Very interesting variety of choices. I guess I would fall into the wood snare class of players. I've had a huge collection of metal snares over the years.
I always seem to come back to the warm sound of wood. My current arsenal
(favorite first). A
pearl free floater with 5" shell.
Pearl free floater 8" shell,
Leedy 8x14 white
pearl, PDP 5x14 blue onyx,
Tama 6 1/2x14 steel,
Pulse 3 1/2x14 steel piccolo. The 5" free floater can hurt my ears from 3" off the head-It CUTS. The cheap little
pulse piccolo sounds amazing with a
Evans genera dry. Takes all the ringy, tinny sound away.