House of Drumming.com

Hi all!

I've been a fan of Istanbul Agops for a bit but then, almost one after another, my 15 rock traditional, 18 medium and 16 medium crashed cracked. And they weren't those 'wear and tear' cracks which are perpendicular to the edge of the cymbals but they ran along the lathing. All three of them! Can this indicate manufacturing fault or something? Their cymbals have 1 year's warranty so I only managed to get one exchanged, with two others the warranty had already passed.

I decided not to put any more money into them and to find some other make I could trust. And before I start browsing the plethora of varieties all the 'mainstream' manufacturers like Zildjian, Sabian or Paiste have to offer I wanted to know if there's any other brand that offers good value/money ratio you've tried.

Funnily enough, my wife once got me a Stagg Cs (traditional line equivalent) 16" Crash and that was back in 2008 or 2009 but after all that time of using it as my main and most frequently used crash it's still intact (!!!) Probably it's going to go some time soon but still it's managed to outlive several others! I play it here and it's the one just in front of me


It has lovely, dry, "sandy" sound, and it really makes me wonder that something so cheap can offer such a good value

Would you have any trusted brands apart from the mentioned big three above? Meinl, Bosphorus, UFIP, anything else?

Cheers!
Przemek

I use a lot of Wuhan's, the S series and Traditional, crashes. I have them buffed clean and nobody can tell the difference side by side to my A Customs.
They are kinda hard to find, but really cheap $40 or so for 16" crash.

Dream Cymbals offer great sound for the money ratio..

Sort of half way between Paiste and a Sabian tone wise,, I dig the Bliss or Contact lines..

i really like Bosphorus but have no idea what they cost now. I bought mines in Instanbul at their factory. It was cheap.

I used to sell drums (and cymbals) for a living and usually it would be evident that the three big brands (Sabian, Zildjian, Paiste)
would last longer, but sometimes other name brands like Istanbul (Mehmet or Agop), UFIP, Meinl etc would last way beyond
what would be expected of them. I personally never heard a Stagg cymbal I really liked and though I love the authentic Wuhan
sound, they break left and right. Fortunately they are very cheap.

Problem is that price-wise UFIP stand up there together with the top three, they sound quite good tho. There are good sounding cymbals out there at a lower price, wonder what makes them so expensive...

Meinl. The Byzance and Greb's Sand cymbals sound amazing. I wish my local store would bring in some high end Meinl cymbals.

BUT those cymbals are expensive. I've tried Meinl's less expensive lines and there's nothing special about them. We had all of the Johnny Rabb cymbals and they were garbage compared to Zildjian's Remix line. Actually I don't think I've heard any cheap cymbals besides Zildjian's Trashformers that sound good.

I just got a 20" Bosphorus Turk Series riveted flat ride for 150 off of craigslist...

Anyone hear anything about Bosphorus having to change their name coming up?

It used to be several "brands" that were Silken cymbals with different labels...

http://www.silkencymbal.com/product_vie ... ame=Cymbal

I had the privilege of playing Koide cymbals on the weekend and I must say I wa amazed by the tones of their range.

Might grab a couple of the 22" rides.

Check them out.

http://koidecymbal.com/lineup/808series.html