Me personally I like the Yamaha system the best. Very sturdy, little to no bounce when you hit the drum.
I'm most interested in how my drums sound, so I use RIMS mounts. No matter where in their range I want to tune my drums, RIMS still do the best job of isolating the drum from the hardware. I don't have to change heads every couple of days, so the little bit of hassle is no big deal. I don't play 3 or 4 rack toms in front, so a little more space between drums is not an issue. The drums may move a little more when struck, but not anywhere near enough to affect my playing. I like the ability to use different mounting brackets - I can use L rods on rack toms and Pearl tubes on floors if I want.
If this is is the case, they might as well put a lug right on the drum itself. If their "suspension" mounts are already pretty rigid, there's no point of any sort of suspension system. I'm not implying that this is a bad thing necessarily.
This is my thoughts exactly. I love using the ball-and-socket mounting system. My only beef with a RIMS-type mount is that (from my experience), they don't work well on anything above a 14" drum. It's not the RIMS system itself...it's what you have to mount to. The ball-and-socket works well with a big drum for a while, but it tends to slip over time. My 16" floor tom has a RIMS mount on it, and I've had to by a cradle/basket for it because the "ball" in the ball-and-socket mount slips. I'm on my third one right now, and I'm tired of messing with it. This drum set never gets torn down and set up, and it probably gets about several hours of playing on it in a week.
Pearl tubes? Out of all of the great things that Pearl has done, I have no idea why they haven't abandoned those mounts. Those things are horrid for a variety of reasons. I know they probably have millions of them in stock, but they should start phasing those out.
I dont particularly run after suspension mount. As long as nothing protrude inside the drum it's ok to me. Parallel mount like Lud, Tama or Premier made were simple and efficient. No wheight added. I have seen suspension system generating rod buzz, heavy, or painful to use. I guess that's why YESS is popular, it is hardly a suspension. Simple, efficient and well Made. Does it work well for 16" toms still ? Always had doubt about those two screws parallel to the floor holding such a heavy Tom.
Before I turned my 16" Yamaha rack tom into a floor tom, I never had any issues with the YESS mount putting stress on the shell - at least not in any sort of way that would cause damage. The tom sounds a lot better as a floor tom, but then, most 16" toms do sound better as floor toms in my opinion.
Thx for your answer, it's somewhat strange that your Tom sounds now better on three feet isn't it ?!
I have never had any issues with rattling or whatsoever on my three Tamas with Starcast mount. Super-easy, super-reliable, super-sturdy. But as I said earlier, others suspension-systems are also very nice from my experience... there is no holy grail....I've never had any issues with them at all except for minor rattling when they aren't installed properly!
The only problem I have with them is using mic clips...I use the Tama Star Cast mounts on my rack toms and they're great. They're easy to adjust quickly and offer a full range of motion for the adjustments, and I've never had any issues with them at all except for minor rattling when they aren't installed properly!
In my experience, it's quite normal to get a bit more sustain and resonance out of a floor tom than a mounted tom, even though you've got three times the hardware-to-shell contact. I think the balance on the shell is better, compared to the tension you'll have with almost any mounting system. It might also be an effect of vibrations grounding out through the legs. I don't know, I'm a social scientist, not a physicist. Andy might have a better take on why this is.