Sonor Signature Series - Heavy Shells

12-ply Beechwood Shells (African Bubinga veneer)
Hardware included a bass drum tom-mount system, a double tom stand, snare stand, nylon-strap bass drum pedal, hi-hat stand, boom cymbal stand, double cymbal boom stand, straight cymbal stand.

The Signature hardware is as heavy-duty as you can find. The stands have a lot of interchangeable parts, and can easily be converted from double-cymbal to cymbal-tom stand, etc. . . All of the mounts are the same so you have numerous configuration options. They have large handles for tightening/loosening. The teeth in the rotating parts of the stands are massive and would be extremely hard to strip or damage.

My configuration is 14x10 snare, 12x12, 13x13, 14x14, 15x15 toms, 22x20 bass drum. They can have a very powerful, deep sound and tune very well. My typical heads are Evans G2 batters and evans resonant bottoms with a superkick 2 kick head and remo powerstroke 3 resonant on the bass. The snare I use evans snare-side and a remo renaissance ambassador batter. I've also played with remo coated and pinstripe heads on the toms and they all sounded great on this kit too.

The sound quality of these drums is terrific. They have a very powerful sound and were mainly used by heavy rock bands back in the '80's. The deep, thick shells make for plenty of thunder. They tend to be on the warmer end of the sound spectrum. The configuration I have doesn't allow for a lot of highs, but mostly mids and low end. Overtones are not a problem on these drums. They tune very easily; trying to get a higher pitch doesn't give great results.

These drums are very heavy-duty and very heavy! I don't gig with them anymore (mostly because of the weight, but also damage risk), but would have no problem taking them out if I had to. When I was playing them live I had no problems with them holding a tune, although this process was performed before every show. The hardware is extremely heavy duty but I never took it on the road. i used a gibralter rack system. I also use a drum workshop hi-hat stand and bass drum pedal. I did not like the feel of the Sonor pedal. It was nice, but not as fluid as the DW.

I never had to deal with customer support. The drums came with a 10 year warranty also.

This is one of the best drum kits I own and what I record with. I've been playing for 11 years and also have a vintage ludwig kit, and tour with tama's; occasionally we use yamaha kits. If they were lost or stolen, I would replace them. I love everything about these drums, they give the sound I expected them too. I only wish I could get the same sound out of a more shallow depth shell. I'm more comfortable with the toms in a lower position but the deep shells don't allow this. They're probably not the absolute best drums in the world, so I'll give them a 9. The one complaint I have for these drums is the tuning keys require a flat tool. They don't have standard square headed keys.