16 out of 16 people found this review helpful.
Outstanding Saxophone
Date of Review: Apr 5, 2009
The Bottom Line: I would recommend this Saxophone to anyone. It is near perfection.
First, I am 51 years old and have been playing the Saxophone since I was 16. I do not play professionally, but I am no beginner. I will also tell you that I have always been a dedicated vintage Martin bigot. I have owned Martin Altos and Tenors since I began playing the sax. Recently my house was robbed and both saxes were stolen, along with a number of other items. I could not find any Martins which I liked, so I decided to buy a new horn, at least while I continued my search.
After reading a number of reviews, by lots of people, including a 16 year old prodigy and Steven Howard's web reviews from the UK. I visited a number of large music stores in the area.... basically all of them within a 90 minute drive.... and played a number of different instruments. I finally decided on the Yamaha YTS62-II.
I bought the instrument on-line through Woodwind and Brasswind. The horn arrived immaculately packaged. The workmanship is of obvious quality. Key movement is quick and effortless. I turned on my KORG tuner and checked the tuning. I could not beleive my eyes.... spot on throughout the entire range!
The tone produced by the Yamaha is much bolder and cleaner than my old Martin. The vintage Martins have a lot of character and richness to their tone. The sound is complex and unique to each individual instrument. They also tend to have their individual quirks.... kind of like an old british roadster..... an old MG lets say.... it is a thing of beauty, but the one I owned would always run the wipers whenever you turned on the headlights. The Yamaha is more like a bell or tuning fork. You play a note and you get that note. Perfect, round, in pitch, and clean...... more like a Mazda Miyata..... everything works as it should and you can depend on that.
Now that I have been playing this sax for a couple of months, I have stopped searching for a Martin and am instead looking forward to ordering a Yamaha YAS62-II Alto. I find I do not miss the complexity of tone as the bell like quality of the Yamaha is so beautiful.
These horns arefabulous.
