Scored a sweet deal on a Sonor Safari

iostream

Junior Member
Living in a small house makes it hard to have even a small drum kit in it, so I've had my eye out for a good deal on one for a while. A month or so ago a deal that seemed too good to be true popped up in my local classifieds. It was a Sonor Safari in the red sparkle finish and they had it listed for $250, and claimed it was brand new. I was skeptical, since the cheapest I could see new online was $389. When I got there to check them out, to my happiness and surprise, it turned out to be legit. New in box, never been set up. Plastic wrap hadn't even been taken off. It was being sold by a company that basically buys stuff cheap from liquidation companies and then resells them. They were motivated to sell it locally because shipping a drum set is costly, and they really don't know drums very well.

Got them home, set them up, and they are awesome. I replaced the stock heads with Evans G2 clear over G1 clear, and Evans Genera HD Dry over Hazy 300 on the snare. I kept the stock bass heads on. I've been gigging with them 3 times so far, and they sound great in the restaurant we play at. Bass is nice and punchy, toms have a great attack and resonance. The snare is not bad, either. And they are so much easier to drag around than my larger kit, which isn't even that large (a Mapex Meridian Maple 5 piece with a 20" bass.) The larger kit now lives in my band's rehearsal space, which is awesome because I don't have to drag it back and forth from the house.

Anyhoo, I'm pretty stoked about the deal, here are some pics before I swapped out the heads.
 

Attachments

  • safari1.jpg
    safari1.jpg
    315.1 KB · Views: 824
  • safari2.jpg
    safari2.jpg
    319.1 KB · Views: 291
  • safari3.jpg
    safari3.jpg
    381.6 KB · Views: 236
Congrats- Good looking kit, great color and great price. I paid that much for my used Safari 3 years ago and have used it extensively. Drums perform and sound as you described once the heads were switched out. The bass drum in particular benefited from a replacement batter, which was a black Evans chrome (there wasn't an Emad or PS3 in that size in 2012).

Did your kit come with the ride cymbal arm or did you install that? If not stock, what brand is the arm?
It looks like an efficient way to use the tom shaft. I might try that if it has held up OK for you as this eliminates another full cymbal stand to lug around.
 
Wow, that barely takes up more floor space than a refrigerator. Looks like you found a pretty good deal, nice little set-up. Good job!
 
Thanks, guys, I'm really pleased with it.

@newoldie, That's just a boom arm with a clamp, and I'm not sure of the brand. It did not come with the kit. I'll try to get a better picture of it. You have to make sure your arm is long enough for the cymbal, mine barely is. I'll get a better picture and post it later.
 
Back
Top