Categories: Cymbals

Dream 20″ Contact Crash/Ride Cymbal

Dream Cymbals is one of the new companies whose products are manufactured in China. From what we are told, the cymbals are totally hammered and lathed by hand, directly from the cast bronze disc, rather than put through rollers to flatten them before hammering. If that is accurate, I don’t think I would want to get into a fight with any of the cymbal smiths, because it must take enormous strength and endurance to perform this task from the raw cast ingot. However, the sound is very revealing, and suggests that it is so. The cymbals have a very strong wash that sustains. The Dream 20″ Contact Crash/Ride Cymbal is the subject of the current review. Compared to the 20″ Dream Bliss Crash/Ride Cymbal that we reviewed recently, the Contact has a higher pitch, and is, therefore, more penetrating.

It rides beautifully, responding to the stick with a good bounce, and the crash is fast and intense. The bell has a very nice ring to it as well.

Specifications

Manufacturer Line: Contact
Type: Crash/Ride
Style: Medium Thin
Alloy: B20 – CuSn20 – 80% Copper, 20% Tin
Diameter: 20″
Metal Work: Hand Hammered, Hand Lathed, Buffed Finish
Weight: 4 pounds
MSRP: $344 USA; Street Price $224
Dream Cymbals

The spectrum of the crash has large peaks at 130 Hz, 350 Hz, 1.6 kHz, 1.8 kHz, 3.3 kHz, 3.8 kHz, and 5.9 kHz, before declining to 60 kHz.

The ping spectrum, like the Dream Bliss, has a flatter response than the crash, with the majority of the sound within 300 Hz – 15 kHz. Because of this flat response, the ping is very neutral, and not overly bright.

The crash has a peak at 0.20 seconds, with a long sustain.

The ping attack is very fast, and it declines quickly, which can also be seen by comparing the spectra of the crash and the ping. Notice that the higher frequencies of the ping, in the spectrum, have declined more at the end of 2 seconds (the purple line) than they did in the crash. For example, at 10 kHz, the distance between the yellow line (the initial attack) and 2 seconds later (the purple line) is greater in the ping spectrum than in the crash spectrum.

Click HERE to listen to an audio sample, which will include crash (when appropriate), ride, and bell sounds (these are 24 bit, 176.4 kHz wav files, so be sure your sound card is capable of handling these high resolution sound files).

If your sound card cannot play the high resolution file, click HERE to listen to an MP3 sound file.

RETURN TO DREAM INDEX.

John E. Johnson, Jr.

Editor-in-Chief Emeritus. John E. Johnson, Jr. founded Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity in 1994, shortly after publishing a hardcopy book of the same title. He served as Editor-in-Chief of Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity until 2022. John has been involved in audio and video for more than 50 years, having built radio transmitters, amplifiers, turntables, and speakers from scratch. He was also one of the founders of the Northern California Audio Video Association, now The Bay Area Audio Society. John holds four university degrees, including a Ph.D. in Neuroscience, and has published numerous scientific books, along with dozens of scientific articles on biomedical research topics as well as imaging technology. He was the founder and Editor-in-Chief of two medical/scientific journals for 20 years. John holds several patents, including one on high resolution image analysis and one on a surgical instrument. He has been affiliated with NASA, The National Institutes of Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Stanford Research Institute, and The University of California at Berkeley. He is President of the consulting firm Scientific Design and Information, Inc., which is based in Redwood City, California. John resides in the San Francisco Bay area with his wife and multiple kitties! His daughter, Cynthia, who was an integral part of SECRETS for many years, resides in San Francisco.