hand-hammered turkish cymbals

[thedude400]

I just saw galactic live the other night and the drummer was f@#$ing amazing. He was playing a Gretsch kit with 2 bass drums. One of bass drums looked like it was about 3 feet tall. The thing sounded huge! But I noticed the cymbals he was playing has a really great smooth hi-end crash and resonated out beautifully and they cut through the mix perfectly and dropped back out wonderfully. I asked the roadie what kind of cymbals he was playing and he said said they were called Bosphorus, a hand-hammered turkish jazz cymbal. I'm in the market for new cymbals and I absolutely love the sound of these. Has anyone ever heard of these, are they a well respected and widely used cymbal, or does anyone use Bospherus who would like to share a bit about them?

[my2cents]

Bosphorous makes great cymbals. They aren't widely used compared to Zildjian/Sabian/Paiste. I'd compare their business to something like Noble and Cooley drums, or other so-called "boutique" companies that are pretty common in the world of music equipment. Amazing stuff, made in small batches, not as widely known as any of the big companies despite arguably having a higher level of workmanship and consistency/attention to detail. I think Bosphorous developed the cymbals with Stanton's input. I'm sure they sound incredible, but I have not had the pleasure of trying them out. The new Modern Drummer magazine has a review of them (Jan. 2006...I swear I'm not shilling for them, even though I've mentioned the new issue twice this morning).