Yazaki-san (center) visiting with friends.

Roy-san's Marantz Model 7 Replica that was modified by Yazaki-san.

I see lots of premium components inside with Arizona Capacitors and SPEC ruby mica capacitors!

Is that Belden 8402 cabling I see? And lots of nice SPEC ruby mica capacitors!

More SPEC ruby mica capacitors and Arizona Capacitors!

"Dear Jeff,

First of all I want to thank you for introducing your readers to Yazaki-san! What a treasure! He is part of a small group of Japanese artisans such as Kondo, Yamada, Shindo and Sugano. Men whose passion for their work set new standards of performance.
 
The best way to convey my impressions is to simply describe the 'Yazaki-san sound' - the modified Marantz sounds remarkably similar to the SPEC equipment I use to drive my Quad 57 ESL.
 
The easy description is to say that the Yazaki-san sound combines the best attributes of both tube and solid state, but thats a little too simple. To me, the attributes are:
 
- the beauty of SET style tonality, harmonics and musicality without the overly warm, fuzzy glow that most SET have (a glow I find rather addicting but one that obfuscates a certain amount of both musical and phase nuance). In comparison, good SET and other tube equipment  tend to homogenize the sound slightly compared to Yazaki-san sound.
 
- lovely tonal coloration
 
- low inherent distortion. More SS like in presenting a clear view into the music. This often manifests itself as making the music more enjoyable regardless of the source. Like a SET it is highly 'listenable', but cleaner. Unlike SS the Yazaki-san sound has more palpable, round images. SS often tends to flatten individual performers while still maintaining reasonable depth(kind of like having rows of photographs of performers rather than the real thing.
 
-  Perhaps a bit 'laid back'. Not so much 'in your face' as the latest/greatest from the big audio dreadnoughts (remember when Krell, ARC and Levinson were leaders in innovative sound?) I would venture to say that if you loved the sound of Levinson ML-2  or Kondo you would be quite pleased with SPEC/Yazaki-san sound.
 
- enormous, open and transparent sound stage. This is perhaps the first thing I noticed; I strive to optimize the quality of imaging in my system and all of Yazaki-san' equipment produce a deep, exceptionally well delineated sound stage where one can easily detect the effects of multi-track/microphone recording effects. Unlike most equipment the soundstage depth does not truncate at the outer edges but goes as deep at the edges as in the middle.There is excellent transparency all the way to the back of the soundstage..better than i have ever heard. I think this speaks to very accurate phase response.
 
- a lovely flow to the music and excellent micro-dynamics. Again very SET like but minus the fuzzy warm bias. Frequency extremes are clear and pure relative to SET or other tube devices. 
 
I apologize if this is more of an overall impression on the Yazaki-san sound. Its just that the modified Marantz7 carries the same sonic signature as the marvelous SPEC amplifiers and RSP devices. It is a signature that i find very attractive and which leaves me content with the sound of my system. This is pretty rare in my 35 yrs in the audio hobby.
 
Just as many people love the Shindo sound or Kondo sound I love the Yazaki sound. Yazaki-san is a true student of musical reproduction and his love of music shows clearly in all of his products and modifications. 
 
I will add to these impressions soon - my tonearm wiring needs repair and the quality of my phono playback has been intermittent for awhile. I only discovered the wiring issue this past week. When my phono is back to full health I will try to add further impressions as heard from vinyl.
 
Thank you again Jeff for introducing Yazaki-san. He is a wonderful man with a good heart and musical soul.
 
Sincerely,
 
Roy" 

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Many thanks to Roy-san for sharing his listening impressions with us!