Quality control - based on price point

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llewis13

Member
I have an old Pearl Export kit and one of the toms has an ever so slight unevenness to the bearing edge on the batter side which makes tuning it a pain.

Obviously this isn't a top of the line set, but my experience with other Pearl gear has been good so I'm wondering if there's a price point where they just pay closer attention to detail on these things before they leave the factory. For example, is a Masterworks more expensive just because of the materials, or are they actually making sure the finer details are tip top?
 
common sense suggests expensive things are of higher quality and inexpensive things are mass produced without much care. with modern manufacturing standards imperfections are rare but still present, especially on lower end kits. i wouldn’t say there is a specific price point where there are drastically less manufacturing defects as some people have problems even with top end kits, it’s just less common as you go up the ladder.
 
llewis13 said:
I have an old Pearl Export kit and one of the toms has an ever so slight unevenness to the bearing edge on the batter side which makes tuning it a pain.
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Are you the original owner? If not, something could have happened to this one particular edge, and you'll never know. It only takes one drop to screw things up. Are there any drum shops in your area, that can repair it? If it's only "slightly" off, it probably just needs to be sanded on a flat table ..... and a new bearing edge cut. If you don't have a local .... there are plenty of shops you can send it to. Here's just one such service, that seems priced reasonable. https://www.saltdrums.com/edge.html
 
I've never had a QC issue with any Pearl product I've purchased, and I've been buying Pearl gear since the '80s. Every line from Export to Music City Custom has been free of noticeable flaw. That's one of the main reasons I've stuck with Pearl so long. Still, no manufacturer is immune to blunders. Errors occur in an imperfect world. Perhaps my luck has been unusual.

As @harryconway mentions, if you aren't the original owner of the kit, tracing the problem to its origin can be difficult.
 
C.M. Jones said:
I've never had a QC issue with any Pearl product I've purchased, and I've been buying Pearl gear since the '80s. Every line from Export to Music City Custom has been free of noticeable flaw. That's one of the main reasons I've stuck with Pearl so long. Still, no manufacturer is immune to blunders. Errors occur in an imperfect world. Perhaps my luck has been unusual.

As @harryconway mentions, if you aren't the original owner of the kit, tracing the problem to its origin can be difficult.
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I'm not the original owner, but I bought it from my friend when we were 16 so I know it didn't get much use and I know where it came from. I live in NY so I'm sure there are plenty of places I could take it to be sanded.

I've been playing long enough that maybe it's time to just buy a higher quality kit than pay to fix up the old Exports. I guess I just have hesitation because I don't want to shell out (pun intended) the cash only to find some QC issue with an edge or lug or something. So I'm curious if anyone who's paid up for the better kits has run into these sorts of issues.
 
I don't buy expensive drums in general, that's my preface, but I've played on many expensive drums especially in studio settings. I've owned several Tama kits/drums that are considered lower end including Swingstar, rockstar, club jam, cocktail jam, and miscellaneous snares and not once have ever had any issues with them from a QC standpoint. Great shells, edges, hardware, etc. I had a bad experience with a pearl roadshow kit from a QC standpoint but that seems to be a one-off fluke that slipped through and Pearl jumped through hoops to make it right. Both pearl midtown kits I've had have been flawless. I even had a sound percussion unity 4pc kit that was fine. The more boutique drums I've played on, like DW or Pearl masters or Noble & Cooley, have all been flawless works of art.

In all honesty the only real standout on the "piece of crap" scale is a Ludwig breakbeats, far worse then even the issues I had with the pearl roadshow, but to make matters worse Ludwig never even responded to my several emails let alone offer any resolution. I vowed to never give my money to Ludwig nor even buy used Ludwig gear ever again after that. Pearl may have let a stinker through but they really made it right, Ludwig can eat a D after the breakbeats issue I had.
 
llewis13 said:
I'm not the original owner, but I bought it from my friend when we were 16 so I know it didn't get much use and I know where it came from. I live in NY so I'm sure there are plenty of places I could take it to be sanded.

I've been playing long enough that maybe it's time to just buy a higher quality kit than pay to fix up the old Exports. I guess I just have hesitation because I don't want to shell out (pun intended) the cash only to find some QC issue with an edge or lug or something. So I'm curious if anyone who's paid up for the better kits has run into these sorts of issues.
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I wouldn't worry excessively about potential flaws. Pearl's factory work is reliable as a rule. Also, Pearl backs its gear with generous warranties, so if you detect a problem, resolving it shouldn't be an arduous task.
 
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