Well....this is kind of a "loaded" question since tuning is subjective. I personally have found that the 6-ply drums like the Ludwig silver-dot heads best, with Remo CS black dots a close second. The other one I've found they like for the kind of sound you speak of is Aquarian's Performance II heads. These are of course the batter heads....for reso heads what you have should be fine. As far as tning range......you need to find the sweet spot of each drum's tuning range. You'll know it when you hear it. It will be when the drum sounds best to the ear and is also the point where it wants to be tuned to, not necessarily where YOU want it to be tuned.

Thanks for the pointers LD. Do you think I can find this sweet spot you speak of with the PS3 batter heads? I don't want to buy new heads since these were fairly fresh ones I had lying around. Maybe I'll just try it and play around. Thanks!

You should be able to find the "sweet spot" with any drumhead on the drums, but it may not be the sound YOU are looking for. PS3 heads are a single ply with a more open, punchy sound. It sounds like you are looking for something more along the lines of pinstripes or the Aquarians I mentioned before. Something where the head is a little more "dead" sounding, but not to the extreme of say, Evans Hydraulic heads.

Play around some with the PS3s you have.....you might find "the sound", but it sounds more like a 2-ply premuffled head is what you are after.

Silver dots are cheap enough, and I've used them on other drums before so maybe I'll just bite the bullet.

I have clear Emperors on the batter with clear ambassadors on the reso on one kit. On another I have Pinstripes over Ambassadors. Both kits sound great...

A buddy of mine just put a 6 ply kit together because he liked mine so much. After we recovered all of them to match and he got it all together he said this is the best sounding kit he's ever owned. The sound he's always heard in his head when he thought of a kit. He's using Clear Emperors over clear Ambassadors...

Here he is with a 4 ply Rocker kit..

http://youtu.be/35E9bgpQ1io

I like Silver Dots on mine. *But* my favorite combo's Aquarian Classic Coated top, C/Clear bottom. Just perfect.Dynamic. Played a quiet hotel gig, the next night used them for an all original hard rock band. Even the band's sound guy noticed the difference. Said "that's what we've been looking for". And my other set's a 3 ply Luddie, and a Dayton Rogers. If they weren't so damned heavy. I do have a pic of Steve Jordan recording Rod Stewart's last album on a set of them. And he's a Yamaha endorser.

Thanks guys! I think I might have a spare silver dot 16" around here somewhere. If I do I'll try that on the floor tom and experiment before buying anything else. If I don't like that sound I'll probably move on to pinstripes.

+1 for Emperors over Ambassadors... it is the setup I use on my 6 plies and they are thunder crank the reso's a bit tighter than you think I also use felt strips on both sides of base

Well I found the 16" silver dot I thought I had in storage and put it on the floor tom. Quite an improvement! I don't think I found the sweet spot yet, but I left the PS3 on the 18 floor and played them side-by-side. The 18 sounded rather dead while 16 was really lively and resonated beautifully. I had one moongel on it to take out the higher over-tones.