I've personally own and used Sabian's Quiet Tones before, its manufactured with a steel rim/hoop and have got real skins that are tunable, the setback are bouncy due to a hard backing on which the skin rests, also really costly, about $90 plus for a 9" or 10". The price increase with size.
I've owned and used Remo Pads, they have the similar kinda feel with the Sabian Quiet Tones, though the design for the bottom of the pad is different.
I tried the promark ones when I was working at a certain music store. Promark has got the Xpads and the rebounder pads, which are bouncy.
Then I found HQpercussion's RealFeel Practice Pad, which i thought was the best feel of them all. I owned, recommended and sold quite a lot in my earlier years of my business, which i kinda regret that I did.
When I found E-pads by accident, i was hugely skeptical anything would be better than Realfeel, anyway out of curiousity and for research purpose, i bought one from the manufacturer. When I returned to Singapore, I tried it and went from frowning to smiling. I decided to let some seasoned drummer friends try on the pad, and they end up asking me when I am bring the E-pads in.
I noticed what made E-Pads practice pads makes sense because of this term, resistence training.
Do you remember those days when we put weights at the angle of our feet and ran? What about our coaches bringing us to the beach to run on sand and water? What happens when we take the weights off, or start running on normal grounds? We "fly", don't we?
With this in mind, in my opinion, good practice pads should not be too bouncy that when we practice, we rely too much on the rebounce of the pads to give us the fake sense of achievement, that we can do our double strokes so well. How many of us can do fantastic double strokes on existing make or models of practice pads and snare drums but when we try to execute the double strokes on the toms, we mess up?
E-pads practice pads somewhat has got the dampened effect, it makes us needing to work on our wrists and fingers, rather than relying on the rebounce. Remember this is for practicing and training.
I know there are 2 schools of thoughts, one of which advocates the use of rebounce to help you work less but do more. That is valid but not when we have not trained on my wrists and fingers from the beginning.
I recommend this simple challenge for the curious: Bring down to my shop, any practice pad that you have, work on that for a mere 2 minutes non stop, then take a 5 minute rest, and then work on the E-Pads for the same 2 minutes duration. you will see the difference.
I treat you to a packet of Pokka Green Tea ....
Anyone who owns a E-Pad here, wanna share with us your experience with them? You don't have to be saying good things because i am here. I have pulled out products before because you guys gave me feedbacks and I will not hesistate to do the same with any product if they are not good for us.