Today Sabian HH is mechanically pre shaped with machines.

After that,it continues with hand hammering,lathing,and finishing process.

Which "Zildjian K's" are you seeing them compared to? Probably not vintage ones. I have a 20" Sabian 20th anniversary HH medium ride which I purchased new for my son in 2002. I'm not sure how much of it is hand hammered, but I doubt it is as handmade as those made in Turkey. I suspect its a combination of hand hammered and machine hammered. Its a decent enough cymbal, but boring. Its fairly heavy for a medium ride and a bit too pingy. My son Dan, who is primarily a jazz and show drummer, uses it as a main ride for his rock gigs. Frankly, at the end of the day, how much of a cymbal is hand vs machine hammered is less important than how it sounds. One of my Vintage Istanbul K's from the early '70s is completely hand made, has a gorgeous patina, and sounds like crap. The new Zildjian Kerope series are probably all, or mostly, machine hammered but sound remarkably like old vintage hand hammered K's. Despite the hammering, they are currently our favorite cymbals, by a wide margin, out of the thirty-five to forty we own.

So...were the older HHs hand hammered? If so what yrs were they

I'm sure they were hand hammered. They still are. My earlier point was I doubt they were COMPLETELY hand hammered like an old Istanbul K or a modern Bosphorus, but I don't know for sure. That is a time consuming and costly process at Canadian hourly wages. Additionally, Turkish made cymbals were, and are, more or less hand made throughout the process. The manufacture of Sabians and Zildjians are mostly machine aided. When manufacture of K Zildjian was moved from Turkey to the Western Hemisphere, they were first made in the Canadian factory which I believe was part of the court settlement that went to Robert Zildjian when he started Sabian. Its possible then that at the very beginning Sabian's HH cymbals were more handmade then they are today, but I'm not the expert on this. Maybe others will chime in.

Opinions vary, and are strongly held. I favor the "I can't be sure, and that isn't a good thing", plus "please ask a well formed question".

Mark and Kook,

I gave up trying to answer these questions in another thread. The questions are phrased in a vague way, as is the marketing by Sabian. Two vagues working together does not reach a clear conclusion. And our discussion seems to generate more heat than light because of lack of evidence.

http://www.vintagedrumforum.com/showthread.php?t=44987

I've been a Sabian player all my life and been to the "old" factory once.

The info that I have is that ALL Sabian cymbals today have their bells and basic profile pressed by a huge 75 ton drop forge.

All the HH and HHX cymbals are HAND HAMMERED to varying degrees depending on the model.

Some may have additional machine hammering and some, like the Leopard ride, have only hand hammering.

Sabian was founded on the premise of advancing cymbal sounds and cymbal making techniques so it makes sense that they would employ whatever technology required to get the sound they are after.

Even Paiste are hand hammered to a degree as they are tested for trueness on a metal table and then adjusted where necessary BY HAND, with a hammer.

So when bob zildjian founded sabian it was based on improving zildjian even tho the A and Ks were/are the most renown cymbals in the world... but Ive been hearing that the HHs are THE bees knees.

I own a few Sabians. Their modern sound is great for funk, rock and pop. For jazz, ballads, and small combo work though, I favor Zildjian. Their Constantinoples and now their Keropes are much closer to the sound of vintage cymbals than anything I've heard from Sabian. I also own a Sabian Artisan, and while its an interesting cymbal, it doesn't have the vintage sound I crave.

I don't know who wrote that the HH's are not hand hammered, but I can tell you first hand that they are. While visiting relatives in New Brunswick, I've had the pleasure of touring the Sabian plant in Meductic twice. I've watched the entire manufacturing process from the forging of raw ingots to the pressing, hammering, lathing, and polishing of the finished products. I'll have to post some of the many photos I took. The only two processes our guide would not allow me to photograph were the melting (or is it smelting?) of bars of raw alloys and the robotic polishing machine.

Just off the forging room where the raw ingots are repeatly heated and pressed in the drop forges until they are flat, circular blanks, there is a room where the hand hammering takes place. I watch workers picking up unfinished blanks (which had already been trimmed into perfect circles and had the bells pressed in), placing them on shaped anvils, and hand hammering each one in a specific pattern. Our guide, who had personally worked on the hammering line described how pattern, spacing, and striking force were all important to maintain quality control and uniformity of each specific model.

So HH does mean hand hammered. At least it does at Sabian. I'll have to post some pics, especially of their "AREA 51", a small vault off of their main vault (actuall it's a huge warehouse) where they store their prototypes and "one-off's" to be tested and evaluated. They let me hit anything I wanted, but only guys like Neil Peart get to walk out with anything they like.

Mike