Sonor CB 4 Charanga Bell 4"

I bought this high 4" bell to augment my cowbell set - it's pitched at Bb if that interests anyone!

Out of the box, the first thing I noticed was the mount - the lug is trapezoid, it has three grooved faces at about 120*.

This means you can change where the wing nut lies in relation to the bell and will be really handy on mounting rods as frequently the bells need to be mounted near other percussion or near the rod-mount; getting access to all those wing nuts can be fiddly!

Also it has a sturdy rubber washer instead of the usual metal, which should reduce buzz and help isolate the bell from other mounted items.

Tonality, the bell is bright and clear, very pingy. Without damping the bell is too wet, but it comes with a substantial chunk of foam that can be cut to size - easily enough to mute both surfaces if you wanted, but I found this too dry. Half the foam on one surface was fine.

It has the slightly oily-feeling coated quality of new steel bells and a nice brass colour. I'm likely to buy another Sonor bell in the future on the basis of this purchase.