Yanagisawa B-WO1 Baritone Sax

Choosing the sax: I have always liked the Yanagisawa sound and knew I wanted one for my bari (I have a Yanagisawa alto and a Selmer tenor). For anyone who isn't quite sure which one of the series to get (and also to check out other ones), sax.co.uk has a nice video testing the BW series here: : I got this over the Christmas period not expecting it to be processed before the new year with all the holidays, but the great Thomann team processed it on Christmas eve and made my day :) Delivery was one day delayed, but well shown in the tracking and providing clear information at all times. The new day actually suited better anyways. It also has to be stated that the delivery man from Nightline (who does UPS in Ireland), just drove off when I arrived and he came back after the next delivery so that I could receive my parcel!

Packaging & features: The packaging was very good and double-packed. Styrofoam gave additional support. There was cork pieces in all important places that can be tricky to get out if you don't have slim fingers. I managed fine and I think a pair of tweezers would otherwise help. It comes with a basic Yanagisawa 5 mouthpiece, cork grease, a simple cleaning cloth, a simple harness and the amazingly designed bag/box. It has a very nice and professional design, there is space for sheet music etx in the front pouch and it even has backpack-straps that can be hidden under zippers or taken out and attached to the side. I personally will use these, but carrying it upstairs like that I already noticed that should not be done too regularly as it is quite heavy (sax at ca. 6kg and bag at ca. 10kg). The instrument has space for a marching lyre. If marching I would recommend getting a better harness for back support as the one included is very simple.
I think it would have done no harm here to include some swabs considering the price, but considering the design of the bag and included features, I still gave 5 stars.

Sound: I purchased some Vandoren V16 (2 1/2 works fine for me), a swab for the corpus (e.g. Gewa Swab Baritone Saxophone) and a smaller swab for the rest (e.g. BG A31 Swab S-Bow), and off I went trying it out. I usually play in a concert orchestra and a few smaller ensembles and the Yanagisawa sound is fantastic. It came to no surprise that the bari of this series sounds amazing. It responds very well in all registers and playing piano in the low register in no difficulty with this one. But of course it it also possible to get a well rounded, rich sound out of it. The mechanics and keys are easy going and relatively quiet.

Overall, great service from Thomann and a well designed instrument that is easily playable in all dynamics and registers. Just get your reeds and cleaning gear and off you go :)