Sorry to dig up such and old topic.. But I was just searching the site for info on cleaning the rubber on my cymbals and I found this thread.
These images has been used above as an example of how good your cymbals can look once cleaned with 303 Protectant.
The issue that struck me with these images is how differently they are exposed (photographically). As an example look at the color of the wall in the two images above. The 2nd image is less exposed. Hence, the cymbal looks more black.
I took the liberty of downloading the 2nd image and adjusting it's brightness to approximately the same as the 1st image.
Here is the first image again.
And here is my adjusted image.
Looks to me like the cymbal is cleaner in the 2nd shot. But that is about it.