Hi, I have an old 1960's Sonor Teardrop snare with the old "Made in Western Germany" aluminium badge. I have had it since the early 1980's when I found it in a pile of rubbish at an ancient Edinburgh rehearsal studio. It was in a terrible state and only had the birch shell, the 16 teardrop lugs and the top 8 hole die-cast hoop. This was pre-internet of course but, over the years I slowly got some of the replacement parts it was missing. I ended up stripping the damaged black/gold striped finish and sent the shell to ST Drums in Germany for a Delmar re-wrap in aged/marine pearl, ordered a new Vintage Series throw-off and butt that Sonor now use on their "Vintage Series" snares, an original, internal muffler from Reverb and lastly a bottom snare hoop. Unfortunately on receipt and fitting of this hoop I realised that it"s not matching the top one and more importantly it's a different depth so when fitted with the bottom head if you try and tighten the head it can only get so far down before the hoop touches the top of the lug! So, basically I can't get rid of all the wrinkles in the head that are caused by the shallower snare bed where it meets the snare wires. It's not the worst aesthetic that the two hoops are v slightly different but, the fact that i can't tighten it enough is v frustrating. The bottom hoop has two holes for the chord to go through rather than a wider, rectangular shape for chord or ribbon/strips to go through. Does anyone know if any manufacturers out there do special "old" style snare heads that have a much shallower profile than the modern Remo heads have these days? This could be a way to solve this annoyance? I read somewhere that Sonor shells aren' necessarily the standard/Universal size many other brands adopt. Is this the case, especially with this era drum? Any help/advice will be much appreciated...Thanks, keep on drumming!! Nick

Sonor fitted that line of production with early Evans plastic heads with plastic counter hoops and a virtually non-existent 'shoulder' commonly found on all mylar heads today. It's almost impossible (but not completely impossible) to find some of these heads in long standing warehouses. It's also possible to find old stock or used 1960's heads made in Japan with very shallow head 'shoulders', but again this becomes more difficult with each passing year. I left you another reply regarding a working solution. Best of luck!