This is a great kit. Great hardware, great shells, great finish. I got rid of the 8' tom because I rarely used it, added all DW die cast hoops to this kit, unfinished 10 ply maple KD hoops and all Aquarian heads. This kit came to life at that point. I've owned the expensive DW and Pearl custom kits, don't get me wrong, they're nice, but I would put this one up against them any day now.

No better bang for your buck! I did months of research in store and online. Nothing compared to the quality of this kit. It even sounds good with the stock heads. It is very well designed by DW. The hardware is signature of DW design and quality. The finish is that of a fine sports car. Beautiful shimmer from the pearlesent finish under stage lighting. This is a great kit at a great price! Nothing compared to it.

For the money you can't go wrong great look great sound great hardware. tweek it to your liking with new heads to make it your own sound.

I am commenting after having these drums for a few months now. I play out about 2X a month & the way that the band sounds as a whole with this kit is incredible. The beauty of the drum set & the pure enjoyment of playing it (upgrading from a 5 piece to a 7 piece) is what I expected from a DW made product. Watch the DW video's on tuning your drum set it does help. So for the money & quality of this kit I definitely recommend the PDP concept maple drums, they a made to satisfy.

I am really impressed with the quality of this kit & the sound. I suspended the 14" floor tom off a cymbal stand so that the drum set was a little tighter, this was so I didn't have to turn so much to get to the 16" floor tom. I have only owned the kit for 1week now so a review wold be premature. But as to date, WOW this is going to be a lot of fun to play & I can't wait to start gigging with it.

I'd HIGHLY recommend this kit to anyone looking to upgrade to a quality set of drums. These drums have deep, rich, full tones that are the product of all maple shells. The drums are well built with typical weight to the PDP hardware that shows the DW influence. As soon as you pick up the claws to attach the bass drum rods to the lugs, you realize these are not cheaply made drums. Even while unpacking the 8" tom, you realize these are some seriously well made SOLID drums. I immediately replaced the stock batter head on the bass drum with an Aquarian Super Kick II head, because I like the THUMP if provides but there was nothing wrong with the stock head if you want a little ring in your bass drum. I also have to disagree with several of the other reviewers that said you need to replace the tom heads. I spent a half hour with a drum key and a little patience and had them all sounding great with the stock heads. I may eventually replace them with all black heads, just for appearance. I really love the snare. It tunes up really nice and has a lot of snap and pop to it. The only thing I did to the snare (other than tuning) was put nylon washer on it and adjusted the snare straps to allow it to get some additional tension. But the brass snares sound really good. There are only a few VERY MINOR critical things I could say about the product: 1) It didn't come with instructions. Although I know how to put drums together, it would have been nice to see what PDP (DW) says about tightening the rods and tuning the drum. 2) It only came with one drum key. Other sets I've purchased always came with multiple keys, (They know you're gonna "misplace" one or two) 3) Old literature on the PDP X7 says it was supposed to come with drumsticks, and mine didn't. Don't know if that changed or if my box with the instructs and the sticks was missing. But overall, I'm completely satisfied with my purchase and love the look and sound the new drums so much better than the Mapex Pro M set they replaced.