Barnes & Mullins Yanagisawa TWO20U – Tenor Saxophone – Unlacquered Bronze

A wonderful unlacquered bronze instrument that will satisfy any professional player

The upgraded replacement for the T992U, this TWO20U bronze model is one of the World’s finest tenor saxophones.

Description

Yanagisawa saxes are made by a small family company in Japan that only makes professional quality saxes, and they do it very well. This degree of focus means they are of a quality that even their main competitors recognise as the best. Here at SAX, our technicians love them as they play straight out of the box and they are by far the most reliable instruments we sell.

The Yanagisawa T992U developed a reputation over the past 30 years as one of the finest tenor saxophones on the market. It was the preferred choice of many Yanagisawa endorsees such as Snake Davis. Its replacement, the TWO20U is even better! Over and above the less expensive TWO2U model, the TWO20U has double key arms, a fully ribbed construction, and an underslung octave mechanism. The bronze offers a richer, broader, more harmonically complex tone. 

Most saxes are covered in a thin lacquer to prevent them from tarnishing but this does slightly dampen the resonance of the metal. Unlacquered saxes are very popular as they allow the metal to resonate to its full potential. They require cleaning to keep them shiny or you can leave them to tarnish and fairly soon they take on a nice vintage patina.

The TWO20U has an even stronger tonal core thanks to a re-engineered bore and tone holes, plus many upgraded features.

Features 

• Material: Bronze

• Finish: Unlacquered

• Key Touches: White mother-of-pearl

• Neck: Yanagisawa

• Engraving: Hand engraved

• Case: Yanagisawa, rectangular back-pack style

• Mouthpiece: Yanagisawa Ebonite 7CR

• Made in: Japan

• Free Professional Set Up & Free Check over within a Year

• Recommended for: All serious sax players 

Reviews

Yanagisawa have managed to raise the quality of their instruments another notch, with the introduction of the WO series.

The sound delivery of any Yani horn has always been one of richness and smoothness while remaining free-blowing throughout. This quality remains in place on the WO horns but there is an extra degree of warmth and just a little extra focus over and above the old brass models. I’m sure this must be largely due to the change of brass on the O1 and O10 models.

As for the bronze models, there is less of a discernable difference tonally but ergonomically all of the range has benefited from tweaks within the mechanism and key-work. These are lovely new horns. Jim – SAX