Bermuda can you get a good sound from a concert tom with a single ply head without any muffling? Or do you have to have muffling? I haven't tried them in sooo long
I haven't tried 1-ply heads on them, I think they'd be best-suited for the concert toms' original purpose: as melodic percussion toms played with mallets (remember, the term 'concert' was a reference to orchestral work, not a rock concert.) But I guess it depends on the style at hand, and the particular head. Not everyone is required to use hydraulics or black/silver dot heads, which were the fave heads for those drums... 35 years ago.
For me, muffling is more about taming the occasional banginess in a head, rather than trying to extract thump or control decay. Note the minimal tape (and mic placement) on the toms:
These toms were full, resonant, and only one of them required any eq (I think the 15".) Again, with a single head, there aren't any inherent weird overtones that a double-headed is subject to as a result of conflicting head tunings, the drum's size, and the note that size tends to dictate. So a good sound is easier to achieve, with the only sacrifice being some decay, which is lost in the context of the music anyway.
Unless you deliberately tune & muffle for deadness, there's no reason that concert toms can't sound great.
Bermuda