Alvarez Yairi Masterworks Honduran Series Dreadnought DYM60HD

The Story of My Yairi

Wildwoodians, it is my distinct pleasure to present this offering from Alvarez Yairi, and not just because it's an heirloom-quality instrument available at an unbelievable value. No, I'm excited because I get a chance to tell the story of me getting my Forever Acoustic, a Yairi Masterworks OM! Last spring when Wildwood first became a Yairi dealer, I pulled a lovely all-mahogany Yairi FYM66HD out of its case to write an evaluation for our website and prep it for posting. I knew of the Yairi name because many luthier friends of mine had strongly recommended that I buy one, and I knew the basic story of the company (Kazuo Yairi was a legendary luthier who partnered to with Alvarez in the sixties to make guitars by hand using old-world techniques in his shop in Japan), but I'd never had the opportunity to play one before. I was immediately struck by its beauty, and I was a little in awe as I tuned it up. When I tuned the high e string, all the other strings started ringing faintly with a beautiful tone, and I said, out loud, "Oh, this is my guitar now."

Suffice to say, I never wrote that evaluation, because that guitar went home with me that night. I've played it just about every day since, and it's only two hours and three minutes until I can head home to play it tonight (but who's counting?). That alone speaks to the greatness of Yairi, but the significance of how quickly it captured my heart is deeper in context.

You see, I've been writing all the text for the Wildwood website for eight years, and over that time I've played and written about thousands of acoustic guitars. During that whole time, I was searching for The One, and I never found it until that joyous day last spring. I'm NOTORIOUSLY picky about acoustic guitars, and I demand unreasonable levels of greatness from them. In other words, I have expensive taste! So, I fell in love with plenty of acoustics at Wildwood over the better part of the last decade, but none of the handful that stole my heart were attainable.

That all changed the minute I tuned up that Yairi. After I played it for a minute or two, I quickly realized it was my favorite acoustic guitar I'd ever played at any price point. That right there is the magic of an Alvarez Yairi guitar. It has all the magic and superior craftsmanship of a guitar lovingly hand-built by a masterful hand, but at an insane value. They are the guitar equivalent of champagne on a beer budget, and they have a tremendous capacity to inspire creativity. I have no doubt you'll write a similar story to mine if you take one for a spin, and cherish yours the way I'm planning to cherish mine in about...an hour and thirty-eight minutes, now!

For more about this specific model, read on!

A Master's Work

This DYM60HD is a part of the Alvarez Masterworks series, a line of guitars built from woods from Kazuo Yairi's personal stash. After Mr. Yairi passed, his coworkers and friends made the sojourn to a small cabin in the woods near the Yairi shop were he kept his private reserve of wood. When they entered, they found stacks of wood so dirty that they couldn't tell what it was. When they dusted it off, they were shocked and delighted to find that it was vintage Honduran mahogany, a tonewood prized worldwide for its beauty and warm, woody tone. As a tribute to Mr. Yairi, his coworkers--many of whom he had worked with for fifty-plus years--decided to build guitars with it to honor their friend. Thus, the Masterworks series was born. As someone who owns a guitar made of the stuff, let me tell you: it's some of the most incredible-sounding wood I've ever encountered!