i've noticed that drums don't sound the same to the audience and the drummer.
Yes!
If its nice to the audience and not to the drummer its kinda disappointing because thats not the sound the drummer is hearing right? How is he gona play well if the sound isnt what he likes and he has to stick with that just to make the audience happy
Who are you playing for? If all a drummer does is play in his practice room he can get any sound he wants that pleases him. When you're playing out you're playing for the paying customers, who don't hear (and wouldn't care) what it sounds like from behind the kit.
This is true of pretty much all acoustic instruments, by the way.
If you're miked, you can get the sound you hear from behind the kit out to the audience. But if you're unmiked,
lots of things change.
Hearing the unmiked kit from out front will teach you first and foremost that the muffling simply has to go.
If you play with very muffled heads (or external muffling devices), you will hear the attack--but no tone and not much pitch--from your toms, your snare will sound soft and lifeless, and your bass drum may not be heard at all.
For playing live unmiked I keep the toms wide open and tuned for maximum sustain (both batter and reso at the same pitch) the snare wide open (lots of ring--well tuned, it's a pleasant ring) and the bass drum with full reso and nothing in the drum.
The sound from out front is excellent: the toms sound loud and with good pitch differentiation, the snare is loud and lively, and the bass drum can be heard through the band.
If that kind of sound drives you crazy in your practice room you can always throw studio rings on everything and throw a pillow in the bass drum. But the truth is, once you hear your drums for a while as they
really sound (without muffling out all that nice tone you paid good money for), you get used to it and it's the overly-muffled sound that will drive you nuts.