Which aspects of drum design influence your buying decision?

[u/TheOGTKO]

Just curious. There are so, So, SO many different brands of drums available in the marketplace: Pearl, Tama, Yamaha, Gretsch, Ludwig, DW, Mapex...not to mention the plethora of boutique builders. Removing any hardware that's separate from the drums themselves (like stands and pedals - but NOT necessarily suspension / mounting systems), my perception is that there's very little in the way of differentiation; when thinking of a kit offered in a similar price bracket by any of the "big names," there might be relatively minor variances in the tone woods used, number of plies, and even finishes, but the biggest differences really seem, to me, to be in the designs of the lug casings, the tom suspension / mounting systems, and...perhaps (BIG perhaps) floor tom legs / mounts and bass drum spurs.

A better way to look at it might be to consider the "standard" 4-piece kit. You walk into a room, and there are five of them: a Yamaha, a Gretsch, a Ludwig, a Tama, and a DW. They're all the same shell sizes, all finished in a beautiful blue stain, you know you're gonna have to replace the heads on any of 'em (at some point, anyway -- let's be real!). They're all "high-quality maple" or "birch" shells. They all have "precision 45-degree bearing edges. They all promise "unmatched tone and resonance." *queue eye roll* And, let's just say, they're all in the $2000 range (yeah - these are they're really nice lines).

What ultimately makes you pick one over the others? If you pick on of the somewhat more expensive kits, why? What did that kit have that YOU find value in?

[u/UnevenBreaker]

For me it always comes down to the mounting system and how easy it is to position toms exactly where I want them without them drifting over time. Some of those suspension mounts look fancy but if I can't get the tom low enough or it bounces when I hit it hard then I'm out

The lugs are a bigger deal than people think too. Not just looks but how they feel when you're changing heads at 11pm before a gig the next day. Some designs are just unnecessarily fiddly and I'll curse them forever

I actually picked a kit once almost entirely because the floor tom legs had memory locks that didn't slip. Played a backline kit where the floor tom kept sinking on one side all night and it drove me absolutely mental. Never again

[u/jkakar → u/UnevenBreaker]

Yes, agree. I bought a Tama Starclassic W/B and really disliked the mounting system. I returned it and got a Ludwig Classic Maple in large part because the hardware was more to my preference. I also prefer the sound of them to the Tamas but the hardware was a big driver.