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Stunning Yamaha SA2200 Guitar in Violin Sunburst - Pristine Condition - $1,800 (Capitol Hill/Lincoln Park)
13th St NE near North Carolina Ave NE
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Check out the review below for more info on this lovely instrument that has been very well cared for and set up.
https://www.guitarworld.com/features/best-high-end-electric-guitars
From Guitar World review:
With its resplendent gold-plated hardware and lightly flamed laminate facings, our SA2200 (which was made in May 2020) is the sort of guitar that should come with a tuxedo. Its inspiration is obvious and there’s no downsizing here. No, this is a pretty straight 16-inch-wide thinline with a soft maple centre block and five-ply maple-faced laminate construction. For the record, the Yamaha USA website says it’s sycamore.
It’s immaculately turned out, of course, from the careful craft of the super-tidy inside with its kerfed mahogany linings to the great binding with inner purfling lines that drop just to a single-ply cream for the fingerboard. It’s even jazzier around the headstock, which, at around 180mm long by 85mm at its widest point, is slightly bigger than the 166mm by 78mm dimension of the SG’s. It’s also slightly flatter in terms of its back angle than the SG.
The body rise seems slighter than the classic it’s imitating and, as you can see, the dual horns are thinned, a style we’ve seen on many Japanese and other reruns of this classic. Like the SG, the finish is quoted as gloss polyurethane, but again it appears extremely thin and beautifully applied.
This attention to detail is everywhere: from obvious things like fretting on the ebony fingerboard with its bright, vibrant inlays and the superbly cut bone nut, to more subtle details such as the rounding of the bound fingerboard edge and the perfect shaping of the traditional heel.
Unlike the SG1820, the SA2200 sticks with homegrown Gotoh hardware that no one is going to turn their nose up at, and the pickups are simply Yamaha Alnico V, which are actually slightly hotter that those ’59s going on measured DCRs.
Here, we also get coil-splits on the tone controls – pull-push switches not push-push types, which we’ve seen on previous Yamahas.
The SA2200? It’s a deliciously regal voice played clean with slightly more air to the sound and a deft balance of smoothness with clarity. Yes, it might look like the sort of thing you’d play cocktail jazz on – which you certainly can, of course – but show it a pretty cranked amp and it really displays its rock credentials, slipping into musical feedback with just a lean towards your amp.
Okay, you say, that’s what a ES-335 does. And let’s not pretend otherwise; this is someone else’s design. But it’s such a well-made, carefully considered piece that the guitar just disappears while we spend far too much time playing it. It’s one of those ‘desert island’ guitars, for sure.
Yet it’s also a superbly complex voice that effortlessly morphs from rich velveteen jazz and juicy fusion through to also Fender-y quack from the coil-splits, which voice the inner slug coils of both and are where the mix and the neck pickup excel.
Whatever is going on under the hood here is also considered: the tone control taper and cap values make both tones, in both modes, hugely reactive. If there’s a bad sound on this guitar, we didn’t find it. It’s one of the best-sounding and most versatile guitars of its style we’ve had the pleasure to play.
The SA2200, virtually unchanged since it was introduced late in 1991, is probably one of the best kept secrets out there and, again, at the selling price ($3,148/£2,422) is laughably good value. Its tuxedo style might not appeal to everyone, but its sounds and feel are simply superb: a very professional-level workhorse guitar that really should be on the radar of any serious player.