well lessee if i can answer all of that
i sort of narrowed down to istanbul agop as much as anything. i liked the paiste trads but they were a little bright still for me. i liked the zildjian K cons but they were a little bland to me. and i didnt really want zildjian and they are pretty pricey. ive heard plenty of zildjians that i thought sounded nice, but never one that had that "magic" ... ive never played a sabian ive liked, but ill have to check out the fierce on kieths recomendation. so that was it for the big three.
i played a set of bosphorus ferit hats and got all wobbly knee'd. id found the direction i needed to be looking. i managed to play one or two bosphorus, mehmet and agops around town and in each case was just smitten. so i looked into the two istanbuls and bosphorus. and found that all three really do a lot of the same things, and have the same manufacture techniques, but have slight variations here and there. of the three bosphorus tends to make all thier cymbals on the thin side (a good thing) but the other two make thin versions of everthing so thats no biggie. bosphorus are the most expensive and hardest to get a hold of. very few dealers really. so i decided to go with istanbul. the same ride between isti and bos can have a $100 price difference. when youre already spending more than you have at $200, $300 is just too much (istanbuls are actually even less expensive than K cons).
then had to decide between agop and mehmet. i found more of what i wanted at agop and they tended toward thinner cymbals than mehmet. so agop it is.
part of my logic was that all three (bos, mehmet, agop) are all handmade turkish makers. they use the same materials, same processes (they all learned in the old K plant). so they can be pretty interchangable really. since there will be so much variety within one type of cymbal, itd be easy to get a bosphorus that sounds like istanbuls or vice versa. so practical considerations became more relevant. normally im a "if its what you want, you can justify the cost, inconvenience, etc" ... but since i could get what i wanted from any of the three, i might as well go with cheaper and easier to get right?
so that was how i chose istanbul agop. if i find a bos or mehmet i dig, and its reasonably priced ive got no objections to mixing. im not an endorsee ... yet
why 22 vs 20? well actually im going to be getting both and already have an 18 ... i rarely use crash cymbals. im prone to surrounding myself in rides (i use three with the band im in) i typically use a 22" as my main ride with 20's and 18's as my seconds. as for why i use a 22 as a main, larger cymbals (when compared to a comprable smaller diameter) tend to be deeper pitched, and have more sustain and wash ... which i love. i dig the humming drone that large thin rides get going under everything. someday ill get something ridiculous like a 28"
maybe ill convert a wuhan wind gong into a big flat ride.
one thing you didnt ask about was why the sultan model. maybe you dont know what makes it special, maybe you didnt care
ill tell you anyway. its got a totally lathed bottom, but the top has an unlathed bell, and an unlathed stripe around the middle. they have thier own vocabulary. lots of sounds in one cymbal, very cool. but they dont sound like an unlathed at all, that stripe just adds to the attack when you play on it specifically. the lathed bits sound like a lathed cymbal. its kinda wierd, but like having two rides in one.
as for what jazz rides make me giddy. well, every isti and bos ive played (not many really) was just butter. loved 'em. and my 50's era 20" paiste stanople
that whole arena is just so varied and personal though.
