Pearl cymbals - Asian vs Canadian - Page 1

I know alot of you will immediately dismiss this thread. That's fine. I am not here to promote how great Pearl cymbals are. I have been on a long quest to assemble an all MIJ kit, including cymbals. One thing that I have not been able to nail is the HHs. I am willing to make an exception and let a few of the parts be modern.

My question is, how do I tell the difference between MIJ Pearl cymbals and the later ones made in Canada by Sabian (that we see all over the place on the bay)?

I have figured out that there were numbers associated with the CX series that were made by Pearl in Japan - the CX500 CX 600 CX900, etc. Seems all the CX300s are modern and Canadian and sound very budget. It has been very difficult to ever encounter any CX other than the 300.

Willing to go with some other HHs, other than Pearl, but have not ever seen/heard any that are any good (even acceptable in sound quality).

I welcome your knowledge!

John

I used to find lots of the older Pearl cymbals like the "Wild" series but haven't seen any in quite some time. I did acquire recently a pair of the newer hi hats and they have a very large ink screened 'Pearl' within an inked oval placed vertically across the bow on the top surface, accompanied by a smaller embossment of the same oval logo with the word 'CANADA' beneath it scored close to the outer edge. The newer ones look and sound like someone made the old "Zilco" Canadian Zildjians out of B8 bronze. To my ear they sound and play 'acceptably bad' (if that translates into English!?!) ... but I consider them of better quality than the older Pearl cymbals. Of course sometimes cymbals like these record better in the studio than many high end brands. The MIJ cymbals I love dearly are the old ones that used to seen in pawn shops back when the name 'Pearl' was essentially unknown and MIJ stencil kits were a subject of derision. They appear to be hand hammered out of spent WWII brass artillery shell casings :) have no visible logos other than 'JAPAN' scored somewhere on their surface, and sound incredibly dark, raw, and ugly. The best of them actually rise to the level worthy of being called a "cymbal" Excited and can be heard today on quite a few old blues and r'n'b classic records.