$836.01
There's a reason the drums on late-sixties and early-seventies American records still sound the way they do. Maple over mahogany. That was the recipe, and it got quietly abandoned when the industry decided all-maple was easier to sell.
The MobTown Elite 14 is built on that layup. Eight plies at 5.4mm — maple on the outside, mahogany at the core, cross-grained and pressed in the USA.
Maple does the structural work and gives the drum its projection: bright, present, long sustain. Mahogany pulls in the other direction — warmer, lower, shorter decay — and takes the glassy top off that an all-maple shell leaves ringing. What comes back is a fat, woody crack that sits inside a track instead of cutting across it.
If you've ever put an all-maple snare in front of a microphone and spent the next hour taping it down, this is the drum that fixes that problem in the shell instead of with gaffer tape.
Eighteen lugs, and not eighteen for looks
Most snares put the same number of lugs on both heads because it looks right. The Elite doesn't.
Eight tube lugs on the batter side. Ten on the snare side.
Fewer tension rods on top means less hardware pinning down the batter head — the head sits freer, and the usable tuning range opens up at both ends. You can drop it into a fat, loose backbeat or crank it up to a high, dry crack, and it stays musical in both places.
More rods underneath does the opposite job on purpose. Ten points of tension on the snare-side head means finer control over the wires and a faster, tighter response — ghost notes read clearly instead of getting swallowed.
The lugs are single-ended tube lugs, which touch the shell at one small point per lug instead of clamping across a wide plate. Less hardware pressing into the wood, more shell left free to move.
Hardware
- Piston-driven throw-off with drop-lever release, chrome. Positive, mechanical, and it doesn't drift mid-set. Matching chrome-plated butt plate.
- Stick Saver 2.3mm triple-flanged hoops, batter and snare side. The rolled outer flange profile is easier on stick shoulders during rimshots than a standard sharp-edged flange, and triple-flange keeps the rimshot open and ringing the way die-cast doesn't.
- 14" 25-strand snare wire. Twenty-five strands is more wire than the usual twenty — more sizzle, more sensitivity, a wider dynamic floor.
Heads
- Batter: Aquarian Hi-Velocity Dot. Two plies of 7mil texture-coated film with a thin reverse-woven Power Dot mounted underneath the center. Because the dot is on the underside it adds strength and focus without muting the head — you get a bright, open, articulate snare that still takes rimshots all night.
- Resonant: Aquarian Hi-Performance snare side. 3mil clear with reinforcement where the snare wires cross, so tight wires don't tear it.
Who it's for
The Elite is for the player who tunes by feel — who moves the drum around depending on the room, the song, the night. That's what the wide tuning range is for. If you set a pitch in 2019 and haven't touched it since, the MobTown 14 is the better drum for you, and we'll tell you so.
Classic rock · Blues · Soul & R&B · Funk · Roots & Americana · Indie
Built to order
Clear satin lacquer is the standard finish, but the Elite 14 is a reference build, not a fixed recipe. Transparent dye, solid color, fade, or full custom graphics. Chrome, black nickel, or brass. Different hoops, different throw-off, different wires — say the word and we'll quote it.
