So I was chatting with some drum buddies today. Where I'm from most shops deal Sabian and zildjian. We were chatting about cymbals and anyways, they started referring to intermediate cymbals. This confused me since I use the words pro and beginner. They referred to the aa, aax and a zildjian and a customs as intermediate. I use a mixture of aa and a zildjians right now in traditional finish since it was the sound I liked when I started 3 years ago. My ears are warming up to k customs and hhx now as my style and taste are changing. Now, my understanding is the aa and a zildjian lines are machine made while the k and hh series are hand made. On both sites they usually show a picture of what their endorsers use and a lot use the machine made lines. I find my aa and a zildjian deliver a nice sound. It's different then hand hammered but they deliver nice Sind with no crazy overtones. So are the aa and a zildjians intermediate in the drum world. I don't really care since its what I like to hear. Just looking for terminology I guess.