Sabian 18″ AA Medium Crash Cymbal

If one were to be asked what is the most often used crash cymbal model, regardless of the brand, it would probably be the Medium Crash. Sabian has some in their AA line, and the 18″ is reviewed here. They also have them in the HH line, which have a darker sound. The AA’s are at the bright end of the scale.

The cymbal is lightly hammered, but deeply lathed, and the lathe lines are widely spaced. The bell is also lathed.

The spectrum shows a relatively smooth response between 350 Hz and 6 kHz, afterwhich it delines slowly to 45 kHz. Because of the attenuation beyond 6 kHz, the cymbal has a mellow sound rather than piercing. It has no unusual ringing (audible single frequencies, sounding like a hum), and the overall tonality is neutral. It crashes easily, and also has a nice ride sound, and the bell has a beautiful tone. We also reviewed the Sabian AA Medium Thin Crash, which has a higher pitch, but the same neutral tone. The two cymbals make a great pair.

The Level vs. Time spectrum indicates the peak at 0.2 seconds, and a steady slow decay. “Medium” is the perfect name for this cymbal.

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).

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