My understanding is that they are of similar quality to say a Tama Rockstar/Pearl Export of the 80's/early 90's. Its cool that they have traditional sizes...Id say $400 would be about tops, but then again if you really like how the kit sounds then I don't think $500 with brand new heads is totally ridiculous. I know you can get better drums for $500 though.

-Adam

$500 is definitely high for those.

9000 was the top, and there were 8000, 7000, 6000 and of course 5000 lines.

This represents the 'base model' of the time, and I have seen 5-piece 9000 kits from the same era that are $500.00. I think there is a dark natural birch one on eBay right now...

I would wait for a higher line personally. The 9000 are the current Recording Custom line- all birch shells and they sound sweet with any tuning. The lower lines have very nice hardware, but the shells use lower cost woods in their construction, and are more sensitive to tuning ranges and head selections depending on the sound you want.

I will say this: I would prefer the Japanese made Yamahas over the Taiwan made similar lines from Pearl and (I assume at this price point) Tama drums.

Or go to Guitar Center with your $500.00 and get a nice new set of Yamaha Stage Custom Birch drums. These are Indonesian made I think, but the shells are all birch and a head change to USA Remo heads (they come with crummy import Remo heads) makes then very hard to distinguish from the expensive Recording Custom drums...

Thanks..you both answered my question.

Just to add my $.02 PASS! Those are made in China and are quite poor compared to the drums coming out of China today. Like others have said, hold out for a 9000. I picked one up for $350 a few years ago. Long lugs, chrome finish 24/12/14/16 w/5x14 snare plus snare stand, bass drum pedal, hi-hat stand and one cymbal stand. I ended up selling the snare and hardware to get my $350 back and then flipped the kit to a friend of mine as a present to him.

To make things confusing there were also two different 9000 series at the same time, one was birch the other was birch/luan. The DA signifies Camellia/luan. Shortly after that it became the 7000 series so it wasn't so confusing.