Cool stuff. I love these discoveries. Have you tried the new 'old formula' remo heads? I'm curious about those, too. Another import head you might hunt down is the coated Unicorn. It's one of those import remo heads for entry level kits. The coated ones were very lively.

Heads that give an open tone usually have a rim that is thin, large diameter, and doesn't touch the shell... by a fair gap. Current production heads that do this are Ludwig and Attack... although attack have their own set of issues.

I have to agree on the Attack heads. Nice clears for reso, but they are just too bright for my shells as batters. I have been using a new Aquarian Z-100 coated snare head that is on promo all over the place for less than 10 bucks and I love it. It makes these old MIJ shells sing as well, and the coating is really great for brush work. Now, if I can just get the 14" floor tom to sing like I want it, I'll be all the way home.

Now, if you are so anal that you have to have matching heads all around, you wouldn't like playing my kits. I could care less about the "look of matched heads", I want performance and each shell has it's own set of rules and therefore I intend to find the ones that sound best with each shell.

From time to time I've seen them in stores, such as GC, and the indy store (Campus Music, Norman, OK) as well. I thought they were still available. A cursory search

http://www.cranbournemusic.com.au/cstore/930033017590.html

Not necessarily the only place, although they could be discontinued and this place just has more of them.

Usually I see the Encore heads sold as a group of 4 or 5 heads, for normal set sizes, such as 12/13/14/16, etc.

I looked at this link, this is not the Encore pack, per se, that I bought. This (set in link) is an American set of pinstripes and for some reason are called "Encore". The ones I got had a WalMart pre-printed price on for crying out loud...and the heads themselves are the good old Taiwanese made single plies. Thheyt just work with the MIJ shells. Now, they are either discon, or no longer imported, but they are about to be all he has in my drum room. I am not taking a chance on losing out as I happen to have spent a lot of time and mioney on heads and have been trying to get the right ones for the right sound and these just work. Look at all the stores that have been around for a long time that are old a dusty and have a ton of NOS stuff everywhere you look.

Below is the box, if you look at the top right corner, you can see the MalMart price....and if you want to know what the next donor kit looks like, here is a preview. The bass got a minor amount of damage and i had to re-do it so I am now 3 days behind. Nice looking drums though. This will no]t be the recipient of these heads as they are 22-13-16 and I already have the heads for it.

P.M. sent Mikey

Direct Music,out of Niagara Falls N.Y.(they have other U.S. branches as well) who has the Canadian distributorship for Remo lists Encore heads on their website, so I assume that they are currently in production and available. My understanding is that these heads are made in Taiwan but I do not know whether Remo owns the factory-------Remo may just distribute them. the factory is the supplier for heads on a whole slew of Oriental drums; good bad and indifferent. They are basically the same film as the California made Remo heads. I have heads on hand from at least a dozen different factories and the Encore heads appear identical to heads I have labelled Dixon. The hoop on the encore heads is smaller and rolled tighter(there doesn't appear to be any epoxy seal), than a U.S. Remo head and so it is a little looser on the shell.