I actually find the opposite in sounds. I much prefer the resonance in my Club Date kits vs. my Down Beat kits. Especially in the 14" floor toms as the CDs have 6 lug and the DBs have eight. Lets them open up more. Just a personal preference though. Great drums...same shells.

Mike

I've never played a Clubdate kit but I would think that they SHOULD be a bit more open and resonant due to the fact that there is less metal attached to the shell. However...having said that, it might be a matter of WHERE the lugs are attached to the shell that makes a difference...middle of the shell vs. the ends.

I know that I prefer my '64 Pioneer snare drum and I figure it has something to do with it having less metal attached to the shell.

Could be a tuning/drumhead combination issue, too. Some drums seem to open up only within a limited tuning range. For example, I like using Remo Diplomat heads on most of my vintage drums because I think they seal over the bearing edges better than a heavier weight head. I obviously don't play hard with such lightweight heads, but most of my gigs were in dinner clubs and "background" music, so I needed stuff to be responsive at very low-volume playing.

Lastly, some kits just "sing" more than others -regardless of lug configuration. Go figure.

I tend to agree with Mike. I think Club Dates are a bit more open sounding. The only difference is in the lugs, The shells were the same and a shell could be pulled off a stack and become either a CD or a classic depending on what the worker needed to make and how he drilled it. I've never noticed any serious splay issues either.

Of course with vintage Ludwig there are some questionable builds sprinkled in amongst all the production....maybe you heard a couple of the lesser examples. And, of course, we all hear differently.

Never played a downbeat but I do love my club dates. The coveted 14" floor tom especially. If I was smart I would have bought them all up back in the 1960s. I could retire now... :)

I did a side by side comparison a few years ago. Same heads and tuning, both Tom’s on the rail mount. Clubdates are much more open sounding.

Not sure how you came to that conclusion??? Less hardware on the shell.

🤷*♂️

Maybe it was the kit

I had only one and it was Obp could of been bearing edges and heads and if I remember I put hang in a basket

it was better

but quite choked on bd mount

I always like 14 in ft ‘s

They do sound sweet

but the db I had sang

maybe it was a lot of things that were not right about my old clubdate

I'm almost certain that, in a dark room, with all other things being equal (heads, sticks, player, etc.), I wouldn't be able to tell a Clubdate from a Downbeat...and certainly, in the context of playing either kit, in a band, I wouldn't be able to differentiate one from the other.

To Ludwig, it was just a matter of economics. There was no sonic research going on that drove them to make one model with more lugs and another with fewer lugs. It was just that the model with more lugs, cost them more to build. The consumer's perception was that, if one model cost more than the other, then the more expensive model was the premium. In retrospect, the Clubdates were likely the better sonic design.

So all thoughts , if I was to buy a nice players kit, at a good price , it would sing with all the right protocols in place , heads etc if I remember I might if had a bd of one long ago it was nice.

Also, just to be persnickety, there were no Downbeat drums. There was a 12/14/20 outfit called the Downbeat but the drums in it were the same as any other drums those sizes in any other outfits, or any individual drums ordered out of the catalog.

A Club Date and a Downbeat (and a Standard S-300 outfit) used the same shells but different hardware.