Yamaha LJ26

[Dbone]

Originally Posted by 27R

According to Yamaha UK/Europe the L series is basically finished - hence the recent blowouts in the UK.

They are telling us that a good chunk of the people who work in the shop in Hamamatsu are about to retire and there aren’t enough trained replacements to continue with the high end stuff. Covid has hastened it all too.

Could be guff of course but seems reasonably plausible considering the hefty discounts.

That is very interesting. If true I'm sure glad I got my 56 when I did.

This would be a tremendous bummer if they stopped making those instruments.

As far as I know they can still be built to order with dealers here in Canada, albeit at greatly increased prices.

I will watch how this unfolds with great interest.

I hope you are wrong. To me it doesn't seem right that a company like Yamaha wouldn't have some sort of succession plan in place.

[27R]

Originally Posted by Dbone

That is very interesting. If true I'm sure glad I got my 56 when I did.

This would be a tremendous bummer if they stopped making those instruments.

As far as I know they can still be built to order with dealers here in Canada, albeit at greatly increased prices.

I will watch how this unfolds with great interest.

I hope you are wrong. To me it doesn't seem right that a company like Yamaha wouldn't have some sort of succession plan in place.

I have heard additionally from a part-time Yamaha demonstrator here in the UK that the tentative plan is not to close the shop entirely - after all, there are still MIJ guitars outside the L-series, and there certainly are good people working there (who may not be retirement age yet) - but to use it for occasional custom/special runs of existing models in the other non-L lines. Perhaps the L series will still be built-to-order or made occasionally but in even smaller quantities than before. I imagine constraints on materials might catch up with them soon too - they obviously had a very deep wood stash they amassed over years but Engelmann spruce is getting extremely difficult to get in the kind of grade you'd expect on 36/56 instruments. I suppose they could update the line and move to Sitka or something more readily available but of course it might not sound exactly the same.

Getting accurate info firsthand from Yamaha is never easy of course, but I'm with you, I really hope they continue to exist in some form...

[Dbone]

Originally Posted by 27R

I have heard additionally from a part-time Yamaha demonstrator here in the UK that the tentative plan is not to close the shop entirely - after all, there are still MIJ guitars outside the L-series, and there certainly are good people working there (who may not be retirement age yet) - but to use it for occasional custom/special runs of existing models in the other non-L lines. Perhaps the L series will still be built-to-order or made occasionally but in even smaller quantities than before. I imagine constraints on materials might catch up with them soon too - they obviously had a very deep wood stash they amassed over years but Engelmann spruce is getting extremely difficult to get in the kind of grade you'd expect on 36/56 instruments. I suppose they could update the line and move to Sitka or something more readily available but of course it might not sound exactly the same.

Getting accurate info firsthand from Yamaha is never easy of course, but I'm with you, I really hope they continue to exist in some form...

As I learned on this forum recently, guitars outside of the higher tier L series are actually more like assembled in Japan. Most of the guitar is already made in China, shipped to Japan, and put together. The 26 and above are full hand made in Japan.

[27R]

Originally Posted by Dbone

As I learned on this forum recently, guitars outside of the higher tier L series are actually more like assembled in Japan. Most of the guitar is already made in China, shipped to Japan, and put together. The 26 and above are full hand made in Japan.

Indeed - so if the shop has new capacity, they could do fancier versions of those non-L guitars all in-house. But then the price will probably reflect it too!