Sonor Jost Nickel Signature 14x6.25 Snare Drum

I do enjoy having my own preconceptions crushed sometimes.

Take this snare drum.

The shell of Jost Nickel’s drum is made from 14 plies of beech which come in at 9mm thick. To look at visually, the shell thickness is noticeable, and while this isn’t exactly the world’s thickest snare drum shell, it’s not thin by current standards either. Now, 30 odd years ago, a 9mm thick was common and I have several kits with toms that thick from that era. I also have snare drums ranging from three ply up to 24 ply.

Taking into account the shell, my expectation of the drum before I played it was therefore that it would do well at higher and more medium tensions but maybe not quite so well at lower ones since, after all, the thicker the shell the higher the fundamental pitch.

The thing that changed my perception about this drum though was, even with the thicker shell, I was able to tune it really quite low and still get a good useable sound from it. Yes, it would need some taming with a gel or the like at that lower level, but the basic sound was there with no effort involved. With my own thicker shelled wood snares, I’ve found they generally only go so far and then just sound like pudding. Not so here.

I really enjoyed the sound of this drum a lot. It has a wonderful resonant ring to it which is clear and pure, i.e. there were no funny overtones spoiling it. Tuning was easy and smooth, and the range was impressive.

On top of the beech shell, the drum also has Remo heads top and bottom, 2.3 mm triple flanged power hoops, 10 double turret lugs, 24 strand steel wires and Sonor’s Dual Glide strainer. The drum is finished in a black lacquer with a single silver stripe.

Visually, the drum is different enough that you’ll be able to pick it out from a distance with no trouble. The drum is typical of Sonor’s build quality and design too.

To play, well, suffice to say I enjoyed it. The sound is one thing, but the power hoops and the thicker shell really give the drum a solid feel under the stick. Reassuringly solid to my mind.