Quote Originally Posted by crispycritters View Post
I suspect that all 12" toms made by the same craftsmen, using the same high quality materials to the same specification, combined with strict quality control will produce a large number of almost identical sounding 12" toms. I doubt that DW have any difficulty finding other drums to match up with the 12inchers they produce - I suspect that product that is rejected is for quality control issues (i.e. someone screwed up rather than they have difficulty sonically matching it).

Drums made from the same materials, with the same dimensions, bearing edges, number of plies and shell thickness will not be appreciably different from each other. Manufacturers have known for ages which diameters and depths of shell complement each other and this has far more bearing on the results than this 'timbre matching' malarkey (IMO). I think this is just PR - anything that gets people to consider if this is relevant also makes them consider DW. As a PR exercise it works - but I'm not convinced it makes any appreciable difference.



Of course inability to tune makes everything else redundant
This brings up a factor that I'm still trying to understand completely. I know the depth has an effect on stick response, projection and even on the tone to an extent. I'm curious as to how & why manufacturers end up with the shell depths they do. I'm convinced there MUST be some kind of testing done, based on the wide array of shell depths. When you look at the depths on various new kits, you'll find variance (sometimes only 1/2") between 2 different intermediate lines.....same manufacturer, same basic shell construction. It makes no sense from a mfg. cost standpoint, so there must be a justifiable reason.