[HBdrummer1]

I bought a set of HB's two years ago and I went for broke on them. I got the Predator Elite 12 piece (birch w/ black lacquer) and added 3 roto's to the order. The hardware left something to be desired but the drums sound awesom... very deep & boomy. I was fairly impressed with what I got for the $$$ I laid out, the shells are more than you expect. If you do decide to buy HB's get as little hardware as you can with the kit and don't waste your money on the cymbals they offer, and if you get the 12 pc set you will definitely want to add a rack and chuck their extra tom stands. If you play out a lot their Duke series with the suspension mounts will probably take more abuse. I am planning on the addition of a rack for mine for xmas.

[PearlVSX]

QUOTE=HBdrummer1;13223]I bought a set of HB's two years ago and I went for broke on them. I got the Predator Elite 12 piece (birch w/ black lacquer) and added 3 roto's to the order. The hardware left something to be desired but the drums sound awesom... very deep & boomy. I was fairly impressed with what I got for the $$$ I laid out, the shells are more than you expect. If you do decide to buy HB's get as little hardware as you can with the kit and don't waste your money on the cymbals they offer, and if you get the 12 pc set you will definitely want to add a rack and chuck their extra tom stands. If you play out a lot their Duke series with the suspension mounts will probably take more abuse. I am planning on the addition of a rack for mine for xmas.[/QUOTE]
Man, I bought a set of the Dukes or should I say PUKES!. No QC whatsoever! Shells are out of round, bearing edges are flat in areas. Absolutely JUNK!!! I paid $400 FOR THIS GARBAGE!!! I sold this pile of crapola for $100! I will NEVER buy from that company AGAIN! ABSOLUTELY A 100 percent RIPOFF!!! Sounds like more spam from hbdave!?!? Dude post a pic of your setup! I gotta see this!!

[wheel]

I was on ebay the other day looking for something unrelated to drumming, thought I'd check out HB, i think he's gone from ebay. Anyone have any info on why??

[UPSTROKE]

I promoted the purchasing of offshore drums a few months ago. I started out being curious about the Chinese drum product and market. I dealt with a lot of different companies. Most of them are just selling drums that are made by someone else in China. The best company I found to deal with by far was Music 126. A lady named Gillian is the sales manager & she is incredible. Every other company that I dealt with turned into a major problem. Extremely poor knowledge of the product, coupled with a very poor knowledge of the English language. Most companies are trying very hard to get better.

DB Percussion is in a class all by itself. I have NEVER seen a crappier product put out by ANY company. I ordered the snare drum that was on the front cover of their catalog. A beautiful photo of a white stained Birch kit with gold hardware. In basic terms. "WHAT A PIECE OF CRAP". EVERY LUG on the drum is crooked & out of line with the next one. All of the hardware is CRAP. The Alleged Gold hardware looks like some cheap tinsel from a whore house. More like a garish brass color. The drum shell was horrible. The shell had lumps and bumps all over it. The laminations stuck out where they overlapped. There were delaminations in the plywood shell that made bumps. The finish was thin & chinsey. If I can remember how to download photos on to this site I will include the pics that I sent back to DB. They couldn't understand what was wrong.

I can't seem to download my pics. I think they are too large . I'll try again & see if I can show you what a junk shop this company is. They have a rep in the U.S. named Tomo Meek. He tried to help some, but it was useless. He sent me two of their "Pro-line " drums. Apparantly "Pro-line" in Chinese means "The cheapsest junk we could make". The snares that he sent me were horrible. The snare strainer is made of plastic. (one of them was busted when I received the package). The snare bed is a screwed up mess. and yes -the lugs are also out of line. I can't even give the dam things away.

Have a nice day, I will be back with pictures of the crap as soon as I figure out how to make my pics a smaller size.

[UPSTROKE]

Dang-- I still can't load these pics. They are jpegs reduced to 25 to 34 kb each.
I will keep trying tomorrow. I sincerely believe it is very important for each of you to see what can be in store for you from a company like DB Percussion. I've been a drummer for over 60 years. I have built, re-built and re-modeled drums for many customers. I KNOW what a well made drum should look and sound like.
The crap that I recieved from DB isn't even good enough to call junk.

Please don't mis-understand, I'm NOT whining about money. They never have sent me my money back & I really don't care. The cost of the drum with freight was only about $154.00. I figure it was a hard lesson learned. I would like to convince some of you not to make the same mistake with this company that I did.

Best advice--BUY AMERICAN. Even though almost all of the lower end drum sets are coming from the Orient, the American companies have FAR BETTER QUALITY CONTROL of the product. If you have sniffed around in a few of the Chinese sites, you will find that many of the online websites have American sponsored companies putting out the same set under their name at a far lower price after you add the freight from China. A single drum or a single drum set must be shipped by AIR FREIGHT as a sample by them. Freight on just a snare drum is about $100.00 If you pay about $50 bucks for their drum plus about $100 bucks to ship it you could buy one in the U.S. cheaper. You will get a better product at a better price with no problems. The American companies have huge contracts with a few companies & buy product by the container. Why mess with a good thing? Visit your local music store and buy a garaunteed product

[PearlVSX]

HA! hbdrums are made by DBpercussion and are complete GARBAGE! Now, like you illuded to, NOT everything made in the orient is junk. I own a set of Pearl Vision (VBX) birch drums that are wonderfully crafted and sound beautiful! Difference here is, Pearl owns the factories in Taiwan and in China, so QC is top notch all the way across the board! Pearl is one of those companies that make all their own shells and own all the dies for their hardware pieces. The WHOLE drum is Pearl! Absolutely a fabulous quality instrument! Welcome to Pearl Drums

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