Your personal least favorite set you actually owned.

My very first kit (1972) was an Apollo blue sparkle one mounted and a floor tom with kick and snare. The kit was made out of some kind of wood that look like wall paneling. My mom & dad were robed out of $300. Had it for a year before it fell a part.
 
Low hanging fruit first:

1990's Pearl Export I bought in 2002 for $200

They were a wreck and sounded like everything that's ever been wrong with every kit on the Bojangles Tom Angle thread. Yikes.
Granted they were abused and beyond redemption. New heads did nothing for them.

I bought the "Brick" a 20 ply monster by Ludwig. Epic series. On paper it looks like everything I could want. Meaty, cool keystone lugs, etc..
I just couldn't make it work. It was probably me but I still think there was something not quite right with it.

Gretsch Catalina Asian Mahogany matching snare for my bop kit. Poop. I'm not a shell snob, but it just sucks.

CB kit from my son's brief, "I'm gonna play drums" phase. I could actually get good sounds from the kit but the hardware was so China pot metal horrible that I made a coffee table out of the bass drum and actually used the toms for angry target practice at my most awesome home outdoor shooting range. It was fun to turn them into "ozone" shells.

I remember an old days Tama "Noob Star" kit that I had for a few months that I hated. It might have been me but it had that cheesy sticker badge look and "way too thick wrap" cheapo feel that I couldn't get over.

Just sayin', I do like inexpensive intermediate drums but I've definitely had some losers.
 
It wasn't my kit, but it was a kit I played at rehearsal for many years. It was a yellowed white Pearl Export set that just sounded bad. I tried different used heads I had and I tried my best with tuning, but no. I pride myself on being able to get a good sound out of any drum...but what this kit really needed was a good stripping and cleaning, bearing edge wax, gasket removal, interior polyurethane job to seal the porous interior of that awful granitone stuff, a lug and rod lube job, and ISO mounts for the racks and suspension feet for the floor toms. Plus new heads and probably a bearing edge re-do job. But it wasn't my kit, so I did none of that.
 
Although I LOVED them because they were my first set and my Dad bought them for me, I'd have to say my 1980's Remo PTS kit.

They didn't sound THAT bad, but the PTS heads were a pain in the butt and didn't sound good for very long.
 
The first kit I ever bought was sold to me by a so-called reputable drum dealer. It wasn't fit for purpose and had the bottom lugs for the toms missing. There was no skins on the other side of the toms, just the tackle end. It sounded absolutely horrible and he sold it to me for £300. It was just a standard premiere kit, don't know what kind of premiere it was.
 
That was clearly my first kit: a Hoshino Professional which was kind of a Pearl copy. It sounded dead whatever you did to it... Ended up with Pinstripes and tons of gaffer tape on it. After that I bought a Pearl BLX, later a MLX and again much later a MMP. Still own all of these kits minus the Hoshino...
 
Sonor force 3000, huge buyers remorse on that one. 16” Floor was meh, no matter how it was tuned and eventually went out of round. I only bought it because it was the first all maple kit to have owned.
 
I've played several kits that made me cringe, but they were usually house kits or other people's kits that I didn't have much luxury to tweak. But I have never owned a kit or snare myself that I couldn't get a good sound from. I've sold some things as my tastes and preferences changed, but never because they sounded bad.

One of my bands used to rehearse at the then-bass-player's house. He owns a beginner-level Ludwig made overseas with the Pearl-style arms. The kick sounds okay. The toms sound like complete garbo no matter what I do to them. He's got a full set of Sabian B8s on them. Kind of glad we don't rehearse there much anymore.
 
My worst set was a 1989 Pearl Export my bride gave me as a wedding present. Bad tone and I could never get the toms to the right angle. it didn't last long.

Right now I'm tinkering with a mid-2000s PDP MX set I bought from a church for $100. I've owned PDP before and I can normally get them to behave, but this one is trying to surpass the Pearl Export in terms of off-tone.
 
For me, Dunnett titanium snare and a Brady stave snare. Didn't like either. Then there's the Ludwig classic maples. Bass drum hoops don't fit non Ludwig heads which are impossible to find. Big ass ugly rims type mounts, and the rest of the hardware on the drums gives me the impression they are toy drums. In fairness they sound OK but my Collectors and Absolutes will do so much more.
I agree with you about the Dunnett snare. I had a Dunnett titanium snare at it was a terrible drum. It did have a nice, deep tone for backbeats. But it was the most unresponsive snare I've ever played. And the snares would work themselves loose at times. I've had different experience with my Ludwig Classics though. I have a 4 piece Sky Blue kit that have the best tone that I've ever played. I have an Aquarian super-kick on the 14 x 22 bass and it fits and sounds great. I have a larger Ludwig Classic that has two mounted toms and two floor toms. The bass drum is 18 x 22 and I have a Remo Powerstroke on it and it fits sounds great. I agree that the older Vibra Bands tom holders are terrible. But my newest Ludwig classic kit has the PMO048 tom holders and they are outstanding! I've always had great luck with Ludwig snare drums. With the exception of that Dunnett Titanium.

The worst drum kit I've ever had was a PDP. The floor tom was out of round and the mounted toms were hard to get a good sound out of. I think PDP are good drums, I just got a bad kit. I purchased the kit brand new around 2005.
 
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Never really disliked any of my kits down the years, there was always a little foible with one or two....Although a decent enough kit, Pearl MCX 22 kick drums are a little uninspiring and my Masters Premiums detuned themselves to death whenever I played them.

I've always had gripe with some snares though, probably because we rely on them to form such a main focus of our sound - Bought a 14x5 Pearl copper free floater just on the basis of it sounding incredible in the shop - sounded lifeless, thin and boxy in a dry sounding rehearsal space. That snare would only sound half decent in loud/lively rooms when I cranked it a little, but it just went back in its case for months then I sold it on. I also owned a 14x5.5 Tama B/B snare that was the loudest snare I've ever owned and again sounded great if it was a lively venue but once played in a controlled environment it sounded terribly thin and ´hi-pass´
 
Absolutely the worst built drum I've ever encountered was a brand new Gretsch USA custom snare brought to my workshop by a touring artist because he couldn't tune it up. I took the heads & hoops off both sides, & started by putting the shell batter side down on my inspection plate. At first, I thought they'd assembled it upside down with the snare beds on the batter side, but no, the batter edges really were that bad. I then tried the reso side. Edges just as bad, plus snare beds out of alignment. Not only that, the shell was out of round by 3/8". Overall, the shell was super poor quality. Voids everywhere, & really nasty quality inner ply. Considering it's a Keller production, I was surprised. Lugs were cheaply made & inconsistent. Internal fixings were the cheapest possible quality. Given the price paid, I was shocked.

How long ago was this ? Seemed Gretsch got their quality control in check these past years. Guess you can never be too sure...
 
People look at me cross-eyed whenever I tell folks to be careful whenever ordering new Gretsch USA drums. Granted, if you get a good set, they are fantastic; however, I've been reading about QC issues for year on their expensive USA drums. If I was to ever get a set, I'd open the box in the store and going over everything with a fine-tooth comb before taking them home.

A prime candidate for the Far-Eastern mid-range kits being much better-made than the American high-end ones. Say what you like about Far Eastern manufacturing but in the last ten years it has become more and more consistent to the point where quality control wouldn't even factor in my though process for buying.
 
My first brand new kit...
1986 Remo Encore Gray Quadura wrapped 5 piece plus hardware with Sound Vader cymbals. What the Hell was I thinkin' ??!!
 
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