Yes, to all of the above... I've owned them, played them, sold and traded for them. If you get a good one, they are very worthy additions to any drummers snare arsenal. If it's the 'right one' my answer is a resounding, Yes! Can be great drums. Shop around.

John

The cheap (about $100 or so) Slingerland steel snares from the 60s are pretty cool. Drier than most modern steel snares, but still retaining the aggressive, biting character of steel. I rocked one of those for about a year, until I got my Luddy 402. I've never looked back. Well, except when I played on an Ocheltree carbon steel snare, but I wasn't about to buy that 30 lb beast...

Steel snare drums are great sounding.They got caught up in the hundreds of of wacky and wierd materials that some thought of to confuse the already confusing drum market.Stand out front of any band and tell me what the snare drum is made of.Steel is affordable and does the job.

Great point! The value is there for sure. When I noticed some "name" players using steel, that got my attention! I probably should downsize my snare collection, but it's just too much fun.

I have the LM402, and it's pure rawness...as in fantastic. It's just hard to make it sound bad. Such a great drum. It's like ear candy.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to trying this one out. I won't use it for jazz, but perhaps some of the blues/rock stuff I'm doing now...I'll at least put it in the gig rotation!

Finally got my used Yammie steel snare 5.5x14 delivered. I'm going to place a coated Ambassador on it...and hope to get this thing sounding nice. I love Gadd's snare sound on that Clapton concert DVD. Of course, that's his signature snare, but the shell looks VERY similar, and is the same size. Just not with the black nickel coating...different lug style as well...these lugs seemed patterned like a 400.

Steel snares get a bad wrap because they are commonly used as the snare on lower end kits,and a lot of them are not good snares,or at best are one trick ponies.I rehearse on our guitarists kit,a late model Imperial star that came with tama's least expensive black nickel plate steel snare,and with a little tweaking it sounds and plays darn good,even with the stock heads.It definitely has a bright sound and ring to it,so it is loud and cuts through well but has good/professional tone.But I have found that you can smooth that edge out nicely by using a double ply head,or one of the specialty snare heads that the drum head companies offer,if you are needing a quieter/mellower sound.

I sold a similar snare to a customer of mine, but, I think it was made out of melted down Paiste cymbal alloy. It was sooooo heavy. I had to use a hand cart to bring the snare out to his car. He played it in front of me, it sounded real dry and warm. My first thoughts were.."how the hell am I going to move this snare from gig to gig?" ROADIES!