This ride is THE RIDE. Everything - the bow, the bell, the crash - they're all amazing. Most of all - the crashability of the ride is one of the if not the best out there. It's also a very musical cymbal with a very large dynamic range. I haven't played it with a band yet so I can't tell if the bell will cut through enough, however playing it dry I found that when hit the right way you can achieve an amazing bell sound that has very unique tones, which I feel can also be quite loud if need be. What surprised me most was how light the cymbal is. It's a little over 2 kg and it's very thin especially towards the edge, which I guess is what allows for that amazing crashability. I've only played it a couple of hours at this point and I'm already in love. The only thing that might be an issue is that the whole cymbal activates very easily, however this is when played with 5BXL sticks which are very massive and have quite a large tip, so playing this ride with 7A's with nylon tips for example should produce a much more articulate result.