Pearl Vision Kit .. your thoughts

L

lostprophet

Junior Member
Just wondering if anyone has had a chance to check out pearls new vision kit and what your thoughts on them are.. ?

Thanks heaps
Lost
 
some guy i know bought a set and said they sounded really good. Until one of the shells broke. Apparently though it was a freak occurence and the shop are dealing with it.
 
The Visions are basically the new Exports. There are several different series though.

VX-birch/basswood(basic wrap)
VSX-birch/basswood(exotic? wrap)
VLX-birch/basswood(lacquer)DISCONTINUED
VBX-birch(lacquer)
VMX-maple(lacquer)

I've played some of the birch/ basswood kits and they seemed like a great kit for the money. No complaints on the look or sound of the kit. I would have to upgrade the ISS mounts and the hoops eventually though. Not that it wouldn't be fine as is, just not as beefy as I would prefer. Still, you have to cut corners somewhere to offer quality kits for cheap. For the money, lots of bang for the buck.

This is nothing specific to the Vision series, but I don't like Pearls wraps. They don't seem tight enough on the shells. Something to check out for yourself before you drop the cash.
 
I just bought one around Christmas to have a practice kit for my home (I hate practice pads, and in fact haven't owned one in thirty years), and something I can abuse for travel. I got it for a little over $800. I bought the birch/basswood lacquer clear birch, which looks really good in person (althought the pics look terrible). These are the first coming out of their new plant in China I gather. I am impressed with the hardware-pedal, stands. The protone 2-ply heads don't sound bad on the toms, and in fact I am not going to change them till I wear em out (remember it is a glorified practice pad). The bass and toms sound fantastic for a cheapo set (the floor tom really projects and is loud). The sensitone snare is a decent snare. I am not a fan of the ISS so I was thinking of changing them to optimounts but I don't think it would be worth it if I resale them (although I usually give away my old kits to beginners). My only problem is the hoops. I don't know if it is cheap chinese metal or what. I note all my hoops have inconsistencies and I don't know if the persons at the shop who put the kit together for display warped and bent them or what. The snare upper hoop is notably asymmetical, and it has influenced the tuning. I looked over the kit before I bought it but didn't notice the hoops. I keep waiting for the hoops to bend and warp from the ISS mounts given my suspicion of poor metal. I have been wanting to make a video so people could hear and see my experience with the kit-a review vid. The kit is a five piece fusion with 10,12, and 16 inch toms. Now they offer the Vision in all birch and all maple, and it is the replacement for the exports. You could buy an all birch Tama Superstar SK Hyper Drive 6-Piece Drum Kit for about $100 more, and I think it is probably a better value. On a personal note. I have always been a Pearl Masterworks fan, but my loyalties to Pearl are waning. Oddly enough I can afford any kit I want, but I am the kind of guy who rather drive a Honda Fit than a Jaguar. I like the idea of buying cheap kits and changing heads and tweaking them to sound good. I believe most of the sound comes from the heads (arguably), and I note different makers and different woods sound different per maker. Just call me frugal, but I am not going to spend $10,000 dollars on drums that sit in my basement and no one hears. I play for personal enjoyment,hobby, and exercise (I have had to give up my 10 mile a day running addiction). I have gotten waylaid to play at a church I attend, but I prefer rock and jazz. The kit at church is a Pearl Masterworks maple. I should add that the hardware is just as important as anything about a drum kit. A bubinga shell would sound like crap with poor mounts, hoops, heads, etc., and having toms mounted on the kit influences the sound of all of them. Still for a beginning kit I recommend the Pearl. Just needs some good Zildjian K cymbals and you are ready to go.
 
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I own a maple Session Custom and I presumed that the Vision drum kit was a replacement since the Session Custom's have been discontinued. Or is that the Pearl Masters Custom now? Do Vision kits actually come with a sensitone snare? That's pretty impressive. But how exactly is the kit any better than an Export?
 
Thanks for the input peeps :).

I just recently got a pearl vision in the clear birch finish. At the shop it came down to the pdp X7 or the vision kit. Since my g/f and I are trying out best to save most of our money for our house deposit I thought it was best to go for the vision.

Drumming has was just a slight hobby of mine ages ago but now I have decided to make it a bigger thing in my life ( i.e practing 2-3 hours a day if I can) So my idea was to get this kit and then slowly build on it. the sensitone snare is great but hoping to get a new one in a couple of months.

In Australia ( where I am ) the vision kits are about $1800 but I got mine for $1500. So it wasnt too expensive so I can still slowly upgrade the kit and still save money for a house..

any other thoughts on where I should look at to upgrade the kit? I hear a lot of ppl thinking of upgrading the ISS mount. Any ideas on what too ?

Thanks once again
Lost
 
Shaggy Alonso said:
I own a maple Session Custom and I presumed that the Vision drum kit was a replacement since the Session Custom's have been discontinued. Or is that the Pearl Masters Custom now? Do Vision kits actually come with a sensitone snare? That's pretty impressive. But how exactly is the kit any better than an Export?
Click to expand...


Yeah they do come with a sensitone but it is a steel .. if only it was a brass >:)
 
I believe all the export kits are made of poplar. The Visions are birch/basswood (which I think maybe discontinued), all birch, or all maple. The added thickness of the floor toms is like the reference series, which give it more boom baby. I wish they offered the maple in the clear birch finish as I would opt for the all maple ply 12 inch tom, which is like the reference series. The 8 and 10 inch reference have lots of birch and little maple, and the floor toms and bass add mahogany to the birch and maple plies. I may buy the all birch clear birch lacquer 8 inch and 14 inch toms to fill my kit out since they are so reasonably priced, although I still may be able to purchase the birch/basswood toms in the same finish. The more I reflect the more I may go ahead and start experimenting with different heads to see what kind of sounds I can get from these babies. Change the ISS to optimounts and with an all maple 12 inch tom you could create the poor man's reference kit. Hee, hee.
 
The MCX is the replacement for the old maple sessions, I don't think they've come up with a Birch replacement yet. The vision is a new series to replace some of the discontinued "higher-end" exports such as the EXR's and ELX's. The Visions really don't much better than the all poplar exports to me, use the crappy ISS mounts, cheap hoops and so-on.

I have always been a Pearl Masterworks fan, but my loyalties to Pearl are waning.
Click to expand...

I feel you man. I played Pearl for eighteen years, but their more recent kits have drove me away. I've always liked other names too, such as ludwig, gretsch, DW, so-on. Pearl was at one time my favorite, but they are far from it now.
 
my neighbour got a maple vision for his son and they sounded good and the quality was good i agree that the ISS mounting isnt the best but its a small thing and the wraps are decent enough i was actually going to buy one because they were cheap all maple and looked great but i decided to save up for a masters premuim which is coming in two months which im very EXCITED for.and as a company i think pearl is improving every year there quality is top notch and i have never seen a problem with pearl kits from export to masterworks i guess im a little bias because my local drum store is a pearl dealer and all they have is pearls but still i belive pearl is one of the top drum companies in todays markets,except that they got rid of satin hardware that was a bad move by them

thats my $0.02
 
I just got the new line of the vision birch (vbl). I bought a 12",13",14",16",16",18",24",24". All in the natural birch finish. I have the th2000i tom arms and Ludwig black beauty snare. The kit sounds amazing very thick sound. I have only two problems with pearl... 1. Thee Intergrated suspension system or (iss) mounting system. I like that the toms are suspended, but I don't like the idea that it is mounted to the hoop. Over a period of time my hoops will bend and will need replaced. But they do give more tone, so it's a win lose with the suspension mounting. And the last problem I have is with the new vision birch series. The older vbx series is discontinued and the cool thing with them was the specs were the same as the reference series or masterworks series. Having the toms 6 ply and floor toms and kicks 8 ply, just to give you a little more low end where it's needed. The new VBL series is all 6 ply. Which still isn't s big difference, but i guess it just bugged me a little bit. Over all I paid about 3k for my kit off Massmusic.com great costumer response and fast shipping. If your thinking about getting the vision series I would highly recommend it. So far best drums I've played. Oh! And the stock heads are pearl's pro-tone hydraulic heads, I don't know if they came with the vbx series, but they don't sound to bad! Very nice on pearl's part. The company is getting smarter over the years. Love pearl baby!
 
Bought my son a vision kit a couple of years ago. Loads of problems. Truly dreadful bearing edges to 2 drums, 3 hoops you can't even get a head to fit into the ring, 1 x out of round tom shell, several harware failures (typically the plastic sleeve on cymbal arms breaking in half), & to top it all, THE worst suspension/mounting system ever. Give me the old Exports any day. Totally not a fan!
 
The Pearl Visions series (for the price) are awesome drums!
You can pick up new drums with hardware for under a grand, or if you look on ebay or craigslist you can luck out and get them for 3 to 5 hundred bucks.
The UK drum magazine gives these drums a 4 out of 5 star rating and (for the price) in the top 3 drum sets in the intermediate level. As a second kit for me they hit the mark, they sound great and I won't loose sleep if someone spills a beer on it in a show.
 
GetAgrippa said:
I play for personal enjoyment,hobby, and exercise (I have had to give up my 10 mile a day running addiction).
Click to expand...

Hey there, I've not given up my running daily 7+ miles while still drumming. There's room in life for two addictions! Health first, then drumming is my mantra :)

Peace.
 
I just bought a huge kit from GC. I cant wait for it to arrive.
Pearl Vision Clear Birch finish:

Bass
(2) 24x18 Virgin

Floor Toms
16x16
18x16

Rack
16x13
14x11
13x10
12x9

Snare
Tama 14x7 Backbeat B/B
 
Azmedian said:
I just bought a huge kit from GC. I cant wait for it to arrive.
Pearl Vision Clear Birch finish:

Bass
(2) 24x18 Virgin

Floor Toms
16x16
18x16

Rack
16x13
14x11
13x10
12x9

Snare
Tama 14x7 Backbeat B/B
Click to expand...

Wow,... that is a huge kit. Should be fun to play. I have a 7 piece Pearl Vision fusion kit that sounds great. Enjoy.
 
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