Cymbal making involves a lot of stages. Nowadays, some stages are automated, like heating, hammering, and labeling. But other stages, such as mixing, casting, and lathing, are still performed by warm-bodied craftsmen, and testing is still done with subjective human hands and ears. So even today, there are enough variables to make each cymbal unique. Despite Zildjian's (and AFAIK Sabian too) claims that it has "improved" its consistency, they also say that each cymbal is a unique musical instrument. Wuhans/Staggs, and Istanbuls (Mehmet, Agop, etc) are even more notorious for their inconsistencies. But again, this is something I accept, and even appreciate.
When I bought my A Zil 16" thin crash, there were three of the same in the store. I chose the one that sounded the way I liked. Within a couple of weeks, my two other drummer friends picked up the other two from the same store. Each of the cymbals sounded different. But each of us preferred the ones we got because we were chasing after different sounds. The same was true of our hihats. At one point we all had 14" New Beats. They all sounded different. But although we had bought them at different times from different stores, this didn't bother us because we wanted different sounds, and had gone through the trouble of selecting the ones that appealed to us sonically.
As I implied in a previous post, there are musicians who value "consistency", and I don't see anything inherently wrong with that. I understand how these musicians may become frustrated and impatient with the potentially laborious process of selecting cymbals, and would prefer to just walk into a store and expect a cymbal to sound exactly like what was heard in a company's website soundclip. But there are others, like me, who appreciate a subtle but audible level of distinctiveness in their chosen instruments from the get-go. Some people may achieve this by modification, but this is not my strategy when buying cymbals. I buy one because I liked its inherent sound characteristics. I'm also not discounting the fact that my pre-serial A's have changed subtly over the years, due to either by age, wear, damage, and probably even kulangot. And I'm sure my recent Stagg Chinas' sonic personality will evolve too. But these changes are only icing on the cake, because they were already unusual from the very start. Each of my cymbals were, and are, unique. That's what makes them not only valuable, but irreplaceable to me. And this is why I believe that "inconsistency" is not a defect.
