I haven't seen them personally but I have been told Dunnett make a strainer with adjustable mounts that can be retro-fitted to old snares without the need for drilling new holes etc.

Don't know of any other brand's strainers which retrofit to vintage Premier parallel mechanism throws. Purchase all the drums available to you with knackered throws, and then strip them down to rebuild one good viable snare mechanism. A somewhat tedious process, I admit, but well worth it in the end. The worst thing you do would be to alter those shells by drilling.

Yeah, I know the drilling's no good. I just want to get one of those old COB premiers for gigging, but the fancy snare set ups I don't have patience for. Even my Hi-Fi has a P-83 on it and I don't mind, it's easy to replace. Dynas, Super Sensitives and 2000s were all state-of-the-art in their day I'm sure, but I don't want to do too much tweaking. I guess the Royal Ace strainer isn't too bad, but looking at this 2000/flo beam thing scares the hell out of me. Makes you wonder why the Hi-Fi is so obscure since it was so simple. Thanks for the feedback.

Royal Ace is also a similar set-up to the 2000. 2000's replaced the Royal Ace around 1966

I have one of these snares, and there are a couple of things you can do.

1. get new snares on ebay, etc, which is next to impossible.

2. Make your own snares - you will need a 15" long snares and you have to solder the strings in place of the old one's, there's a good tutorial on this forum somewhere.

3. Replace the throwoff, which ruins the snare.

4 Do what I did - the snares attaches to the throwoff on this drum via thin bolt on either end. remove the bolts, buy a copper or aluminium tube with the diameter larger than the bolt. cut it slightly shorter than the length of the bolt, when it's inside the throwoff (hope this makes sense). Reassemble the throwoff with these tubes on the bolts on either end of the mechanism. Now get a set of modern snare wires, and attach with a wire going through the tube. Works like a charm and you don't have to ruin the drum :)

I can take some pictures if you'd like

Would a trick strainer fit on a cob hi- Fi model?

On my hi- Fi (cob) I don't know why but even when my strainer is tight if I press on the wires they don't seem to be contacting the bottom head that well. I can tap them onto skin a bit if you know what I mean. I think the snare responce could be better. It does have a premier snare side head on, are they as good as remos or Evans reso heads? I just want it sounding the best it can if I start gigging with it, cos it is basically a very good sounding snare.

At this point I just want an easy to play and reliable snare and these Premier shells (or hoops / combination of whatever mojo is going on) sound great! I'm sure the wooden Hi-fis sound amazing too if the Royal Ace is any indicator. Although these are rare, they don't seem to be $500+ drums, so I'd even be interested a player's drum (in wood or COB). Not really a collector to that level, especially if all original it's only worth a few hundred bucks and the original parts are scarce AND flimsy.

The wood Royal Ace and Hi Fi are the same shell with different hardware