Puresound CPS1420 Custom Pro Wires 14"

I have Puresound snares on my other snare drums and they have invariably been good quality snares. I was intrigued by the strap/quick release system on this model.

The straps have alignment marks. This makes it easier to line-up your snare so it is perfectly centered. The end of the straps have a slot that lets you slide a pin inside (cotter pin). This holds the end plates of the snare in place. It works well, and lets you replace the wire without having to undo the straps. It literally takes under a minute!

The end plates are shaped so they don't choke the snares even at higher tension. The resulting sound was crisper than the stock snares. There was also a reduction in buzz but not a total elimination.

I loved the sound and the quick change idea. I am going to try some other Puresound wires as it makes is so much easier to swap wires around. The only downside was that not all wires are the exact same length (e.g the Equalizer snare was longer than the Custom Pro) so I still needed to adjust the straps, but the swapping was still really quick.

When i installed those, I couldn't set up properly my snare for weeks. No matter what I did (tuning, muffling, trying tricks like detune snare bed screws etc) I got excessive buzz and the snares sound was flabby, unless you overtight them. You could hear the snares hit the head right after the batter head sound.
I had to over-tighten the batter head, and I also had to over muffle the reso head with lots of tape, and i also had to overtighten the snares, to get a sound and feel that is just "ok".

The quality seems to be very good, and the fact that you can remove them and reinstall them in 30 seconds is something i liked a lot.

When I read the product description and especially the part about these wires being "designed to significantly reduce annoying snare buzz" I decided to order them to replace the wires that came ex-factory on my Gretsch snare drum because to my taste they kept on buzzing no matter what I tried - Please note that I am not a fan of damping my snare so moongels were not considered - Installing these wires is a piece of cake and the fact that one can take them off by means of the 2 clips is very handy but I still have far too much buzz - I shall now replace the resonant head of my snare (actually a Remo Ambassador Clear) with another brand and/or thickness (5mil???) and see what happens...