The cheapest source of calf heads is eBay used.

I would avoid calf heads that are mounted on a metal flesh hoop, I have one and it's not the best but I'm too lazy to redo it).

I bought wood hoops from Jeff Stern and calf heads from eBay from the mysterious Columbia company and you can do that for maybe total $20-25 for a calf 16", which is cheaper than plastic especially if you consider you might have it for decades.

As far as your toms... no one can promise you anything but I will say that from what I've seen/heard calf batters with plastic resos is useless. The problem my ears hear is that the batter head bounces off of the inside of the reso and now you have plastic and meat harmonics mixing and it's like playing a C with a C# on the piano.

My 15" Ludwig field drum conversion floor tom had that shallow sound before the calf and it doesn't anymore - it sounds like jungle drums, although for some reason the floor toms vary way more than the others as far as humidity, and they sound best when it's horribly muggy. But there is the thought that the reason my floor toms vary more is because the Columbia heads are second rate, which no doubt they are compared to Jeff's and Rob Cook's. Don't buy a Kia and expect a Mercedes.

There's massively more head to drum contact and vibration transfer (especially the low end) with calf heads over plastic, I suspect that's the shallow sound problem.

A bizarre note: I haven't eaten meat, fish or foul in 15 years - vegetarian, go figure.

using the aquarian performance 2 on my 16" floor tom

its pre-tensioned and designed to hold a very low tuning whilst still giving a sound. I find them really great for this, but have heard others hate them

I'll comment on plastic:

For me, I've found best results with:

• Remo Vintage Ambassadors

• Aquarian True Vintage Heads

Clearly I don't have your exact same set up, and sound / tone can be pretty subjective, but for me I prefer the Remos for their sound, and the Aquarians for their longevity and durability.

PS - Remo also offers Fiberskyns, Skyntones (currently in 13" and 14" only) and Renaissance, which I haven't tried yet. All are commonly used to get that vintage sound. Price-wise, I think all are pretty comparable.

Wish I could give you one answer as "this is the best," but only you will know what's best to your ear / kit, so hopefully these options are helpful.

Good luck!

I use and have used these in the past....very much like a dead sounding pinstripe....I'm thinking my next head change of trying Aquarian modern vintage heads, or remo renaissance heads......see how close those get to calf.....then again, I may go for actual calfskin next time...