I don't feel invalidated, and my kit doesn't get "little love", it gets no love....but only here. Out in the real world, we both know, things are quite a bit different, and this forum is really just a small part of my life. Just a very warped sense of reality going down here a lot of the time. The fact that I never feel validated here either, I think says just as much. I'm still not buying a PDP M5 and calling it "porn" though. Matt's a big boy, he's got broad shoulders (figurative) and an awful lot of nice drums, he can handle it. Anyone that puts up that many "look what I got" posts can take a little ribbing.
What ribbing? I figure I'm on a drum forum, so I share my drums. This isn't that unlike Andy showing us new Guru drums from time-to-time. Heck, if I wasn't talking about my gear, or any gear, what would the point of being on this forum be? We can talk technique, we can talk attitudes about professionalism, but I'd say 90% of the time we talk about gear, since that's a tangible. Discussing practice techniques or how to read is cool, but there's really no way to gauge that into a discussion.
I just wanted to point out that I'm excited about this little kit. And since I own both classic maples and these, I can make the direct comparisons, and I do think they sound very close to my CM's. I'm set to put them into a live situation with other musicians next week so we'll see how they fare through that. But if it's a condensed version of my big CM's, there's probably nothing to worry about.
And I never made the argument that this is a high-end kit, well, that's not true. I sorta did because I'm saying it's sounding very much like my "pro" cm's. It's not super-expensive or dreamy, but if it gets the job done, that's what I'm all for at this point. I have high-end drums and just wanted to point out the fact that a lower-priced alternative is a very cool idea.
On the "DW not getting any love here", I think that's false. I think there's a lot of us here who just question the pricing. DW is like tickets to Disneyland. The price keeps going up but people keep buying them anyway. Perhaps that's the dilemma here? We should be asking why people keep buying them? People keep asking that about that at my work. And the corporation is sorta' saying "Well, the price has to go up because too many people want the product". DW is probably faced with the same thing. The drums must be flying off all the store shelves faster than they can keep up with demand, so naturally the price continues to rise? Anyway, I still like DW pedals and just started using them again, and my throne of the last 15 years is a DW throne.
What I'd really like to find is some old Camcos. Those are the DW drums
I like. And I've always liked the big turret lug.