Zildjian L80 vs Gen16 | What's the difference?

Put a Zildjian L80 next to a Zildjian Gen16 cymbal and you could be forgiven for thinking they are the same thing. Both are real metal cymbals. Both are covered edge to edge in tiny holes.

They are not the same thing. One is a quiet practice cymbal you can walk into a shop and buy today. The other is half of an electronic system that Zildjian no longer sells.

So what is the actual difference, and is a second-hand Gen16 set a bargain or a headache? Let’s find out.

The short answer

Buy the Zildjian L80 if you want quiet cymbals to practise on. It is current, it is in every shop, and Zildjian says it is up to 80% quieter than a traditional cymbal. Nothing to plug in, nothing to go wrong.

Buy a used Gen16 system only if you want what it did that the L80 never has: a microphone under each cymbal and a processor that shapes the sound and sends it to your headphones or a PA. And only if the listing includes the electronics, because Zildjian does not sell them any more.

If you just typed “L80 vs Gen16” because you saw a cheap Gen16 crash on the used market and wondered if it is a quiet cymbal: it is, sort of. Read on.

Spec	Zildjian L8014" hats, 16" crash, 18" crash-ride	Zildjian Gen16Used only: cymbals, pickups and processor	Our take
Price band	🇬🇧 UK: £250–£300🇺🇸 US: $370–$420🇪🇺 EU: €290–€350	—	Street prices, new, at the time of writing. They move; the links below are live.
What it is	A purely acoustic low volume practice cymbal	An acoustic-electric system: perforated cymbals, a pickup under each one and a Digital Cymbal Processor	The whole comparison in one row. One is a cymbal, the other is a cymbal plus a box of electronics.
Still made?	✓Yes, a current Zildjian line	No longer sold by Zildjian; used market only	We could not find an official end date for Gen16, but nothing from the range is on zildjian.com today.
Metal and finish	An alloy Zildjian chose for low volume, with a matte sandblasted finish	Nickel-plated alloy on the original cymbals; B8 bronze on the later Buffed Bronze ones	Same idea, different metal. They are relatives, not twins.
How it cuts volume	Perforations across the whole cymbal, plus the alloy and the finish	Perforations across the whole cymbal	The L80 carries a serial number starting AE, a nod to the Acoustic Electric cymbals it grew out of.
Volume claim	✓Up to 80% quieter than a traditional cymbal, says Zildjian	Much quieter than normal cymbals, said MusicRadar; no figure we could verify	Only one of them has a number we can stand behind, and it is the one designed purely to be quiet.
Sound in headphones	None; the acoustic tick is all you get	✓Yes: the pickup feeds the processor, with 20 preset sounds per input	This is the one thing Gen16 does that the L80 cannot.
Sizes	✓10" splash, 14" hats, 16" crash, 18" crash-ride, 18" china, 20" ride, plus three packs	Whatever turns up used; the AE368 pack had 13" hats with 16" and 18" cymbals	With the L80 you choose. With Gen16 you take what the seller has.
Spares and support	✓Covered by a current product line	No pickups, processors or parts listed by Zildjian	A dead pickup on a Gen16 set means hunting for another used one.
Where to buy	Guitar Center 🇺🇸Gear4music 🇬🇧Thomann 🇪🇺Reverb · used	Find it used on Reverb	Affiliate links to the shop for your region; buying through them costs you nothing extra.
Rows won	4 of 8	1 of 8	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.

What is the Zildjian L80?

The L80 Low Volume is Zildjian’s practice cymbal. It is a real metal cymbal with a pattern of small perforations across the whole surface, which takes mass out of it and with it most of the volume.

Zildjian’s claim is that L80s are up to 80% quieter than traditional cymbals. When MusicRadar reviewed them in January 2016, it reported test figures of around 123dB for a conventional cymbal against 83dB for the L80, and noted that the stick hitting the cymbal seemed louder than the cymbal itself.

There are no electronics. You hit it, it goes “tick”, the neighbours stay friendly. Our low volume cymbals guide covers the range and its rivals in full.

What was the Zildjian Gen16?

Gen16 was something far more ambitious. Modern Drummer described the Gen16 AE cymbal in May 2011 as “an acoustic/electric instrument, rather than a sample trigger device”.

In other words, not an electronic cymbal pad. A real, perforated, reduced-volume cymbal with a pickup sitting underneath it. Zildjian itself now describes that pickup as a contact condenser microphone.

The pickups fed a small silver box called the Digital Cymbal Processor. According to MusicRadar’s October 2011 review, it had five inputs (hi-hat, ride and three cymbals), 20 preset sounds per input, pan and volume for each, reverb, a headphone output and an input for mixing in a drum module.

The clever part is that nothing was triggered. The processor shaped the sound of the actual cymbal you had just hit, so the dynamics and feel were your own. Clever.

The first Gen16 cymbals were a nickel-plated alloy. In August 2014 Zildjian followed up with the Gen16 Buffed Bronze series, with reworked bell profiles, extra lathing on the larger sizes and what Zildjian called a warmer tone.

Is the Gen16 discontinued?

Here is what we can confirm, and what we cannot.

Zildjian does not sell Gen16 any more. There is not a single Gen16 cymbal, pickup or processor on zildjian.com, and a search of the site for “gen16” returns nothing. Zildjian’s FAQ says that as long as a product is featured on its website there are no plans to discontinue it. Gen16 is not featured.

The same FAQ talks about Gen16 in the past tense. Explaining its current ALCHEM-E electronic kits, Zildjian says Gen16 “captured the actual tone of a low volume cymbal”, and that “those cymbals then evolved to the L80 line”.

What we could not find is an official announcement with a date on it. You will see years quoted around the web. We have not been able to verify any of them, so we are not repeating one here.

For a buyer, the date matters less than the consequence: everything Gen16 is now second-hand.

Is a Gen16 cymbal just an L80 with a pickup?

Close, but no.

The family resemblance is real. MusicRadar’s L80 review pointed out that the two look remarkably similar because of the perforations, and that each L80 carries a serial number beginning with “AE”. Zildjian says in plain terms that one evolved into the other.

The metal is where they part company. The Buffed Bronze Gen16s were B8 bronze, and MusicRadar reported that for the L80 Zildjian tried several other alloys to find one that hit the low volume target and still felt like a real Zildjian. The L80 also has a matte finish that helps to damp the higher frequencies.

That makes sense when you think about the jobs. A Gen16 cymbal had to give a microphone something worth listening to. An L80 only has to be quiet.

So can you play a Gen16 cymbal with nothing plugged in? Yes. It is a real cymbal making its own reduced-volume sound, and a used one on its own will work as a low volume cymbal. Just do not expect it to be an L80.

The demo at the top of this page is drum-tec’s “natural sound” comparison of the Gen16, the L80 and Agean’s low noise cymbals, so you can judge the gap with your own ears.

MusicRadar’s verdict on the Gen16 system was that it was “not the ideal bedroom solution”, because the cymbals are louder than pads.

What does buying a used Gen16 set involve?

More homework than buying a used cymbal normally does. A complete system is three things, and you need to check all three are in the box:

• The cymbals. Check for cracks as you would with any used cymbal.
• A pickup for each cymbal. These sit under the cymbal and connect by a single mini-jack lead. No pickup, no signal.
• The Digital Cymbal Processor, with its cabling and mounting bracket. Without it the pickups have nowhere to go.

There is one thing to mention, and it is a big one. Zildjian lists no Gen16 spares. If a pickup or the processor fails, your only route is another used one. The processor had a USB socket for firmware updates, and we could not confirm that Zildjian still offers anything to download for it.

We could not verify enough real sold prices to give you a fair used price band either. MusicRadar listed its review system at £1,017 back in 2011, which tells you what it cost new and nothing about what it is worth today. Check the Reverb price guide for sold prices before you pay anything, then see what is about: Zildjian Gen16 on Reverb.

And if the listing is cymbals only? Price it as a used low volume cymbal, not as a Gen16 system.

Who should buy which

• A flat, a shared house, late-night practice. L80. It is the one designed to be quiet.
• You want real cymbal feel next to an electronic kit. L80, and accept that you will not hear it in your headphones.
• You want real cymbals you can hear in your headphones. That was Gen16’s trick. A complete, working used system will still do it, with the risks above.
• You found a cheap Gen16 cymbal with no electronics. Fine as a quiet cymbal at the right price. It is not an L80.
• You like the Gen16 idea but want something current. Zildjian’s ALCHEM-E kits use real low volume cymbals too, though they trigger samples rather than processing the cymbal’s own sound.
• You are not set on Zildjian. Read our L80 vs Sabian Quiet Tone head-to-head first.

Final thoughts

The L80 and the Gen16 are the same idea at two different stages. Gen16 was the bold experiment: a real cymbal, turned down, with a microphone and a processor to bring it back up. The L80 is what was left when Zildjian took the electronics away and made the cymbal as quiet as it could.

For almost everybody asking the question today, the L80 is the answer. It is the one you can buy new, expand and replace. A used Gen16 system is for the drummer who knows exactly why they want it and has checked every part is there.

Whichever you choose, quiet cymbals are only half of a quiet kit. Mesh heads are the other half, and when it is time to pick the loud ones, our cymbal buying guide is the next read.