MastroSnare, where are you buying those heads and what brand? Do you use them on the resonant side on your whole set, snare too? That would get extremely expensive if you're using the Earthtone calf heads I just priced.
So far I'm using all calf except for my kick front which I haven't gotten around to changing to calf and the snare batter which is an Earthtone.
Earthtones are goat and are better than plastic but I will never buy them again - the company isn't knowledgable, they use metal hoops, you can't retuck them and goat sucks. That pretty much sums it up!
I get used ones off of eBay and have used the Columbia ones that everybody says are for display only and they sound great.
I tried calf batters with plastic bottoms and absolutely hated it - doesn't work at all for me, the sound bounces off of the plastic bottom head and the plastic harmonic piggybacks on the calf sound wave, just like radio waves. I don't like metal hoops on calf either.
Calf floor tom heads new cost me about $20 each and Remo's cost near double that. My kick head is from the 40's... so the whole thing about calf being expensive is b.s. #4001 about calf.
My conclusion after using calf for the last few years is pretty much everything I heard and read about them was a lie.