Yamaha 875EX ii | The best pro saxophone?

[Music] the yamaha custom 875ex2 now it's about a thousand dollars more than the yamaha 62 and certainly more expensive than some of the chinese-made horns with french-sounding names but is it a better saxophone let's find out hi and welcome to the saxophone academy i'm dr wally wallace now i've been a little bit slow with new content recently and i apologize for that i actually quit my job at the university to focus on the saxophone academy building content and courses for the students unfortunately then the pandemic hit schools are closed and i'm currently homeschooling two young kids so it hasn't worked out great for me thus far but please do subscribe i promise more content will be coming soon and i'll get on a regular schedule and we'd certainly appreciate a thumbs up if you find any of this useful now today we're talking about the yamaha 875 ex2 [Music] now the pro saxophone market is absolutely flooded there's the big name players like yamaha and selmer and it seems like every day there's a new micro brand popping up where they manufacture a chinese horn and put their stamp on it now the yamaha may not be as exciting as some of these chinese-made microbrands there's no exotic power stones or fancy bronze rose-colored plating or interesting names harkening back to jazz legends but it's just an excellent well-made saxophone now a season pro can really tell the difference between some of these lesser-known chinese brands in a true pro japanese saxophone and it all comes down to the japanese manufacturing and quality control now this model has been around since 1988 when they came out with a custom line but yamaha's been making horns for a lot longer than that and they came out with their first professional model back in 1967 with the yas 61. then in 1978 they came out with a 62 which they still make to this day i did a review video of that i'll link below that's still an amazingly well made entry-level pro saxophone now for a long time yamaha was not terribly popular with the pro saxophone players especially the jazz players they always felt that selmer was the golden child like marsha brady and yamaha couldn't seem to win over the jazz players who were always sell marcel or selmer now in 2002 they launched the ex model of the 875 and also the custom 82 z which they marketed towards jazz players getting endorsements by jeff coffin and phil woods now of course there's no difference between a jazz and a classical saxophone other than the marketing they were both excellent horns but the jazz players really started to gravitate towards the 82 z and they started to win over some former summer players especially because around that time they came out with the selmer series 3 and all of a sudden jan brady looks pretty smart now this 875 ex mark ii is of course a professional saxophone it has everything you would expect from a professional saxophone we've got a one piece bell it's hand engraved mother of pearl key touches and of course a high f sharp key it comes in a gold lacquer like you see here silver plating a black lacquer and if you've got a lot of money lying around even a gold plated model now on the mark ii they've updated the key layout to make it more ergonomic now i actually own the mark one that i bought back in 2003. i didn't know they changed the key ergonomics until i had read about it later and honestly i couldn't tell much of a difference but to me pro-level yamahas always have great ergonomics always feel incredibly comfortable under the fingers they've also updated the low c and d tone hole placements to improve the response in the low end and you really can tell the difference now you may be thinking these aren't revolutionary changes and you're right they're small evolutionary changes and that's the way yamaha seems to operate they make small incremental changes to their horn making a good horn slightly better with each model and i really like that they don't go off the deep end and invent bizarre new models with new vents and things that some other companies seem to do that end up turning off a lot of players they keep their core saxophone great and make small changes over time it's one of the reasons i've been a fan of the brand for a number of years now one of the big changes i really love about the mark ii is it comes with the v1 neck now saxophone next if you're not aware have a huge effect on tone response and intonation and the v1 neck this comes with now is really excellent now the model i bought back in the 1990s i had a original 875 non-ex came with an m1 neck i really loved it had a big broad sound and i still play on it to this day even on my ex when they came out with the ex in 2002 it came with a g series neck which was good it was freer blowing and a faster response that kind of felt more like a selmer the intonation for me was a little bit sketchy and i didn't care for the tone quite as much the v1 reminds me a lot of that original m1 neck it's really excellent a broad warm sound that can easily be focused with plenty of punch [Music] ah [Music] huh the key work just feels incredibly precise it's very consistent from top to bottom the spring tension is excellent it just feels very sure-footed to play especially when you're improvising it's just very comfortable and gives you an extra sense of security that your fingers aren't going to linger on a key that's lazy with spring tension now i know some players that really don't like the key tension quite so heavy as they make it on the yamaha i actually really prefer it i know some players that actually have their spring tension lessened once they buy a yamaha that's easy to do and not that expensive personally i think they nailed it i think it's perfect now one of the big differences between the 875ex and the 82z the other really popular pro yamaha model is the level of resistance when you play them classical players tend to prefer the 875 in general it's got a little bit more resistance 82z has a very fast response a big bright sound almost immediately i actually prefer having a little bit of resistance to play with now this v1 neck will let you push it but it doesn't get overly strident it's got a big broad warm sound even when you push it and when you're playing slower softer ballads for instance i really like the kind of warm quality you can [Music] get [Music] [Music] [Music] huh now let's talk pros and cons on the pro side for me the key work is number one that japanese manufacturing and quality control really sings through it's just a pleasure to play also the build quality and quality control you get from yamaha is excellent when i bought my first 875ex i ordered three i couldn't tell them apart they're very consistent i've played a dozen or so 8.75 throughout the years at music stores and my students they're all just really consistent and seem to be really well made the chinese-made horns they're not quite there yet in my opinion the tone and intonation i think are great and they're my favorite of any yamaha pro line really for me this sets the standard of what a great pro horn should be and it's unabashedly my favorite saxophone made now on the con side there are a few the right side keys use ball joints which i don't love over time these start to get a little bit noisy and rattle and i don't like them as much as the fork joints which seem to be more direct and have less motion and play in them other than that i don't have any big complaints the engraving is okay nothing special and the case it comes with is leather and kind of plain it looks like something out of the 1990s i can't even be bothered to take a picture of it look it up online it's nothing special but not a huge con you can certainly get an aftermarket case and most pro players tend to do that buy a nice bam case for your saxophone now as for value these sell for about 4 200 which is almost the exact same price as the 82 z made by yamaha now that's not a better saxophone it's just different so before you buy the 875ex definitely try the 82 z it's an excellent horn it's just a matter of preference to see which one you like better now the eastman 52nd street is about 700 less so is this worth the extra 700 for me absolutely there's no question the build quality is really a step above and i think you get every penny worth of that extra dollar amount now when we compare them to the selmer pro saxophones i think that's where you really see the value of the yamaha brand the summer series 2 is 1200 more expensive in my opinion it's certainly not a better horn it's different and the series 3 and reference 54 are 2 000 more expensive i don't think they're better instruments i think this is an incredible value for the money and in my opinion the best pro horn for the money you can find different horns but i don't think any of them are going to be better made than the yamaha 875 ex and the mark ii is a welcome upgrade to the previous models now if you're on a firm budget of three thousand dollars the eastman and some of the other chinese horns are really quite good but i'd still go with the yamaha 62. they're just in my opinion better made and they've been proven to last the long term i bought my 62 tenor back in 1999 i'm still playing it i just can't find a reason to upgrade it it's still a beautiful horn and it's held up over all these years of use and abuse so let me know in the comments below what's your favorite pro saxophone and please do stay tuned please do subscribe i may be a little bit slow with content in the coming weeks during the pandemic because i am homeschooling two young kids but i promise to get back to creating good stuff very soon and in the meantime go practice

Channel: Saxophone Academy

Views: 21,507

Rating: 4.9572954 out of 5

Keywords: yamaha, sax, saxophone, 62, 62iii, review, pro sax, professional saxopohe, alto saxophone, saxophone academy, 875EX, Yamaha 875, Yamaha 875EXii, yamaha custom, dr. wally, yamaha 82z alto, yamaha 875ex alto

Id: DM9-Ceg6KNg

Length: 10min 57sec (657 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 28 2020