General
Every year, the artisans at Sabian design too many different types of cymbals for them all to be taken into production. Not a bad problem to have, really... However, Sabian came up with a solution. They thought: 'Let's take a few prototypes - such as the 16-inch AAX X-Plosion Hats - and travel to a bunch of countries throughout America and Europe, so that we can let players in those countries actually try these cymbals out for themselves and help us decide which ones we should start producing on a larger scale'.
Royster Jr.
To create even more awareness for this vote, Sabian got world-renowned drummers such as Tony Royster Jr. and Mike Portnoy (ex-Dream Theater) to test the top contenders and let people vote for them on the internet, so they could poll the opinions of drummers worldwide. There aren't many companies who would organise such a unique poll. Eventually, the Sabian AAX 16-inch X-Plosion Hats came out on top.
Big!
Big hi-hats are back in style! For a while they weren't used very often, but now the sound of a great big pair of hats is all the rage again. The design of this pair of hi-hats is based on the X-Plosion crashes, famous for their versatility. The medium top and the medium-heavy bottom cymbal create a remarkably beautiful pedal chick, while the big bell helps these hi-hats produce an open and powerful sound. But rest assured, you can also get a very controlled sound out of these hi-hats.
