A New Beat vs K Sweet Hi Hats

[cap217]

I have been using K hybrid HHs for a while because I wanted the darker trashy K but a little brighter and more chirp on close hits. A Customs never worked for me (although I just ordered some A Custom Projections) and the K hybrid worked but was just ok. I went to GC one day and they had a set of K Sweet on a demo kit that I thought were amazing so I bought them. Then I did some research and saw that the A New Beats were the go to for many players that I like.

Now I have both and they are so close. The Sweet are a little lighter but they have the same character. I cant decide which I like best which is a good problem to have.

Anyone else have both of these?

 

[blikum]

Yes, I do have both. I always gravitate toward the new beats. It's just the sound that suits my bands better. I love the K Sweets though! Both are great! Maybe I should try mixing and matching?

 

[stevesmithfan]

New Beat always

 

[CC Cirillo]

I’ve got Bosphorus, K Lights, K Custom Darks—but I keep coming back to New Beats.

Have two sets: Hollow Logo and and some older much lighter versions.

In a lot of ways, just these two NB sets can cover everything I need. Last week I was recording and needed something in between with a very funky old-school sound, so I took the bottom from the lighter set and used it as a top and took the top of the heavier set and used it as a bottom.

Setting some levels the engineer enthused: Love those hats!

 

[hsosdrum]

For 37 years I played a pair of 14" New Beats (928g/1277g) that I purchased new in 1984. They fit into anything I threw at them, but they didn't have much of an individual musical personality, which is probably why they worked so well with everything from acoustic new-age country to surf music to experimental rock/fusion.

Last year I decided that I wanted a set of hats that "spoke more for themselves" and I got a set of 15" K Sweet Hats (1074g/1633g). They can speak with much more authority than the New Beats and can be made to say musical things that I couldn't get the New Beats to say. Yet they can also "play nice" and stay out of the way if I choose to play them that way. Every time I put the New Beats back on my DW5500 stand they only lasted an hour or so before I returned to the K Sweets.

I finally gave my New Beats to my sister (also a drummer) — the K Sweets can do it all for me. (YMMV)

 

[Seb77]

With older New beats you could have two pairs that sounded quite different from each other. I don't know how consistent Zs are these days, but I'd still think it's more about finding the individual cymbal that works for you than about the model. They might well be very similar.
Can you set both pairs up at the same time and compare them directly? There are various aspects of hats to listen to: sticks sound closed, half-open, fully open; foot chick, foot splash, maybe even the bell (might be stronger with the Sweet hats).

 

[AtlantaDrumGuy]

New B old or new.