Sonor Force 3003 vs AQ2

[Remobeater]

Hi all,

Been awhile since I posted here. I'm doing some home recording and covers in a studio a built in my basement and working on cleaning up my sound and have been playing 18yrs. I'd like to make some cool YouTube covers, join a band and do some small gigs at some point in the next couple years now that our kids are getting older. So thinking about upgrading the old Sonor Force 3003 kit I've had since about 2006. I pieced together a second bass drum and 8", 10" toms on the Studio setup so it's a 8pc set. It sounds decent with good Remo emperor clear heads and PS3, but the 2nd bass was painted and sprayed with foam inside and I had to clean it up a lot. The edges are really bad too and overall sounds a little off.

So I was thinking about upgrading to a new 7pc AQ2 since I just got a martini version for the kids and it sounds nice. But not sure if the quality is worth the upgrade vs the Force 3003 from 15yrs ago. Also considering the SQ1 and SQ2 but those are starting to get ridiculously expensive for a larger kit. I'd feel guilty having such a nice kit without playing professionally. I'd like to keep the 2nd kick and legit mic'd setup and feel loyal to Sonor after so many years. Maybe worth looking at the TAMA Starclassic for a more reasonable quality package though? I wish I could try them before I buy them as well but if I order a custom package there's no way to do that. It doesn't seem the same listening to YouTube videos as with my heads, mics and playing style (I've checked out so many).

Any suggestions appreciated...

[MDK]

Always tough, I used to live next to dcp and I could go in and play any kit that was available and hear them in person. That can be great but can also be expensive as I ended up buying and selling a lot of kits, snares, and cymbals. I was starting to approach Bish level but my wife put the kibash on that. Usually, if you can find a few used ones near you on cl or marketplace most people will usually let you try them out before you buy. Sonor is top-notch, never had an issue with any I ever had, and of all the kits I had and sold the one I wish I never sold was a Sonor special edition Beech kit. I think I have the review somewhere on this site.

[Remobeater]

Thanks MDK. Still looking around and working on the budget... I'm also looking at DW Performance Series. Could be somewhat in the price range and seems like really high quality stuff from DW. I've been using their pedals and HW for years. Might have played the perf series sets in guitar center years ago and sounded excellent but never thought I could afford one...seems competitive looking at more pro quality sets.

[Bish]

I have been contemplating selling my DW Performance series kit since I'm no longer gigging. If you have any interest, let me know and we can talk about it. For me the Performance series sounded better than my Collectors and I ended up buying my 2nd Performance series kit due to the sound/finish quality. Now they are just sitting in cases wanting to be heard. lol