Pearl Reference Series Reviews

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4.3 stars
Average rating for this product is: 4.3 out of 5

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Average Ratings for Pearl Reference Series

  • Sound Quality4 stars
  • Appearance5 stars
  • Value for Money1.5 stars
  • Reviewer Ratings3.5 stars
  • Overall Rating4.3 stars

1 Review For Pearl Reference Series

  • jimbyrne Rank: Lance Corporal 3rd Sep 2008

    Reviewer rating: 3.5 stars


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    Good Points: Reference Series drums are made extremely strong therefore one can assume they are going to hold their shape and tunability for many years. I found these drums very loud (the loudest drums I have ever heard least of all played) so i think they would great for rock or metal, maybe not jazz (e.g. the 16x16 flr tom could easily be a bass drum for a small kit, the 14" sounds the same or bigger than a 16" from a standard maple kit.) They tune up relatively well and have a very wide tuning range


    Bad Points: Gig a lot? The drums a heavy! & it will get to you. Snare is 17kg!
    It has 20 ply's of maple and in my opinion it sounds almost exactly the same as my 12 x 8 maple snare (the ply's just make it a smaller drum). Because the drums are made of differing materials (birch,maple,mahogany) i have found that they actually sound better with different weight heads on the different toms (e.g.mahogany needs a more focused sound than maple), this is annoying.


    General comments: I have heard that the Pearl Reference Series 12" tom is notoriously hard to tune. This was not my experience, if you have a good grounding in tuning you will not have a problem. Basically, these drums are of a very high quality and will provide years of drumming goodness but if you want one, wait a while until the prices come down a bit (still a bit high). That being said the hype around these drums is not really warranted, it is not a revolution in drum construction because the sound is what matters and a lot of top level drums sound this good and they use 'one wood for all'. Play jazz? forget it, but for those about to rock! You will like it a lot, massive!