Premier

Bought on ebay several years ago for $585 US. 4 piece no hardware, no snare. The sound is excellent, especially with aquarian coated studio-x heads. I still have yet to replace the premier resonator heads but they will have to go soon-they are pretty crummy. The finish is beautiful. My kit is a tobacco fade laquer. It is also easier to play (for me) as the sizes are smaller-20" bass drum, 10 and 12" rack toms, and 14" hanging floor tom. I like the hanging floor tom because it gives me a little more versatility in where I can place it, and opens up the sound more. I am also not worried about it tipping over as long as I have it mounted to a boom stand. At first, I liked the low mass lugs but upon closer inspection and tuning I realized that they seemed to be "buzzing" a bit. I am planning on removing all of the hardware from the shells to isolate the noises and then dampen them so this shouldn't be a problem. I also don't like the tom mount shaft. It is way too long for me and goes down into the bass drum for about a foot. The tom arms are ok, though, with a ball and socket joint to provide the most minute adjustments. The construction is very good. The XPK's are made up of about 40% birch (outer and inner plies) and about 60% eucalyptus (middle plies). At first this bothered me a little but after doing the research I found that some custom drum makers use eucalyptus as a tone wood and attest to its strength and durability. The construction of the individual plies themselves is also very well done; looking at the drum from the bearing edges and the inside, the drums look and feel very solid. I have no worries about playing this set for a very long time. This is an excellent kit for the money. Yeah, there are better kits out there, but you might have to sacrafice an arm to get one. If you need to stay within a budget (under 800 used is the current price), Premier is the way to go. I only think they are cheap because not a lot of people know about them and I don't think guitar center carries much premier stuff if any. I see a lot of premier kits on stage as well so I am confident they would hold up to gigging. 4/5 for value, construction, and sound. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought this from a local store in India and it cost me Indian Rupees 30,000/ ie, about 800$. I don't know what is the price in USA or europe, but it is average for a medium pro kit in India. Perhaps the colour. I bought a metallic blue kit, which looked very good. Tone. The tone sucks. And the everplay skins that they come up from the factory are unusable for a gig level drummer. As for the construction and quality I would say that it is a waste as far as hardware is considered. I play heavily and my high hat stand was dead after six months. My bass pedal bended after 1 year and now I've got a broken Tom holder. Comes with one boom stand only and that one sucks. The only people i would recommend this kit to is kids below 15 yrs who play softly. This is a real waste of money and i'm going to buy a new kit. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I ordered this kit from Electro Music in Doncaster and piad £760 for it, with a load of extras thrown in. Great price, great shop. The kit is 10x8 & 12x9 toms, 14x14 & 16x16 Floor Toms, 14x5 snare and 22x18 Bass Drum. The sound is awesome. The snare has a beautiful woody tone with a really nice crack. 10 and 12 inch toms are responsive with a good tone. Floor toms sound really good with a real punch even when tuned low. The best bit is the bass drum. Tuned really low the sound is massive but with good punch. Colour is rosewood fade satin sheen. Really nice. 6000 series hardware is faultless. The toms have good memory locks which fit perfectly to the ISO holders, stylish and practical. I actually order a rosewood gloss finish and was initially given a delivery date of 8 weeks. After 3 weeks I was told by Premier that I'd have to wait much longer for that particular finish but they did offer a new alternative, the rosewood fade in satin. This looks great so its not really a complaint. The kit was delivered on time even with the additional 16x16 floor tom that I ordered. A few little niggles. 1) The top hoop on the snare was delivered with a big dint in it. It looked like it had been badly cast, the kit really should not have been sent out with this hoop on. Electro music changed this immediately so really no problem. 2) The bass drum hoops could be better finished. The final finish on the edges is a bit rough. The finish on the hoops is not as good as the finish on the rest of the kit. 3) The supplied skins are not too great, it wont be long before I fit Evans G2s all round. This kit looks great and sounds great. For this kind of money I don't think you can buy better. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

The Premier 202 Drum Set is a kit from the late 1960's with a big sound. While it's definitely an old school sounding kit, it's still really tight for it's age. We have this kit at the recording studio that I work at, and it gets used quite a bit. We have a few different drum sets including a vintage Ludwig and a number of snare drums and accessories, but I would say that more or less this is our main kit. It's not going to be the best choice for all types of music, but we do mostly indie rock and it works great for this. I think that there are probably a number of incarnations of this kit in terms of different drum sizes, but ours is a four piece kit consisting of a 22" kick drum, a 16" floor tom, and both 14" and 13" tom toms. I don't think we have the original snare for this, or at least it doesn't get used with the kit that often since we have so many others. I'm really a big fan of this kit as it's one of the best sounding kits I've used from the 60's. I don't know how easy to get these kits would be, but since they're pretty old I would think that most of them wouldn't be in great shape. While I don't know if it would be worth it to seek out as your main drum set, it's definitely a perfect compliment drum kit for drummers looking to get another type of sound. Don't get me wrong, it could definitely be a great primary kit, it just depends on what kind of sound you're going for. Don't know much about the cost or anything like that, but the Premier 202 Drum Set is definitely something worth checking out for any drummer!