Alvarez Yairi DY-45 50th Anniversary

My Alvarez-Yairi DY-45 is a 1995 model, made by some Mexican, in Korea, or something (Really, though... Aren't ALL Yairi's Handmade in Japan?). I got it at Travis Stephens' Music Shop in Calhoun, Ga., in November of 1995, as a Christmas Gift for my dear old Dad. His first words, when he opened the gift, were, "Great... You've bought something that you can borrow from me all the time!" to which I responded, "No, Sir, I have bought you something that YOU can borrow from ME every once in a while." And it's been in my home every since!
It has NO PICK-UPS, strictly an acoustic guitar. That's just the way I like it! I have several electric guitars, and an acoustic-electric, and a banjo, and a mandolin, BUT this Yairi is by far the best guitar of the bunch (Although not the most expensive)!Like the other reviews here... Mine is Mahogany sides and back, with a Spruce top. It has the Brazilian Rosewood neck, and has the TOBACCO SUNBURST finish, which is quite rare in this year-model Yairi.It came with a nice Leather hard-shell case, reddish-brown, with gold carpet inside. I agree with the others... You have to be VERY CAREFUL to keep scratches off of its soft, satin finish. it is a nick magnet!

I have no music "Style"... I play EVERYTHING, from bluegrass to metal. And I play DAILY.This guitar sounds beautiful through a microphone, and even better stand-alone.There is absolutely nothing I would do to this guitar to make it better... The only way you could make it sound sweeter would be to put a better player behind it!

Coming out of the box, the guitar played well, but I have my guitars set-up about every six months, whether they need it or not. My Guitar Tech has me on retainer, I use him so often! I have eight guitars, so I get more than one per-month set-up (on average). The bridge and nut are perfect on this one. I replaced the factory plastic bridge with a bone one, and it already had a bone nut. I have replaced it twice over the years, however.
The tuning keys have stayed tight all these years, and have showed no signs of rust. The saddle pegs have been replaced twice... They tend to wear grooves after a couple of years.

If you keep good lemon oil on this one, you diminish your chances of scratching it up too badly; Other than that, This guitar will last forever, with proper TLC.
It plays Live gigs rather well, as long as they are small shows. The lack of a pick-up makes it limited as to where you can use it. I do church and small gigs with it often, though.

I've never had to deal with factory on this one, but I have dealt with warranty issues on a yairi before, and that weighed heavily on my decision to buy another. This is my fourth Yairi.

I have been playing since I was five, and now I am 34.... That should be long enough to know better.
As far as my other gear, I have an Alvarez Artist acoustic/electric; I have two Fender Thinline Telecasters (The semi-hollow bodied ones) One is a 1969 re-issue, the other is a 1972 re-issue; I have a Jay Turser JT-200BK Serpent "Black Beauty" Les Paul copy; I have a Jay Turser Premier JTA-95STR "Bowed Back" acoustic; I have a Fender P-Bass 4-string; I have a Fender "A-Style" Mandolin; And I have a 1968 Checkmate Banjo.
If I could have asked then, I would have asked why the Atlanta Braves were going to blow so many Playoff Chances, without winning the World Series!!!! But I don't think anyone knows the answer to that.
If someone stole this guitar, I would hunt them down, Take it frome them and make them shack up with my ex-fiance'... That would put them through enough misery to teach them a lesson!!!
If I could share anything else I have, it would be all of the sleepless nights I've had to endure from listening to my wife tell me that I have too many Musical Toys!!!!

Completed on October 28, 1979, by Kazuo Yairi, the master Japanese luthier. Well maybe he didn't actually build it with his own hands, but I bet he was looking hard over his craftsmen's shoulders... The top is incredibly close-grained spruce from a log he must have had in his yard for decades. The uneven tobacco-burst effect is that weird thing the Japanese do to decorate wood; they scorch it with a blow-torch then sand it down in places. The result looks like a watery sun seen through a killer L.A. smog. Unusual but really nice. My one and only criticism of this guitar is the satin finish, which is really soft and shows up every tiny pick scratch. This axe has been played a lot in the Mazet bar in Paris, which used to be a buskers' hangout, so now I've got a whole bunch of "signature" scratches to remember my ol' buddies by... The sides and back are mahogany that glows like freshly-shelled chestnuts and the neck is Brazilian rosewood (still legal back then). The fretboard (43mm at the nut) is ebony with MOP markers, no binding and 20 beautifully finished medium frets. The bridge is also ebony and the saddle and nut are bone. Abalone AY logo on the headstock, cast Alvarez tuners that never budge. Comes out of the case after weeks of neglect smack on concert pitch and stays there while playing. A miracle. The body is very deep even for a dreadnaught -- 10cm at the treble bout and 12cm at the bass bout. I've changed the pegs from plastic to solid brass. I'm giving it a nine for features because of the finish and the dot markers; on closer inspection they may be pearloid, which seems a bit unneccessary.

I play very basic country, blues, and bluegrass using mostly Martin phosphor-bronze mediums and a heavy pick. This combination produces a truly astounding level of volume, with rich, warm bass and bell-like treble responses. I've stuck a crappy patch transducer on the bass end of the bridge, which is not a lot of good on its own, but using a Boss digital delay/reverb on minimal settings to add a bit of 'shine' and playing through a kick-ass KMD 100-watt amp, I get close enough to the original acoustic sound. What I really need is a full-blown Fishman Rare Earth pickup and mic blender rig, but I don't want to do anything to the structure of this instrument, I haven't got the money, and I do very little amplified public performance (see 'very basic' style above!). So the patch is staying on for the foreseeable future. Another nine rating, but only with regard to the amplified performance. Unplugged, it's an undeniable ten. Several professional musicians have said it's the best they've played bar none. I can only agree.

Nothing whatever has been done to the perfect medium-low action (3mm at 12th fret) since birth. The bottom three frets are now quite worn under the top E, B and G strings (again, see pathetic skill level), but this does not seem to affect the sound in any way. Intonation is perfect, despite the uncompensated saddle, right up to the 'dusty end', where the frets have led a totally sheltered life. By the way, I do regularly clean and feed the fretboard and the rest of the instrument with lemon oil. I was lying about the 'dusty end'.

This guitar has withstood more than its fair share of being played on the streets, in bars, the Paris metro and occasionally on stage. It has been cruelly knocked about in a minor sort of way (banged against table corners and metro seat handles), and once the headstock loosened some asshole's teeth. Plus there's the extensive pick wear mentioned above. Oh yes, and it is no stranger to beer splashes. It has come through all this abuse with flying colours. You can bet it still rings like a bell. And I wish I could be sitting on a bed in some hotel, just listening to the stories it could tell (sorry, Everleys). On stage, it's stoopid to play a gig without backup. The drummer could easily fall on your axe. I use a 1963 Gibson with under-saddle piezo. It's really horribly beat-up (the previous user's 'buckle-rash' has almost come through the wood, no shit) but it plays really bright and tight. Only trouble is, the fretboard's a little too narrow for me, meaning even more missed and finger-muted strings than usual. I'm giving it a ten on its own merits, but if a string breaks on stage you really do want to grab something else and keep the magic alive.

I have had no reason to find out whether the lifetime warranty means what it says, and that's after 23 years of cruel and unusual punishment.

I've been playing, if you can call it that, since the very early Sixties, when I got a Hofner flamenco from a junk shop for two pounds and fifteen shillings. Beer cost about tenpence a pint then, so I had to think hard about the investment. After putting steel strings on the poor thing and bending the table into a rather attractive S-shape, I sold it for a fiver and bought a laminate-top Moridaira dreadnaught for #25 in Charing Cross Road. On this honest workhorse I perfected my technique to the point where I could play Blowing In The Wind with most of the chords in the right place and headed off to Paris. I lent it to a busker for an evening and he left it in a bar off the Champs-Elysees (so he said). After a few years buying and selling guitars in the Mazet bar (see above) I went to Orlando with a buddy (who later STOLE my Gibson, can you believe?), where his mother took him to buy a guitar one day. As she was paying for it and I was in the back drooling over 1930s Gibsons and Martins, he idly took the Yairi off the wall and started playing it. He yelled "Dave you've GOT to come and play this." I did, and the rest is history. What I wish I'd done at the time is asked "Have you got half a dozen more" and maxed out all my plastic at 400 bucks a throw. But as we know, hindsight is always 20-20. It's still only getting a nine overall though, because even though I'm infatuated, nothing can be perfect. If I lost it I would move heaven and earth to find another, and pay any price, even if this involved selling the wife to a Beirut whorehouse. I'm sure she'd understand. There is no chance of it being stolen from my house, as I have a highly trained attack cat with whom you do not want to mess. Even I can get near her only when she's had 1-1/2 tins of catfood. I give her half a tin at a time. You have been warned.