It depends on how well the drums are recorded, but on well-recorded albums, they sound spooky-real on my modest 2-channel system. I've been a drummer for 48 years.
The opening cut of side 3 of the Pat Metheny 3-LP set of the Day Trip album has astonishingly well recorded (and played) drums. I also have a direct-to-disk LP of the Buddy Rich Big Band and a couple of Sheffield DD Harry James disks (with monster fusion drummer Les DeMerle. Also have a Sheffield DD LP of Tower of Power with ultimate funkmeister Dave Garibaldi on the kit. These all sound quite real in m living room, dialed back for volume as previously mentioned.
To get the full effect of a live kit in-room, I think I'd need about 2,000 wpc driving a pair of Wilson Alexandrias or equivalent from YG, Magico, etc. But my modest 2-channel system definitely gets the fundamentals, timbres, overtones, transients and decay right. You can easily hear the differences among maple, mahogany, and acrylic shells, sharp vs. rounded bearing edges, etc.
It's an impressive testimony to just how good a well set up Audio Technica AT150MLX can pull the music out of the groove. Drum kits make extraordinary demands on a cartridge, including sharp, fast initial transients, bass drum fundamentals down to 30 Hz, bloom and decay, and the most complex and high reaching (up to around 16KHz) cymbal overtones. It takes a really good cartridge to track all that well. The AT150MLX proves it doesn't have to be a terribly expensive one.
The opening cut of side 3 of the Pat Metheny 3-LP set of the Day Trip album has astonishingly well recorded (and played) drums. I also have a direct-to-disk LP of the Buddy Rich Big Band and a couple of Sheffield DD Harry James disks (with monster fusion drummer Les DeMerle. Also have a Sheffield DD LP of Tower of Power with ultimate funkmeister Dave Garibaldi on the kit. These all sound quite real in m living room, dialed back for volume as previously mentioned.
To get the full effect of a live kit in-room, I think I'd need about 2,000 wpc driving a pair of Wilson Alexandrias or equivalent from YG, Magico, etc. But my modest 2-channel system definitely gets the fundamentals, timbres, overtones, transients and decay right. You can easily hear the differences among maple, mahogany, and acrylic shells, sharp vs. rounded bearing edges, etc.
It's an impressive testimony to just how good a well set up Audio Technica AT150MLX can pull the music out of the groove. Drum kits make extraordinary demands on a cartridge, including sharp, fast initial transients, bass drum fundamentals down to 30 Hz, bloom and decay, and the most complex and high reaching (up to around 16KHz) cymbal overtones. It takes a really good cartridge to track all that well. The AT150MLX proves it doesn't have to be a terribly expensive one.