I actually really like Yamaha's mounting system, particularly the YESS mounts. The ball and socket offers great flexibility, and the hex rod means it won't slip or rotate. I have some Yamaha's that have the bracket bolted onto the shell. I've taken it off, filled in the holes, used a suspension mount and used a YESS arm. Still holds great and sounds resonant. I'll take the look of a Yamaha tom arm over a Pearl style tom arm any day. Even on a very expensive, top end Pearl kit, those arms and mounts just look so generic.

Although functional, Sonor put super fugly black plastic, claw-free, hoops on their Sonic Plus drums. The tom height adjustment was a goofy design too, but the shells were typical great sounding German birch, and the way the tom suspension mounts and the bass feet went on to external lug screws was pretty cool.

I can't be the only one who hates using the drum key on old Rogers drums for everything..

Yeah, I love the Swivo stuff but ever drop one when setting up?

PITA!!

Show me a man who doesn't like lightweight hardware and I'll show you a man who has roadies:D

Arbiter Autotune drums. (The first ones, from the late 70's) They looked like eggs with hose clamps on them.

Similar to the Ludwig Combo snare drum.....plastic shell that warped with any semblance of tension on the heads, not to mention the breaking of the plastic lugs under similar circumstances.....not 100% sure, but the Combo outfits were regular wood shells, but I think they originally had the plastic lugs as well.....but I could be wrong on that one. The snare was definitely all plastic shells & lugs.

Another Ludwig faux-pas would be the original production run of the Acrolite snare drum....the one with the seam and textured shell......those aluminum hoops were horrible. Again, any real tension on them and they'd bend like butter......LOL!

BUT, I think the 90's Arbiter Advanced Tuning drums are a different story, at least the snares. I have a 12" snare that is built like a NASA project and sounds fantastic. The one lug tuning is more than a gimmick on those.

I agree. Just that the original ones were uglier than homemade sin.

Yeah, they looked like the giant mayonnaise jars from Costco.