Mapex HZB - 6 piece fusion

I have had the Mapex 6 piece fusion kit for about 2 weeks and have had plenty of time to experiment with it. You get 8", 10", 12", 14" toms, a 14" matching snare and a 20" bass drum with all the hardware (but no cymbals) for £515 in the UK (Aug 2010). The shells are basswood with a birch outer layer which is finished with a beautiful transparent sapphire finish. The kit comes with Remo UX heads and the bass drum heads have built-in dampening rings. Once tuned the toms produce a very bright resonant sound, the snare drum is very dry and the bass drum sounds very punchy with a few over-tones. With the addition of some Evans dampening rings on the 10", 12", 14" toms and snare, and Moongel on the bass drum (1 piece each side) and half a moongel on the 8" tom (tuned very high) the kit sounds pretty good, the bass and toms are punchy with plenty of depth, the snare has a nice dry attack and the 8" tom has a nice timbale style ring to it (tuned like a standard tom it rattled the snare-wires a lot). This kit provides excellent value for money and the hardware is very versatile, allowing for a variety of set-ups. You could probably get a better shell pack for the same money, but when you take into account the amount and quality of the hardware it is a good all-round package. I was originally planning to replace the heads with Remo Pinstripe/Ambassadors all-round but the factory-shipped heads sound quite reasonable, although I am not sure how long they will stay that way. The weakest link in this kit is probably the snare-drum which is very light and only has eight lugs, with the addition of a Mapex MPX 10-lug steel snare drum this makes the kit a balanced intermediate option: much better than most budget kits, but not so expensive that you are too scared to take it out of the house!