*I think* Zildjian caught on that the mid-level pricing cymbals were possibly going to put a dent in the upper-end lines so they changed 'em up. I, too own a pair of uppercase AMIRs!!

Amir IIs are a completely different cymbal, and indeed inferior. Different design, possibly a different alloy.

My understanding is that regardless of ink stamp design, all of the regular Amirs are the same (upper case same as lower case) - where the uppercase simply indicates earlier (much like Paiste's "black label".)

I once flipped a 20in ride - and was not at all impressed. This was a lowercase. Then I read that Tim "Herb" Alexander used one of these and it was one of his favorite cymbals. This was a bit confusing as I love his playing and indeed his sound.

I also recall reading that Zildjian invested too much into the design and that the cymbal cost too much to make (they did too good of an engineering job in a way) - which is what prompted them to stop production of the first generation. Rather, what they did was redesign (an entirely different design) and called it Amir II.

(In a related story) I think their ultimate sleeper series was the Edge series - if you can find them thin enough. The way they named their weights of the Edge series was very confusing and it really turned alot of people off.

thanks for the info everybody! It's good to know that the lowercase was made the same as the uppercase :) I am getting some amir hi-hats off of craigslist. I really like my uppercase AMIR's so I know I will like these as well.

Yeah, my high school got a 20" Edge Ride right when they came out; had to be 1995-'97. I remeber the purple ink and having a nice bell, sounding like a Ping or thinner Z series cymbal.

I don't remember the edge line. I do remember the Amir line.

I was a die hard A player for ever (other than my Wuhan) and only within the last five or so years have I gotten the K bug. Then the EAK bug. Now I just look for old Zildjians that sound good. I found a cracked 20 that is dark and evil. I love it!

got the amir (lowercase) hi-hats....they sound great! Glad I picked them up :)

I bought an Amir 20" ride for $30, and it sounded so good that I bought another just like it, but the second one sounded poor.

I flipped the second one for $50 and will likely keep the original one for the foreseeable future.

This experience leads me to believe that the quality/tone of the first-round Amirs was pretty variable. Could go from pretty damn good to not so much. Tim Alexander probably just found a good one.

A friend gave me a pair of Amir hi hats and they were meh. But I suspect that other Amir hi hats might appeal to my ears, due to the uneven quality.

I recently got some lowercase hi-hats and a lowercase 18" ride and am pretty happy with both. The uppercase 18" crash and hi-hats I have sounds great. I'm wondering if there is a slight different between the uppercase and lowercase? They sound different to me or could be like you mentioned, quality control wasn't the greatest.

That's great! - and confirms my guess that they are the same as the Uppercase - or a lack of QC. You know how these things are - they could have made changes without changing any ink. The world of cymbals is littered with exceptions to rules.

I had a pair of the lowercase hihats. I decided to sell the top (which would surely be the harder to find) because I had another cymbal (a Meinl) that gave me the same sound. I kept the bottom simply because stuff sounds good on top of it. It is quite heavy.