Well said. I have found it odd at the bashing that DW takes around here seeing as they arguably pulled the entire US drum industry back for the brink. I, for one, quite like my DW kits. They are extremely well made, tune easily and I make more money on rentals with those kits then all my other kits combined. That is because almost all contract riders list DW as either the preferred kit or a suitable alternative. Yamaha would fall into a close second place.

I too am sad as to the demise of Rogers and what has been produced using that logo in recent years. There is market room for another great American drum co. and it would be nice to see Rogers come back. If all the name will be used for are seriously cheap imports then I would prefer them not being produced at all.

If Brook Mays hadn't gone broke, the Rogers line would probably still be there for them. Since they owed Yamaha so much money, the folks there were eager to take anything that they perceived to have some value to minimize their losses.

Once they got the assets in-house, they probably balked at the production costs of the better drums and also realized they would be competing with themselves if they offered drums with that level of quality. So, they simply put some Rogers badges on the cheapest cost generic drums that they could produce at one of their plants.

Once they hit the showroom floors, they were confronted with a complete lack of enthusiasam from the dealers (the margins were probably not good at such a low pricepoint) and totally apathy on the part of the buyers. The marketplace now is dominated by young folks who never heard of Rogers, and are only interested in what they see their heroes playing in Modern Drummer ads.

And the older guys like us would buy very few of them even if they were good.

So the name is now back in the hands of Joe Chen, who made Asian Rogers drums back in the late 80's/early 90's.