I have to say I love my dw hardware, the heavy stuff and the light stuff. The pedals are great, I have both 5000 and 9000. I have more broken vintage hardware than I know what to do with! I love vintage drums and I wouldn't turn down a set of ddubs but, those new Ludwig Legacy's are sure nice!

I have been using DW hardware, tom stands, straight, boom, and double cymbal stands..... for the past nine years. I have bought it new, used, and even some abused. And of course, abused some. The only complaint I have on the 9000 series tilter is that bloddy plastic handle. Even that isnt much of a complaint, I have only broken three of those in 9 years. The rest of it is all good. Heavy, but very good.

I have one high end modern kit, and that is an Ayotte Custom 1995 set, everything else is vintage Rogers. I have DW hardware for two of the Rogers sets, and DW hardware for the Ayotte Customs.

Would I buy DW...... yes, but only if I dont see that next Cleveland Rogers kit first.

The kits and snares I've owned have been from the collectors and workshop series. Loved both. Hated the stands due to the mass. Reliability was great. Just too much. My fault for picking out the top of the line. Should have shopped a bit better.

So, how does the jazz line perform? I've been real curious about that one. I really did not like the vintage line so I'm hoping they are better than that. Anyone own a jazz series kit and wish to chime in?

I don't own one, and I've only played on 2, but over at cymbalholic.com, you can read about the jazz guys' opinions on them. They basically heap accolades on them, describing them as sounding like old Gretsch kits...

True...the company did start in 1972 making only the cansiter seat.....but they didn't start assembling drums until the early 80's, and even then they were just all the old camco lugs fitted to Keller shells. They really didn't start "making" drums until the early 90's, meaning making the drum shells themselves......to me that is not vintage.

Vintage drums should have a cut off date of 1975, the end of the big 4 using thin ply shells with reinforcement rings. Anything thick shell with die molding is modern in my book, since thats the way they make them today still.

Why would you spend money on a DW kit to have it (supposedly) sound LIKE a Gretsch kit, when you can buy a Gretsch kit for the same money and have a kit that IS a Gretsch kit that already sounds like its supposed to....like a Gretsch kit! :D;)

I'm in TOTAL agreement with this statement. My previous post was sarcastic. Sorry--I forget that it sometimes doesn't translate well over the forums.

BINGO! Except maybe for the hardware issues...

Here's my problem the detractors of the dw turn right around and make no sense, this is a quote from the source>>>I know what you mean....everyone seems to rave about DW....DW this DW that....well, I've heard them and I'm NOT impressed. The snares sound like a tin can...almost timbale like.

Its true that you can tell the difference between brands.....I know what Ludwig sounds like, I know what old Radio Kings sound like, I know what old Leedys sound like, I know what Gretsch sound like......I even know what a dynasonic sounds like on recordings.......these all sound good to my ear....DW....eh.....modern American made (is it any more though??) Pearl, Yamaha and Tama sound alike if you ask me......plain old overpriced junk. so by your two own statement, you contradict so dw's are bad sounding then on another statement you say they sound like gretsch, believe me i don't know how many gretsch kits you've owned, dw's and gretsch are about as opposite as they come, the snare comment is fairly funny, dw has over 300 different snare drums, you played them all??? they have maple,birch,bamboo,super solid shells, solid stave shells, bronze, brass,aluminum,copper, steel, edge, part wood part metal,acoustic eq,ballad, classics series, jazz series, and eco-x !! crap here i am again!!

I never said they sound like Gretsch. Another poster commented that the DW Jazz series is SUPPOSED to sound like Gretsch. So I said, why buy DW that (supposedly) sound like Gretsch when you can have real Gretsch. Why don't you read the post before you flame......

Vintagemore....just give it up. I am NEVER going to tell you that I like the sound of DW drums! I just plain don't like the carbon copy tin can sound that I hear out of those drums no matter how much you tout John Good, etc. I'm not interested in wasting my money on DW or their hardware. (I have wasted my money on their hardware in the past and never will again. FYI it was the 5000 double braced series from the late 1990's not exactly bottom of the line at the time.) I don't care who makes the heads for them (Remo has been crap for years and I will never go back to them), nor do I care how many thousands of kinds of materials they are made out of or how many "custom" finishes you can get them in. They don't interest me, PERIOD.

If I'm gonna spend that kind of money on a modern drum kit its going to be either a USA Custom Gretsch kit or an Eames kit, NOT a DW.

Obviously they have you snowed as much as the rest of the studio "engineers" out there.......most studio "engineers" wouldn't know a good drum sound if it fell from the sky and clobbered them in the head! These are the guys that STILL to this day tell you to cut a hole in the front head of your bass drum and stuff it with pillows and duct tape the heck out of your toms and cymbals to get a "good" studio sound.

Duct tape is for HVAC ductwork, NOT drums and cymbals, pillows are for sleeping on and NO ONE is EVER going to cut a hole in the from head of MY bass drum! DOH