Sabian AAX vs HHX | Bright and cutting, or dark and complex?

AAX and HHX are Sabian’s two professional B20 lines, they overlap in price, and the shops put them on the same wall. The difference is philosophy. AAX is built to be bright, clean and consistent, so the cymbal you hear in the demo is the cymbal you get. HHX is built to be dark and complex, with hand hammering on top of the machine work that makes no two quite alike. Neither is better. One of them is right for the music you play.

The short answer

Buy AAX if you play rock, pop, metal or anything loud, if you want your crashes to cut through guitars without being huge, and if you like the idea of knowing what you are getting. Buy HHX if you play jazz, worship, soul, funk, anything recorded quietly or anything where the cymbals are meant to sound like a wash rather than a hit, and if you are happy to pick each one by ear.

If you do not know yet, buy AAX. It is the wider-use range, it is a little cheaper, and it is the one you will not regret in a loud room.

Spec	Sabian AAXper 18-inch crash	Sabian HHXper 18-inch crash	Our take
Price band	🇬🇧 UK: £250–£300🇺🇸 US: $300–$350🇪🇺 EU: €270–€330	🇬🇧 UK: £300–£380🇺🇸 US: $370–$450🇪🇺 EU: €330–€420	Street prices, new, at the time of writing. They move; the links below are live.
Alloy	B20 bronze	B20 bronze	The same metal. Everything that differs is in what Sabian does to it.
Hammering	Machine hammered, precise and even	Machine plus hand hammering	The hand work is what makes HHX darker and more varied cymbal to cymbal.
Character	Bright, glassy, clean, fast	Dark, warm, complex, with a slower bloom	Say it out loud: bright or dark. Most people know which word they want.
Cut in a loud band	✓Excellent; designed for it	Good, but the darkness costs some	Two guitars and a bass and the AAX is still there.
Under a microphone	Clean, can be harsh at the top if hit hard	✓Rich, records beautifully at low and medium volume	Engineers tend to prefer the HHX in the studio, and that is where its complexity pays.
Consistency	✓Very high; two AAX 18s sound like siblings	Lower by design; pick by ear	Buying online without hearing it is safer with AAX.
Hi-hats	Tight, crisp, definite chick	Fatter, more air, a softer chick	Taste, more than any other row. Try both pairs if you can.
Rides	Clear ping, defined bell	Washier, warmer ping, complex bell	AAX for definition in loud music; HHX for a ride that sounds like a jazz record.
Range depth	Wide: Thin, X-Plosion, Aero, Raw Bell and more	Wide: Evolution, Complex, Legacy, Fierce and more	Both ranges have a sub-line for most tastes. The names matter less than the demo.
Price	✓The cheaper of the two	Roughly 20 to 30 per cent more	The hand hammering is paid for by the hour.
Where to buy	Guitar Center 🇺🇸Gear4music 🇬🇧Thomann 🇪🇺Reverb · used	Guitar Center 🇺🇸Gear4music 🇬🇧Thomann 🇪🇺Reverb · used	Affiliate links to the shop for your region; buying through them costs you nothing extra.
Rows won	3 of 10	1 of 10	A count, not a verdict: the rows that matter to you are the ones to weigh.

✓ marks the row's winner. Prices are bands, not quotes: 🇬🇧 UK · 🇺🇸 US · 🇪🇺 EU. Full review: Sabian AAX Full review: Sabian HHX.

Bright or dark

Nearly every cymbal decision comes down to that pair of words, and Sabian have been unusually clear about which range is which. AAX is the bright one: fast attack, clean sustain, a modern sound that sits on top of a loud mix. HHX is the dark one: a slower bloom, more low end, a wash that sounds complex because the hand hammering has put a hundred small irregularities into the bronze.

The demo at the top puts the same size of crash from both ranges in the same room, which is the fairest test there is. Listen to the first half-second after the hit. On the AAX it is a clear, defined note. On the HHX it is a chord.

The consistency question

This is the row that gets missed. Because AAX are machine hammered to a pattern, two AAX cymbals of the same model and size sound alike. Because HHX are finished by hand, they do not, and Sabian would say that is the point. For someone buying online, that makes AAX the safer purchase: what you heard is what arrives. For someone in a shop with six HHX crashes on the wall, it is an afternoon well spent, and the one you take home is yours in a way an AAX is not.

Mixing the ranges

Nobody is obliged to buy one range. A very common professional setup is HHX hi-hats and ride for the warmth, with AAX crashes for the cut, and it works because the two lines share an alloy and a family sound. If you are building a set over a couple of years, start with the pieces that matter most in your music: crashes first for rock, hi-hats and ride first for everything else. Our cymbal buying guide covers the order.

Who should buy which

• Rock, pop, punk, metal. AAX. The cut is the point.
• Jazz, soul, gospel, worship, singer-songwriter. HHX. The warmth is the point.
• Studio work for other people. HHX, with an AAX crash in the bag for the loud song.
• Buying online without hearing them. AAX, for the consistency.
• Building slowly. HHX hats and ride, AAX crashes, and stop worrying about it.

The full guides to the AAX range and the HHX range go model by model, each with a sound demo of its own.