I was at the Zildjian booth checking them out and I didn't think much of them. It does seem that as the sizes got smaller, they tended to sound better to my ears. One 19" that they had set-up right in the middle of their space was the best. I think based on how prominently it was displayed, that they knew it was their best one too.There's no reason why they all should have made to be so monolithic, because the old K's certainly weren't like that. I think they should have made at least some of them using this one as a template. 22" Zildjian Prototype 2555 grams - YouTubeI think this one sounds better than any of the 22's that I heard at the show. MUCH BETTER.______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
We have the 22", the 20", the 19" and the 15" hats, all from the Sam Ash stores in Edison and Springfield NJ.. The most recent purchase, the 19" was a 25th birthday gift for my son. The 19" and 20" Keropes are incredible. While the 22" is also an extremely fine cymbal it's not quite as magiical as the other two. Dan and I had the opportunity to choose between two different 22"'s and the one we chose was, to our ears, much better than the other one. Ours has a bit less wash, and a better and more woody stick. Like with Old K's, I think each copy will sound a bit different or maybe even very different. The 20" and 19" we chose were also quite different from the second copy of each that we heard. The 18" copies, while nice were not nearly as exciting.
One thing we have discovered with these cymbals is that they are more sensitive to where they are being played, and which sticks are used, than any other cymbals we have owned. They are even sensitive to the stand they are played on. While mounted on a DW 7000 series stand set up as a boom stand we heard what sounded like a disturbing hum in the wash of the 22". We considered returning the cymbal until we realized the 20" also sounded less than exciting on that same stand. Mind you the stand and boom were tight and rigid. We did a blind experiment replacing the DW stand with a straight Gibraltar stand and another DW 7000 boom stand in the same location. Sight unseen we did the experiment more than 15 times to be sure, and each time my blindfolded son could tell which were the DW booms and which was the Gibraltar. I could easily hear the difference as well, although I could see which stand was which. It turned out the solid DW boom arm was either vibrating in sympathy to the 22 Kerope and to a lesser degree the 20" Kerope, or reflecting sound back to the cymbal, causing the hum. I think there was a thread on this subject sometime back. We also noticed these cymbals seemed very sensitive to the location in the room in which they are played. In our case playing the 22", 20" or 19" too close to a steel floor to ceiling support post in our basement studio negatively affected it's sound.
The first time we heard the Keropes in the cymbal room at Sam Ash we were a bit disappointed by the sound but saw potential. We bought them knowing there was a 30 day return period and we were glad we did. At home and on gigs in a musical context they sounded completely different than they had in the glass enclosed cymbal room with a 150 other cymbals. I'm suggesting that the same 22"s you disliked might have been more pleasing in a different venue, or setup on a drum kit in a more musical context. I wonder if you would have been as impressed with the prototype if you had heard it along side the others in the same venue.
