(Roughly) Daily

Members of the Ziljan family have been making the cymbals-of-choice for drummers since before humans learned the Earth revolves around the sun. They’ve weathered challenges of all sorts, from the inevitable trials of a family business to the vagaries of international trade. As Cullen Hendrix explains, they’re battening down the hatches for another period of turbulence– one that could impact both their fortunes and those of the drummers they serve…

North America’s two largest cymbal producers share a family lineage and approaches to cymbal making. What they don’t share is a country of origin. One is US-based, the other Canadian. The similarities between the two companies and their products provide a unique window into how US tariffs on Canadian goods would affect consumer choices and prices—both for the worse.

As I write, the 25 percent tariffs imposed on Canada and Mexico have been paused for all US-Mexico-Canada Agreement–compliant products until April 2, when they are expected to be reinstituted along with reciprocal tariffs against a larger list of countries. Before the tariffs were imposed, Canadian-made SABIAN cymbals entered the United States duty-free.

Zildjian (USA) and SABIAN (Canada) are the dominant cymbal brands in the US market and part of the “big four” globally, which include Paiste (Switzerland) and MEINL (Germany). Both Zildjian and SABIAN trace their cymbal-making history to 1623, when Avedis Zildjian founded Zildjian Cymbals in Constantinople. The Zildjian family immigrated to North America in the 1920s, beginning production at their Massachusetts plant in 1929.

In 1968, Zildjian opened a second plant in the Canadian province New Brunswick. Initially intended to produce a budget-oriented line, the exploding popularity of rock music led Zildjian to quickly scrap those plans and begin producing the emerging industry standard Zildjian cymbals in both factories. As can happen with family businesses, the succession plan led to a schism between two of the Zildjian brothers and a lengthy court battle. One branch took control of the Massachusetts plant, the other New Brunswick, leading to SABIAN’s founding in Canada in 1981. Helped along by early endorsers like Phil Collins and Vinnie Paul of Pantera, SABIAN quickly became Zildjian’s number one rival in North America.

Their family drama is a social scientist’s gold. Assessing the effects of tariffs for many consumer goods requires making apples-to-oranges comparisons. The Chevrolet Corvette is in the same market segment as the German Porsche 911 and Japanese Nissan GT-R, but differences in drivetrains, interior appointments, and styling add myriad variables to consumer choices and complicate efforts to discern the effects of tariffs on consumer behavior.

With SABIAN and Zildjian, you have two companies formed from one, making competing products made to near-identical specifications and using knowledge and techniques developed by the same family and at the same facilities over centuries. The biggest difference is that one is doing so in Norwell, Massachusetts, and the other in Meductic, New Brunswick.

Zildjian and SABIAN each produce a “standard” set of professional-grade cymbals—the A line in Zildjian’s parlance, AA in SABIAN’s—suitable for a broad range of musical styles. These cymbals can be heard on recordings by some of drumming’s leading lights, including Carter Beauford of the Dave Matthews Band and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Stripped of their logos, even a seasoned audio engineer would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the two lines. My first set of “real” cymbals, purchased in 1995, were SABIAN AAs…

… SABIAN’s prices are higher, but the differences are relatively small, between 3 and 6 percent. How would a 25 percent tariff affect US retail prices for Canada’s finest cymbals? Tariff pass-throughs, i.e., the share of the tariff’s increase in prices paid by the end consumer, are typically calculated on the basis of cost insurance and freight (CIF) prices, rather than retail prices. So, a 25 percent tariff would not translate into a 25 percent increase in the retail price…

… At 100 percent (50 percent) pass-through, the SABIAN cymbals would now be 12 to 14 percent (7 to 10 percent) more expensive than the corresponding Zildjians. On the face of it, this would seem to be bad news for SABIAN and good news for Zildjian. This is how protectionism as industrial policy works: By making imported goods more expensive relative to domestically produced goods, tariffs should shift demand toward domestic producers.

But would this be good news for US-based drummers? No. First, US-based drummers would have more limited choices. Instead of choosing on aesthetics, what their favorite drummer plays, or perceived (extremely minor) differences in sound, there would be drummers who would prefer to play SABIANs but find themselves buying Zildjians instead. But that scenario doesn’t factor in Zildjian’s response. With its closest competitor now charging higher prices, what incentive would Zildjian have not to increase their prices as well? If the evidence from US tariffs on Chinese washing machines is any indication, the answer is none. And if Canada were to reciprocate, the mirror image of this situation would obtain in Canada: Zildjian loses market share and/or SABIAN increases prices. And these calculations simply account for the narrow price effects. They don’t include potential product boycotts as a form of protest and national solidarity.

These scenarios are complicated by the availability of competing imported products from China, Germany, Switzerland, and Turkey, but there are few reasons to think US tariffs would not eventually touch those products as well (if they haven’t already). The math would be more complicated, but the end result would likely be the same: higher prices, less consumer choice, and decidedly mixed benefits even for domestic producers that aspire also to sell in foreign (and now reciprocally protected) markets.

The schism in the Zildjian family ultimately left drummers better off, with more options and competition to keep prices affordable. The same won’t be said of a more sustained US-Canada trade war…

The trade war comes for music: “US tariffs could crash the market for North American drummers,” from @cullenhendrix.bsky.social and @piie.com.

* Peter Erskine (A Zildjan user)

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As we ponder the impact of protectionism on percussion, we might send rhythmic birthday greetings to Derek McKenzie; he was born on this date in 1962. He’s best known as the drummer of Jamiroquai who had the 1993 UK No.1 album Emergency on Planet Earth and the 1998 UK No.1 single ‘Deeper Underground.’ Jamiroquai have sold more than 26 million albums worldwide and won a Grammy Award in 1998. He remains active as a drummer and as a producer and a DJ; he is a SABIAN user.

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