It’s also slightly flatter in terms of its back angle than the SG. 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 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. For the record, the Yamaha USA website says it’s sycamore. No, this is a pretty straight 16-inch-wide thinline with a soft maple centre block and five-ply maple-faced laminate construction. Its inspiration is obvious and there’s no downsizing here. 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. (Image credit: Future / Olly Curtis) SA2200 Note the extra screw on the bass side, so you can tilt the pickup to precisely match the taper of the strings. The SA2200’s older style features Yamaha’s owndesign Alnico V-loaded humbuckers. There’s also a final important and proprietary twist in the form of Initial Response Acceleration (IRA see the Vibrating Wood box over the page), which features on both our review models. However, it’s very thin – it’s sunken into the grain a little on our decade-old example. Then there’s the gloss polyurethane finish, which you won’t find on a Gibson or PRS. But this is now the sort of kit you’ll see on guitars a third of this price, a bit like the almost generic Duncan ’59s. So the TonePros tune-o-matic and stud tailpiece are firmly locked to their posts, the Grover tuners are locking, and the nut is Graph Tech Tusq. Part of the 1800 concept back in 2010 was to use up-to-the-minute hardware that was fit for performance purpose. With a rim depth of pretty much bang on 50mm and overall depth of 60mm, there’s no weight relief or chambering – and it’s little surprise that the guitar is no lightweight at 4.41kg (9.7lb), just a little heavier than our 10-year-old reference, which weighs in at 4.14kg (9.1lb). On investigating our sunburst example, though, the centre section appears to be quartered, and you can also see that the maple cap clearly drops into the ‘plain top’ grade. The neck is three-piece, too, although with only one translucent colour you might not notice that detail. It features a flat back to the three-piece African mahogany body – intended to maximise the Les Paul-like chunk. The construction of the 1800 SG differs in numerous ways to that original SG2000.
Yamaha guitar serial number#
But our new sample, whose serial number says it was made in November 2019, is identical to our reference 1820, which was made a decade ago in January 2010.Ĭonsistent? Colour aside, it’s hard to tell the two guitars apart. More than a few modern guitars don’t last five years in production, let alone a decade without change. The headstock is a little shorter and squarer compared with a Les Paul, and the back-angle is slightly flatter. It also slightly alters the strapped-on hang of the SG, meaning it tends to tip forward, again like a Gibson SG or ES-335, or indeed the SA2200. This could be an advantage for the SG, except that the upper strap button mounts behind the heel (like a Gibson SG or ES-335) and, depending on what strap you attach, can certainly impede your upper fretting. The cutaway of the treble horn mirrors that of the Les Paul and the heel sits a little lower. In terms of outline, the SG follows the lower body of the Les Paul very closely: its waist is slightly lower and wider across the body, while those horns flare out a little adding to the slightly chunkier look. If that original SG was intended to be a better and different-sounding Gibson Les Paul, the 1820 is, well, a Les Paul with a different shape, and despite its symmetrical doublecutaway outline, it sounds like one without question. By design, these are pro-aimed with pretty much zero of the design innovations or idiosyncrasies of that groundbreaking SG2000. The huge-sounding SG1820 ‘single‑cut’ would easily warrant retrofitting more boutique-style pickupsĬolours are limited and very classic, too. They’re pretty much identical guitars save for a few cosmetic details and their pickups: the 1802 features Seymour Duncan single-coil soapbars the 1820A features EMGs and the 1820 here (probably the most mainstream) comes with industry standard Seymour Duncan ’59s.