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Yamaha LL16D ARE Original Jumbo Acoustic-electric Guitar - Black Certified Open Box

Acoustic-electric Guitar with Solid Engelmann Spruce Top, Solid Rosewood Back and Sides, and Ebony Fingerboard - Black
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Item ID: LL16DRBLHCd2
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Yamaha LL16D ARE Original Jumbo Acoustic-electric Guitar - Black

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Price:$1,124 and 99 cents
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Condition Notes:

There are finish cracks on the front of the body on the upper bout of the treble side. There are also fine scratches on various parts of the instrument that are not photographed. These scratches do not show well in photos, if at all. This instrument comes with the appropriate adjustment tool(s).

This item was thoroughly inspected by our factory-authorized service team and is backed by Sweetwater's exclusive 2-year warranty. These images are of the exact item advertised, and provide as accurate a representation of its condition as possible. If you need further information, please call your Sweetwater Sales Engineer at (800) 222-4700.

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Yamaha LL16D ARE Original Jumbo Acoustic-electric Guitar - Black
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A Premium Acoustic-electric Guitar From Yamaha

Yamaha's LL16D acoustic-electric guitar brings premium materials and craftsmanship together with intricate abalone inlays for a great-sounding and eye-catching guitar. Continuing in the legacy of Yamaha's L Series, the LL16D sports a hand-selected, solid Engelmann spruce top and solid rosewood back and sides for a rich, warm sound. An ultra-stable 5-ply mahogany/rosewood neck and ebony fretboard are smooth and sleek. The slimmer neck shape and an enhanced fingerboard edge gives the LL16D a feel and playability you'll love. A passive SRT Zero Impact Pickup uses six separate elements to detect each string and give you authentic plugged-in tones. The Yamaha LL16D gives amazing playability and killer tone in a premium acoustic-electric guitar.

Innovative construction to build a better guitar

The great tone and smooth playability of the LL16D are due to Yamaha's never-ending search for perfection. The recently developed A.R.E. (Acoustic Resonance Enhancement) process gives your guitar a broken-in and aged tone. By controlling the atmospheric pressure, temperature, and humidity, the molecular properties of the wood are manipulated to mirror those of a guitar that has been played for years. Each L Series guitar also sports a modified non-scalloped bracing that enhances the guitars low end. And the 5-ply mahogany/rosewood neck, after re-evaluation of string height and spacing, has a new design for improved playability. The Yamaha LL16D utilizes newly developed advances in guitar construction to bring you an amazingly playable and great-sounding instrument.

Hand-selected Spruce top for great tone

Sweetwater knows that the choice of top wood can have a strong effect the sound of an acoustic guitar. For the LL16D, Yamaha chose a premium, hand-selected solid Engelmann spruce top. Chosen as much for its look as its tone, solid spruce has a well-rounded, articulate sound with excellent projection. Its rosewood back and sides provide exceptional bass and powerful projection. And because it's a solid-wood top, the tone will age gracefully, with enhanced harmonics and greater tonal balance as the years go by.

A full-range passive pickup system

The passive SRT Zero Impact Pickup was designed by Yamaha to deliver a faithful reproduction of the LL16D's natural, dynamic sound. It was also designed to minimize the impact on the guitars looks and tone. The passive design doesn't use a bulky preamp that's routed into the body to hamper the instrument's look or resonance. Each string has its own piezoelectric element for a full-sounding and accurate sound. Because this is a passive pickup system, you'll need to use an external preamp when you want to plug in the Yamaha LL16D.

Yamaha LL16D Acoustic-electric Guitar Features:

  • Innovative guitar design gives you an amazing-playing and sounding instrument
  • Hand-selected solid Engelmann spruce top with and solid rosewood back and sides provide rich tone and projection
  • Intricate abalone inlay on the body, headstock, and rosette
  • A.R.E. process molecularly "ages" the wood to match guitars that have been played for years
  • 5-ply mahogany/rosewood neck has been redesigned for today's guitar player
  • Updated non-scalloped bracing pattern delivers a fuller low-end
  • Passive SRT Zero Impact pickup uses individual piezo elements for each string
  • Hardshell case included

Why Buy Your Guitar from Sweetwater?

See how Sweetwater goes to great lengths to give you the very best online guitar buying experience. From our online Guitar Gallery that allows you to see and select the exact instrument you want to our 55-point Inspection process and our in-house guitar techs, we take the guesswork out of buying your next guitar online.

What is Certified Open Box Gear?

At Sweetwater, we're so picky that what we call "Certified Open Box" is actually better than what most music retailers sell as "new" gear! Our gear hasn't endured hundreds of people a week plunking away at all the keyboards, fumbling through Stairway to Heaven on every guitar or playing with every fader and knob on a mixer or control surface.

Certified Open Box (also known as a demo) means we’ve had it out of the box for our YouTube channel, displayed at events, tested in our studio, or maybe it was in a customer’s hands for a few days and isn’t ‘factory fresh’ as a result. Every Certified Open Box item we sell has Sweetwater’s 2-year Total Confidence Coverage™ warranty and has been tested and verified up to ‘new’ specs by our factory-authorized technicians to make sure it’s in perfect working order before we ship it to you.

When you buy a Certified Open Box item at Sweetwater, you get:
  • 2-year Total Confidence Coverage Warranty™!
  • Products inspected and tested by our factory-authorized techs, guaranteed to function like new (or better)!
  • FREE shipping on most items
  • Equipment that will MEET or EXCEED your expectations!

Click HERE to browse our current inventory of Certified Open Box equipment. Purchasing Certified Open Box gear from Sweetwater is a smart and safe way to save!

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Tech Specs

  • String Type: Steel
  • Number of Strings: 6
  • Left-/Right-handed: Right-handed
  • Body Shape: Jumbo
  • Body Style: No Cutaway
  • Back & Sides Wood: Solid rosewood
  • Top Wood: Solid Engelmann spruce
  • Finish: Gloss
  • Color: Black
  • Binding: Abalone/Maple/Black
  • Neck Wood: 5-ply mahogany/rosewood
  • Radius: 15.75"
  • Fingerboard Material: Ebony
  • Fingerboard Inlay: Dots
  • Number of Frets: 20
  • Scale Length: 25.5"
  • Nut Width: 1.75"
  • Nut/Saddle Material: Urea/Urea
  • Bridge Material: Ebony
  • Tuning Machines: Die-cast Gold
  • Electronics: Passive SRT Zero Impact pickup
  • Strings: Elixir Nanoweb 80/20 Bronze Light, .012-.053
  • Case/Gig Bag: Hardshell Case
  • Manufacturer Part Number: LL16DRBLHC

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Sweetwater Sales Engineers are a world-class team of experts dedicated to you. Hand selected from across the globe, each brings a wealth of experience and expertise in the world of music gear to provide you with unparalleled service completely free of charge. Friendly relationships, real trust, and the right gear are only a call or a click away!

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Reviews

Best kept secret

This is the second one of these I have. I hit one cord on it and fell in love.. WOW! This thing barked like a dog!! I have a Gibson J-200 and others but this guitar is amazing.. the neck is awesome! It feels so solid and projects.. plays amazing.. I'm just saying you will have to get up in the $ ish range to find a Martin that plays and sounds this good. It's a beautiful guitar..

The one I got for a little local store the pick up was messing up in it and we put a fishman active pick up in it and it sounds awesome.

I love Sweetwater! They always go the extra mile. The shipped it to my very quick as I wanted to play it on a show I had coming up. They put a rush on it!

Patrick Weaver is my sales guy.. but I may have sold him on this particular guitar. Patrick awesome to work with!

Thanks Sweetwater!!!

Music background: Drummer for many country legends. Played the Grand Ole Opry 15 years. Music producer, songwriter, recording artist
LL16D Black

Absolutely fantastic guitar for this price. Looks Beautiful,sounds great. So glad I didn't spend $ on a Martin. Now I can afford coffee.

Great guitar and superb customer support by Carson Peach.
I just received my Yamaha LL16D guitar and I couldn't be happier. Purchasing it was a breeze with the help of Carson Peach who made the process smooth and fast. I've found Sweetwater's customer support to be incredible. In fact, I had a minor problem with an order a couple years ago - and I stress minor and of absolutely no fault of Sweetwater. I let Sweetwater know about the problem not expecting anything to be done but they went way out of their way to not only make things right but they made it far more than right. They went so far that I almost felt guilty as if I was taking advantage of them. I won't mention what the problem was because someone might use that information to read take advantage of Sweetwater.

Anyway, I'm very happy with the guitar. I only have one other six string acoustic guitar, an Eastman E20D, which is a very good guitar comparing well (some even say better) than a Martin D28. It is known for how loud it is and its overall quality. Comparing the two, the Yamaha is actually louder. It vibrates through the back and into my body which is very satisfying. Bass is very rich and deep and highs sparkle. The setup is fine with no buzzing on any frets. It just plain sounds great. In fact, I bought it because of very positive reviews on YouTube and it's living up to those reviews. I also chose it in black based on claims made by one YouTube reviewer who says that he's had several Yamaha LL16D guitars and, for some reason that he can't explain, the black ones simply sound better due to some differences in the finish. I don't know if that's true but he was convincing enough that I ordered guitar in black. I will miss seeing the beautiful rosewood sides and back and the Engelmann spruce top but the guitar is beautiful in black too. Very Classy looking. Build quality is exceptional with no hint of a flaw. The neck feels great. The enclosed gold tuners, although not branded, are smooth, tight and adjustable.

I'm not a guitar collector. I only have four guitars including the Yamaha. I bought the Yamaha because I often like to play in various alternate tunings and I find it frustrating to have to be re-tuning all the time. Sometimes I gave up on a song because I got tired of having to tune back and forth between an alternate tuning and standard tuning.

The only negatives are that the guitar has a plastic nut and plastic bridge. I'm going to have my luthier replace them. But the guitar sounds great as is.

I highly recommend the Yamaha LL16D and Sweetwater. And I want to thank Carson Peach for his great customer service.
Music background: Just and old guy whose been a beginner for over 50 years.
Better than I thought possible!
I recently purchased the Yamaha LL16D ARE Acoustic-electric guitar- Black. The guitar is absolutely beautiful! More importantly it sounds great! You can strum it hard and it rings out with complex overtone which are deep and rich. Strick it with a gentle touch and it is soft and delicate. I was surprised by the sustain. I had thought about having the bone nut and saddle installed but I find that it doesn't need it.

I played it unplugged in a small church with about 150 people there and it was plenty loud enough to be heard.

I plugged it into my Fender Blues JR. It sounded great!

It plays well, sounds great, and is beautiful to look at.

I highly recommend getting one! and I highly recommend Sweetwater!
Music background: Christian singer-songwriter and pastor.
Great guitar, especially for the price
I couldn't be any happier than I am with this guitar. I tried out many more expensive brands, and they were great. Martins, Taylors, etc. loved them. But they didnt actually sound better than this Yamaha, at least not to me. They dont feel better to play, they didnt look as good either. Also, Michael at Sweetwater was, as always, awesome.

Do yourself a favor and tryout this guitar. I am snobby and elitist when it comes to my things, especially guitars, and I am happy to spend too much money on them, but I am so glad I listened to my gut and went with the guitar that felt best to play and sounded every bit as good or better than the Martins and Taylor's.