Bunny,I'll take the lashes with a wet noodle if the drums sound better. You can always store your vintage hardware and rubber tips if you need to sell or want a photo of e vintage look. While the shells of yesteryear were great, once cannot ignore the fact that we have made a lot of technological advances in the past 50 years. Many of those advances have been to address real issues and the result is something that is better. Nothing wrong with that.

mine are on ludwigs, they were a tight fit

John, the product description says they are for 10.5mm legs. How good do they fit on your vintage stuff? All my old Luddy tom legs measure @ 9.5mm.