Categories: Cymbals

Supernatural 18″ Divine Crash Cymbal

Supernatural Cymbals is one of several small companies that have emerged during the past few years, who are based in Turkey, and who still make cymbals the way they have been made for centuries (except for the electric motor that turns the lathing machine). The cymbals start out as cast bronze discs, which are heated, rolled, cut into the desired diameter for the cymbal, hand hammered, and hand lathed. There is no machining at all. The results are quite distinguishable from machine hammered and lathed cymbals. It is not that one way is better than the other, but rather, you now have several additional choices in sound, and some of them are due to the old world ways of producing them. This review covers the Supernatural 18″ Divine Crash. It has a very fast response, and somewhat higher pitch than the Supernatural Universal Crash Cymbal we reviewed a few weeks ago. It is not suited for riding the body of the cymbal, but the bell rides well.

Specifications

Manufacturer Line: Divine
Type: Crash
Style: Medium
Alloy: B20 – CuSn20 – 80% Copper, 20% Tin
Diameter: 18″
Metal Work: Hand Hammered, Hand Lathed, Buffed Finish
Weight: 1466 gm
MSRP: $467 USA; Street Price $257
Supernatural Cymbals

The close-up photo, shown below, illustrates the unique lathing pattern. The bell and two rings close to the bell are unlathed, and the rest of the cymbal has fine, closely spaced lathing lines. Hammering is deep, with small round hammer marks.

The spectral analysis has strong peaks at 260 Hz, 600 Hz, 2.9 kHz, 3.8 kHz and then a slow decline out to 50 kHz.

The peak of the response is at 0.015 seconds, with a moderately fast decay.

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 SUPERNATURAL 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.