Product changes in a seemingly soft market...

[Jules]

Someone took exception to my suggestion on Coffee with Jules that Sonor is likely developing new pedals and hardware. If they want to chime in, I will let that be their call. This isn't an attempt to square off, I just thought that it was worth a deep conversation for those who are interested in a discussion.

The ProLite series has been slated for discontinuation for at least two years. I have no idea if the SQ1 was past of that product lineup change from day or, or if it was later deemed to be a natural addition to the cancelation once the 3 tone wood concept was adopted. But, the point is that the ProLite line is now 13 years old and lots of R&D and planning seems to have been in the works to replace it, though we would probably all agree that a good chunk of time and resources were devoted to the 150th Anniversary products.

If you take a good look at the time line of German Sonor drums; ProLite has been in the catalog for 13 years, Vintage has been around 10 and SQ1, 8. So, other than some finish options, there has been nothing fresh in the catalog for a while. 600 series hardware hit the catalog almost 23 years ago with only minor changes along the way. All in all, that's a pretty tired catalog.

My speculation that new hardware and pedals may be on the horizon next year is based on some observations and conversations and not just a whimsical assumption that Sonor had manpower to burn up while watching sales slow in response to the world economy. All that said, I do feel like a company has to freshen things up even in tough times just to stay viable. If you have an aging product line and diminishing market share lost to competitors who are building great gear and with healthy artist rosters and product availability, that can create a vacuum, it would seem.

I look forward to seeing what does get released, if anything in the coming year or two. Things I would expect to see include potentially a high end line (solid rivets as with 600 series) possibly made fully in China. At this point, almost EVERYONE is sourcing their metal components and hardware items from Asia and I am not sure there is still a virtue in German assembled hardware for the typical buying in 2025. Certainly not at such high prices.

When the Force 3000 hardware went from Germany to Asia, there was no loss of quality, yet a drastic drop in street prices. While this wouldn't be music to the ears of old school Sonor guys; we aren't the majority of the buying public any more. If you can have rock solid hardware at half or less (not factoring in tariffs) of the price, what have you accomplished by paying a bigger price for something for the sake of it being German made? Again, we are talking about hardware, not the construction of the drums and drum shells.

Another gripe I have had about the 600/Basic Arm Series is limited availability in the US. Sooner or later you can find all the pieces, but it's not always going to happen that all the components you want to customize your stands will be there when you want them. Add to that, that most manufacturers have far more components and accessories and that really leaves a gaping hole in the Sonor hardware line in comparison. When I went to Fork's drum closet, the one brand I did not see with an elaborate wall display of items was Sonor. There were serious representations from most other brands. So, maybe we have that forthcoming.

Aside from a stale and arguably deficient hardware offering is that fact that for a few reasons, many Sonor drummers don't use Sonor hardware. Pedals may be even worse. There are a host of drummer who use non-Sonor pedals with their Sonor gear, and I would BET that new options are well in the works. I don't have that on an official level, and if I did I wouldn't be talking about it at all. But, taking pieces of the puzzle and connecting them, that's what I think we have to look forward to in the somewhat near(ish) future.

Does anyone know of we are getting any more 150th gear? Are there any more trade shows left this year to premiere anything else?

[Jules]

I wanna tag my post with this, as well. Sonor once built the smoothest action hihat on the planet. Many drummers still use them. The 600 series has not been looked upon as favorably by most users. I am almost certain there is a new design in the works, and it is something that I will grab as soon as it is available.

[tcbetka]

I've never even seen a Sonor hi-hat or kick pedal that I can remember, so I can't really comment on that part (of your original post) at all. That said, I can comment on moving production to Asia...

Warning: Rant forthcoming.

In the last 10 years or so, I've been buying metal cutting machines: Various lathes and mills, basically. With the exception of something like Sherline's line of micro (ie; "watch-maker") machines, pretty much none of them are made in America anymore. There are a number of reasons for this--exorbitant labor costs, product liability, dwindling fund of (manufacturing) knowledge, dwindling supply of workers with those skills...these are just some of the several reasons/excused that I've heard over that time. These days, the very best machines are made either in Taiwan (mostly) or in Japan. In fact, I'm not even sure Japan is making mills or lathes any longer--at least not the manual ones. Maybe they're still making CNC machines, but I'm not in that world enough to know for sure. But gone are the days of the Clausing, Monarch, American Pacemaker and even the South Bend lines, being made in the US. But at least the products being made over there are largely designed/engineered in the US.

So the point is that this is the way things are done in a "global" economy. Welcome to business in the 21st century, I suppose. Things get designed in the region where they're going to be sold/used, but then they're manufactured somewhere else. Obviously, not all manufacturing facilities were created equal, but I've been told a number of times that in the metal machine cutting world, there are a finite number of manufacturing plants. So it seems obvious that these limited number of factories MUST have learned how to properly build something by now. It is not rocket science to program a CNC to cut parts, for instance. Start with a good design that can actually be made, use high-quality raw materials, and then cut the parts on high-quality machine with tight tolerances...and a lathe made in an Asia factory can be just as "good" (ie; accurate) as one made in the US. The difference then, is in the raw materials being used. And for ferrous parts (like those used in metal-cutting machines), this usually means the quality of the castings. I've had lathes made in China, and I now have a lathe made in Taiwan: There's very little comparison. The Taiwanese castings just seem to be much "better." Heavier, more solid, fewer voids in the material...better. So to me, that's the whole difference. People building machines in Germany or the US can do a great job, or they can do a shitty job--no different than in Asia. There are Monday morning lathes in Asia just like there were Monday morning lathes in the US. Quality is quality, and crap is crap.

To bring this all back to drum hardware: If Sonor designs the product(s) in Germany, and specs-out the manufacturing materials & the process to be followed at the Asian plants (and then QCs it while it's in progress), there should be no reason why the end result can't be as good. Again, the last 10 years has taught me that an Asian-made product can be just as good as one made in the US. Or it can be total shit. I've had both--and you definitely still get what you pay for. For example, a Taiwanese-made lathe costs almost twice what a similar Chinese-made lathe costs. Heck the new (ie; current) South Bend lathes, historically made in South Bend Indiana (USA), are now made in Taiwan. And they are PRICEY!

Parenthetically speaking though, my concern is not that stuff is getting made in Asia these days...but rather WHY we have to do that in the first place. In the new mp3 society we seem to be living in, we've grown into a bunch of "I want what I want when I want it, at a low cost" consumers. We don't seem to produce anything anymore--and I'm not even sure we're service-oriented anymore either. For 20 years I worked in the ulimate service industry, medicine. I didn't build anything, but simply provided a service. And we definitely still need people to provide those types of services--medical, legal, protective (police, fire, utilities, etc). But my God, we're FAR too oriented on "service" in the US these days, and seem to be confusing YouTube stars and social media "influencers" with those providing services. Point is: It doesn't seem to me as though people actually want to BUILD anything anymore--and that to me is far worse than the fact that we're buying Asian-made stuff. Asia (China) didn't "take our jobs" anymore than anyone else did. They simply filled the niche created when it got too expensive to keep building stuff in the US, at the desired profit margin(s). If the shoe was on the other foot, we'd be doing the exact same thing. We've apparently just become too fat, too lazy or too stupid to do it. I don't know which. Stupid IS the new smart, they say...

[Jules]

You make good points, Tom. I want to expand on some of that.

K.H.S. Musical Instrument Co., Ltd. in Taiwan is the parent company of JMT which is (or was and may be been adsorbed by another KHS company-clarification needed) a manufacturer of drum components. KHS also owns Hohner Musikinstrumente GmbH & Co. KG which is the owner of Sonor GmbH. Manufacturing under KHS is done both in Taiwan and China depending upon the type of items built.

I explained all of that because it puts Sonor in a very good position in the drum world. Nothing is 'farmed out' to 3rd parties. Every single part in every single piece of Sonor gear is made by a KHS owned company. Not only does that help insure the utmost quality, but it also has another effect. Since everything Sonor builds, regardless of continent, supports KHS employees. Many employees are actually housed in KHS owned residential facilities. So, Sonor has to work to keep production at a level to sustain people that would be directly impacted by cancellations or downward trending of gear.

More later, gotta go for now.

[tcbetka]

Great information Jules, thanks. In many ways, Taiwan is what America SHOULD be in terms of manufacturing. I have great respect for some of the craftsmen working over there. That said though, there's no reason that America can't be like that again--other than laziness...and greed.

Well that, and stupidity.

[James Fullier III]

.
Designer hardware was the coolest hardware I have seen but yeah probably not for gigging due to weight LOL. The legs were one piece and thick instead of of thinner seperate pieces and I also really liked those knobs. I wish they would of kept that exact design you see in the catalog.

One thing that hardly anybody acknowledges is the fact that Sonor has always used SOLID RIVETS on the top of the line stuff which is to prevent play or deviation in the joints in the future. . They started this in the 60's or 70's and actually used to advertise it. You guys with 600 series have solid rivets and you probably never took a look. No other company had ever done that but I thought it was pretty cool .

You can see where they point out the solid rivets on the key photo on bottom left number 7 photo and then toward the right with the matching photo number they put the description about the rivets.

[Jules]

The 3000 series had the solid rivets, also even after production moved to China. I am a big proponent of the solid rivets.

[tcbetka]

I actually bought a Designer kit once, circa 2000. It took like 7-8 months when I ordered it, but actually turned out to be a couple months longer wait than that. So by the time it was available, I was getting out of residency (ie; medical training), and we hadn't even found a place to live in the city we were moving to yet. So I ended up finding someone on the RMMP (Usenet) group who wanted one, and they just took it from the dealer. I always regretted that, but at a time of such uncertainty I didn't need a $5000 drum set showing up. More stuff that needed to be moved--and we definitely used the money on the new house. Had it showed up when it was originally scheduled, then no sweat.

It is (was) what it is (was) though, but I had ordered the double tom stand for the two "floor" toms as I recall. Also a cymbal stand or two as well I think. Memory fades a bit on that, but there was definitely hardware included in the order.

[DaveInNZ]

Warning: Rant forthcoming.

I'm sorry but I read this and thought "oooooh, someone else who understands engineering and how to make things!" I was a 5th generation mechanical engineer and specialised in tool room machining and production line setup/planning, with a bit of quality control thrown in. Alas, no more, but I did it long enough to know how most things get made.

I've had lathes made in China, and I now have a lathe made in Taiwan: There's very little comparison. The Taiwanese castings just seem to be much "better." Heavier, more solid, fewer voids in the material...better.

This...

If Sonor designs the product(s) in Germany, and specs-out the manufacturing materials & the process to be followed at the Asian plants (and then QCs it while it's in progress), there should be no reason why the end result can't be as good.

This...

For example, a Taiwanese-made lathe costs almost twice what a similar Chinese-made lathe costs.

And this...

I reckon something made in Asia can easily be much better made than anywhere else, purely because they're 30+ years in front on continual investment in manufacturing capabilities. Whether the product is better made or not is driven by the priorities when designing it. The vast majority of 'Chinese crap' every moans about is exactly that because the driver is to make it as cheaply as possible, to be sold as quickly as possible and to operate as disposable.

But if you put other drivers in place, like for instance, Sonor may choose to do, drivers like 'high quality castings, decent material, fine tolerances and decent quality control' you get a high quality product made by people using better machines, more in tune with how to make things than anyone else on earth. You get your iPhones basically...

1) Design it well in Germany
2) Manufacture it well without cutting corners in Asia
3) Invest in high levels of quality control and accept low tolerances of error

You'd get the best hardware anyone makes. These variables are just like volume knobs, turn them up and down at your will, out comes something at the other end, and then cost, profit or quality will vary. Choose your recipe basically.

...my concern is not that stuff is getting made in Asia these days...but rather WHY we have to do that in the first place.

This goes a lot deeper - but essentially, probably starting with Japan in post WWII economic ruin, they were looking for options to strengthen their economy and value in the world. Much like China has done more recently. As countries, they invested heavily in soaking up every bit of manufacturing they could, improving it, doing it better, all while they watched every Western country (except perhaps Germany ironically) turn their noses up at jobs where people had to go to a factory and get their hands dirty. Fast forward a few decades and surprise, surprise Asia makes everything, everyone, but everyone is reliant on them and their manufacturing economy is booming.

And then you get other countries complaining about Asia, China in particularly stealing their jobs. Didn't steal anything, they saw an opportunity, invested in it and they're reaping the returns.

And while (really) trying not to get political, it doesn't matter how many tariffs you put in place, how much you stamp your feet about bringing jobs back to America (or any other country that lost manufacturing workforces, such as the one I used to be a part of), two things are true. Redirecting the global weight of where things get made is a multi-year, if not decades long shift to make - just ask any car manufacturer in the US currently. And secondly, your stereotypical middle aged fat white dude with their funny baseball caps and patriot attitude, will not, under any circumstances want to go and work in a factory and be paid what workers in Asia are paid. They're too entitled, too out of touch and too lazy.

...

It's not outside the realms of possibility that someone else (let's say mainland Europe for arguments sake) could make a move to shift global manufacturing away from China and the wider Asian region, but it would take them 30yrs starting tomorrow.

In the meantime, Sonor and everyone else can lean into the model that already exists and make it work for them. Decent design, decent production and decent quality control = winning wherever it's made.

[Jules]

A couple of quick things (just got up and haven't even sipped my coffee, yet.)

Tariffs have a direct impact on the gear we are here to talk about, and for that reason, I (as someone regulating the content, here) don't consider such discussion to be a political matter. It is a fact of business and a fact of life.