Sonor beech kompressor snare drum

A few months back I looked at a small selection of Sonor’s metal Kompressor snares which you can find here: http://mikedolbear.com/reviews/sonor-kompressor-snare-drum-selection/.

In that review, I quoted something directly from Sonor’s website, namely –

”That’s the first thing that comes to mind about KOMPRESSOR snares. It’s the THE snare for every situation. The high quality at this price is outstanding, therefore it is so easy to tune. I have never found a first-class sound so quickly.’

Rereading my thoughts on those initial drums, I can’t help thinking the same again; this is a really good snare drum at a great price point.

The drum is based around a German-made 14×6 12-ply, 8mm heavy beech, slightly undersized, shell that is made using Sonor’s proprietary Cross Laminated Tension Free process (CLTF) and has 45’ edges. It’s finished in natural beech in a semi-gloss. It also features TuneSafe lugs and Remo USA heads.

The drum was easy to tune and I found the sound to be very pleasing at all the tensionings I tried it at. It had a lovely open sound and feel to it which a joy to play. For the video, I couldn’t get it to go overly low without it sounding like a tom – not that I disliked the resulting sound – so I put it about as low as I could get it without that ring. For me though, the drum sat best around the middle tensioning.

Overall, I really liked this drum. It sounded great when playing it live with little adjustment and again when I tried it at home and played around with the tensioning some more.

Like its metal counterparts, this is a drum you could probably just count on as being rock solid and dependable. It’s a go-to, working drum. Ok, it’s fairly nondescript in terms of looks, but it’s still good looking, and the natural beech is something I personally quite like.

On the basis of my experience with this drum, I’d say it was a perfect companion to the metal options. It’s a quality instrument at quite a reasonable price and something I’d be very happy to own.