One man's treasure is another man's trash.
There's no denying the Z Custom's are not the most "musical" of cymbals - the A Custom's are far more versatile for sure. However, the Z's are much better suited to what I want/need from a hi hat: they're lower pitched, which makes them less sharp and brash sounding than the A Custom's, and they're loud. Great for that semi-open sloshy/sizzle when you're pounding away at the double bass. The A Custom's were very articulate, there's no doubt about it, but when used like that I found they were too brash for my liking
EDIT - I just noticed the hi hats in your picture are Dyno Beats, not the Z Custom's I just got. Different ball game. Dyno Beats are like dustbin lids - huge, powerful, stupidly loud, dustbin lids (that's trash can lids to our yonder-Atlantic friends). They're good for one thing and one thing only - beating the crap out of either semi-open of with the clutch dropped. And for that they're perfect. The other thing with Dyno's is there's good and bad ones. I've played three pairs - one belonged to a guy who's kit I was using at a gig, and they were perfect: if I could have bought them I'd have given him cash there and then. The second pair were the ones I ordered brand new very shortly after playing the first pair, and they sucked. Terrible. Just sounded dead and dull. The third pair are the ones I own, which I found tucked away at the back of the cymbal room of a drum shop I worked in at the turn of the century. They're superb - they're bright, alive, and have a "zing" to them - just like the first pair I fell in love with. I've had those for nearly 20 years now.
I used to have them my main left side hats (
you can see them here), but I can't say I advise doing so. I copied Lars, who still uses them as his now only-pair or hats (used to have two pairs) when playing live, and they still sound great for that. But any kind of articulate work, forget about it. That's kinda why I got the remote hi hat - I was so used to having the Dyno's on the left as main hats, I wanted to get more out of the New Beat's that had been relegated to the right side on a static closed-hat attachment, so I switched to a remote hi-hat set up so I could use it as a regular hi hat.
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