Worst expensive snare you've ever owned?

pgm554

Platinum Member
My personnel nominee is this Yamaha 9000 which I owned back in the day.

The over engineered throw was a mess to tune and always rattled or buzzed no matter the heads or tuning.

I thought it was a bargain when i bought it back in the 80's ,but couldn't get it out the door fast enough after a week or two of ownership.

I see one listed for $5oo on CL right now and I'm just chuckling at anybody foolish enough to buy it.
 

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All the snares I've ever owned have been good - some exceptional, but there's quite a few I've worked on that have shocked me with the horrible construction quality & dime pinching, considering the price.
 
I researched every snare I've owned extensively before buying. I knew what I was getting.

When things weren't right on a professional level snare it was always the setup.

Now, there are plenty of snares I don't really care for personally and my taste is quite different from most locals. They seem to have the idea that there's only one type of snare sound, one way to tune and that overtones are always bad. lol

Not a fan of most Yamaha's in general. I like my Club Custom, which was pretty cheap, really, but if I had to choose one drum of that type as my only drum it'd be a BroadKaster.

Gretsch tend to cheap out on metal parts, but they sound great.
 
That snare I bought with my eyes.

Yamaha at the time was really getting a buzz as the go to drum company ,so for about $180 used,I thought it was a steal.

There are very few snares that I thought I couldn't make sound good ,but this wasn't one of them.

If anybody pays $500 for that one ,God bless em'.
 
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Well it's not the worst, and I liked it in the store and for the first month. But after a short time, I didn't care for it. I'm not telling you which one so it doesn't offend anyone here who just got one.
 
I don't how expensive it was, but the 5x14" DW aluminum Collector's snare was choked and useless. The good news is, it was a gift.

The better news is, I gave it back! :)

Bermuda
 
Dunnett 6.5 X 13 titanium. Never sounded good despite endless hours messing with it.
 
I was never really pleased with a Yamaha 14" X 6.5" birch snare drum purchased back in '79.
A sales rep recommended it to me. It's not that it was bad, it just wasn't what I expected.
To this day I've never been much of a fan for Yamaha snares, or for most ply snares.
 
I don't how expensive it was, but the 5x14" DW aluminum Collector's snare was choked and useless. The good news is, it was a gift.

The better news is, I gave it back! :)

Bermuda

I bet those big turret lugs were part of the problem. Was it a thick or thinner shell?
 
DW collectors series 10 and 6. Sounded like playing on a cardboard box and the Delta throw was awful. Clanky, not smooth and weight was like a brick, changed it to a mag throw but didn't help the sound at all. Dadgum snare looked great though!
 

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I'm actually not at all surprised that this is turning into a Yamaha and DW thread.

John seems to want to make a snare out of anything that's possible to physically construct a snare out of. Must mean a few clunkers. I'll probably never part with my DW 9000 pedals and hats, those are wonderful, but at the same time they don't really have much else that I like.

Yamaha makes some fine kits, though. PHX are great and the lower lines give you more bang for your buck than most.
 
So I owned a Joyful Noise 6.5x14 soared copper snare which just sounded harsh to my ears, and didn't like to stay in tune. The buyer I found for it agreed but for the price I offered, took a chance on it. Sad thing was that the patina was just gorgeous.

Ironically the three Joyful Noise snares I still own go to the grave with me. They're as good as any metal snares that I've encountered. Extraordinary instruments which are superbly crafted. That soared copper just didn't work for me for some reason.
 
Gretsch USA Custom 6.5” x 14” in Steve Maxwell exclusive Espresso Burst wrap , I also had the matching 20/12/14 kit. This snare and kit were both incredibly mediocre. Not terrible, just nothing special at all.

The snare in particular never did anything for me. I have never been a fan of Gretsch USA Custom snares but decided to give them one more chance. Wish I had not. The quality of workmanship was terrible, the wrap was cut back almost a half to three quarters of an inch from the bearing edge. The edges were not well done and not as smooth as you would expect from a snare at this price.
 
I've never been happy with any of the DW snares I've had. They were all Collector's series, so of course, they cost more than any other snare I've owned, and quite frankly turned me off of maple snares for quite some time because I figured they'd all be bad after that. Ludwig and Gretsch cured me of that thought though.
 
The quality of workmanship was terrible, the wrap was cut back almost a half to three quarters of an inch from the bearing edge...

Not to get off topic, but isn’t that normal? Every one I’ve seen has been that way!
 
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Gretsch tend to cheap out on metal parts, but they sound great.

I own two Brooklyn snares, and all the metal parts are top notch. So while I agree with the last half of that sentence, I'm not sure where you're coming from with the first half. Unless you're referring to their Catalina line, in which case yes, their metal parts are crap. But all of their USA made snares feature heavy-duty diecast parts, with some of the nicest chrome plating I've seen. In fact, part of the reason why Gretsch drums are so heavy is because of those heavy die cast lugs and hoops. Even the snare throw and butt plate are diecast.

That said, the worst expensive snare I've owned has to be the Gretsch Full Range maple snare with wood/maple countoured hoops. While it was really more of a mid-level snare, it was nonetheless a pretty big disappointment. It was supposed to combine the woody, throaty response of maple hoops with the durability of metal hoops, though in reality the metal insert rose above the wood hoop, so rimshots were contacting all metal and thus sounded like a metal hoop. And because the contoured parts of the wood hoops made it thinner around the tension rod holes, they began to crack around the holes just from head tension. And if that weren't enough, the metal insert kept coming loose and occasionally popped out altogether. Not to mention the tensionable butt plate kept loosening up while playing, to the point where the snares were floppy and loose by the end of a single song.

I ended up getting a replacement batter hoop and butt plate under warranty, but then the metal insert popped out the very first time I played it with the new hoop. That was it for me. I epoxied the metal insert into the hoop as best as I could, then immediately sold that sucker. I love Gretsch, but man that snare was a turd.
 
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