics and razor-sharp string-to-string definition. A rare acoustic guitar that pushes out perfectly balanced amounts of lows, mids and highs. Fully acoustic, however, as with any of our acoustics, we will be happy to install an LR Baggs M1A active soundhole pickup before shipping. If purchased with the guitar, at our cost price of $265, we don’t charge for this installation. The M1A is the Just Guitars acoustic pickup of choice.
Free courier delivery
Complete with its original blue lined hard shell case, this beautiful guitar comes with our FREE COURIER DELIVERY to any address in Australia – generally 1 – 2 days on the east coast, more distant areas slightly longer. $100 airfreight to New Zealand, (usually 2 days), and $175 to the US, Canada, UK and mainstream European countries, (3 – 5 days)
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