Pearl Wild 500 cymbals

Daphfz

Senior Member
Hey guys,

Are Pearl Wild 500 cymbals any good? I know they would be beginner, throw away cymbals, but they look very similar to paiste rudes, so im guessing they are rudes that didnt make the cut and were sold off to pearl? Can anyone fill me in on their sound?

Daphfz
 
Do they still make them?

As far as I know, they were discontinued in the late 80's.

I had them when I was a teenager. Sounded terrible.

They are similar to Paiste Rudes, but they are not made by Paiste, and are a poor substitute.
 
made in japan by pearl, they were b8 bronze

25c6_1.jpg
 
would a 20" wild 500 china sound alright for thrash metal? seeing as it'd sound reallly trashy and poor quality. Btw trying to get one on ebay for 60 dollars, reckon its worth 60?
 
I just sold an old 20 inch wild 500 ride I had lying around, good for a beginner but in my opinion, not good.
If you buy used i think you can get better and still not break the bank, check out used Zildjian ZBT, ZXT, ZHT or Sabian XS20 on ebay.
 
I've got a pearl wild 500 16" crash, and yeah they're basically rude copies. it's heavy and.. heavy, and sounds a bit like a rude, so they're pretty cool if you want that kinda sound lol
 
I'm not a cymbal snob but I played a church kit with them recently and I refused to play the ride and crash - they were so horrible I just did without.

Seriously, anything else would be better.

Davo
 
I've got a pearl wild 500 16" crash, and yeah they're basically rude copies. it's heavy and.. heavy, and sounds a bit like a rude, so they're pretty cool if you want that kinda sound lol

Pearl had them before Paiste Rudes...

And as for everyone else, I found my 500 Ride FANTASTIC to use. Brilliant sound, great bell. Definately my favourite cymbal.

Until it was stolen along with ALL of my other cymbals (A customs and an asortment of other Paiste and Staggs) when my garage got broken into...
 
I got a pearl wild 500 ride cymbal along with my 2001 Pearl export, a sabian 18" HH crash (which I'm now looking to replace, because its cracked beyond belief!) and a pair of Paiste alpha 14" hi hats. I'll admit, I hated it to begin with, but the sound has grown on me. Very rich and quite dark, and a lovely bell. I put a cracked 16" china on it as a stack. My word... It was like an explosion of awesomeness. I really like it, and will probably use it later on in my career as a stack. It's incredibly heavy, but it has so much character. It's quite cheap to buy so if you don't like it, you could always sell it on.
 
I use to own two Pearl Wild 500 China Splashes 8"and 10" , this was about 1988 and long before the huge range of efx cymbals about now. Anyway, these two cymbals sounded fantastic; the rides and crashes and hats were not so great. If you ever see China spalshes on eBay in this series let me know.
 
I get the feeling that Sabian made at least *some* of the Pearl Wild cymbals. In this video, when the guy flips over his first china splash (the Pearl Wild one), you can clearly see a big, white Sabian logo on it. Maybe they only made the china splashes for them? Interesting...

http://youtu.be/KXzvy-K_PuA
 
I get the feeling that Sabian made at least *some* of the Pearl Wild cymbals. In this video, when the guy flips over his first china splash (the Pearl Wild one), you can clearly see a big, white Sabian logo on it. Maybe they only made the china splashes for them? Interesting...

http://youtu.be/KXzvy-K_PuA

Trippy.

I've never seen that, nor ever heard of a Sabian/Pearl connection.

But it would make sense that Pearl had someone making cymbals for them, as setting up their own foundry and factory would be expensive just to crank out low end cymbals.
 
Trippy.

I've never seen that, nor ever heard of a Sabian/Pearl connection.

But it would make sense that Pearl had someone making cymbals for them, as setting up their own foundry and factory would be expensive just to crank out low end cymbals.

Looks like Sabian made many other cymbals in the Wild 900 series for a time:
 

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I see this makes a lot of sense, the Wild 900 China splashes were probably made by Sabian.
I own a fair few cymbals and selling these was one of my worst decisions. However at the time I was under the illusion that everything made by the big 3 was where it was at. In hindsight I was wrong.

I like the idea for a set-up with Wild 900 China splashes and 20" trash crashes for contrast.
 
opening up this old thread again. Just got back into playing and looking into some vintage 80s era cymbals.

I have heard some really good sounding cymbals from both the standard Pearl CX-500 (which sounds a bit like the Paiste 505s and even has the green lettering) and the full Pearl CX-900 lines. As for the Wilds, the 600 or 900s (Pearl's pro lines) were much better sounding than the 500 series Wilds.

It does look indeed like Sabian made at least some (maybe all or maybe starting in the second year of production 1988) of the 900 Wild and possibly the 900s with the brilliant finish and black lettering. I have also seen instances of these cymbals with just the Sabian logo, too. Wonder if Sabian made these and Pearl sold them all over except maybe in Canada where they were released as Sabians? I don't know.

I think the standard finished red lettered 900s were all made in-house by Pearl in Japan. The Brilliant finishes came out in 1988.

The 900 series was made from 1987-1989 and replaced the then top CX-600 line. CX-600 were made from 1982 to 1986 with the 600 Wilds intro'd in 1983. The CX-500 series lasted until at least 1992. haven't found a 1993 catalog to see if they are still listed.


Seems like there is an interesting story there and like I mentioned above some of these Pearl cymbals from the time period sound quite good to my ears, like the CX-500 hi-hats, CX-500 22" ride, all red lettered CX-900 I've heard sound good, 22" 900 Wild heavy ride is a gem, etc.

If there are any of you who can shed some more light on this time period of Pearl cymbals I'd love to hear from you.
 
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