Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

The following comments (edited slightly) about the new DTXtreme kit 
come from an experienced Canadian drummer named Zorro on the ddrums 
forum (he also posted them at vdrums). I thought that some of you who 
are thinking about the upper end Yamaha might be interested, as well 
as those who already have it (like Dan), as a way to compare notes:

I never liked rubber pads (until the DTXTIIS). I think Yamaha has 
been looking real hard at how DDrum has done it. The pads have no hot 
spot, track really nicely, and have 3 zones total. The rubber is like 
a drum head in feel and not too noisy. Great rebound but not like the 
mesh heads that are too bouncy. I noticed something that reminded me 
of DDrum on the Yamaha module, the famous "RED" colour on the 
interface panel. I wonder if they did that as a subliminal message?  
I tried to make the thing machine gun but no way. Most of the snare 
samples are pure acoustic. Some are fairly heavy duty. I suspect 
Yamaha may have gone as far as copying DDrum's triggering method and 
acoustic samples [this would have been hard to do with a digital 
module like the DTXTU, but the resemblance is a huge compliment]. 
Mind you, this is just a guess. But the Yamaha works very nicely, is 
quiet, tracks all notes without machine gunning, has great dynamics, 
6 outputs, and other useful features. I noticed the high hats have a 
D Drum vibe to them. I am not impressed with Roland TD anything as it 
sounds a bit fake to my ears [based on TD-10, not TD-20]. The rubber 
pads may be a bit of regression in this modern age of mesh-headed 
drums. Yanaha should have made the pads look more like acoustic 
drums. But when something works so nicely, so what? The pads have a 
coolness in their own way, and the absence of a hot spot is more 
important to me. On a final note, the small tapping noise the pads 
produce did not bother my wife so I am giving the pads a 10 out of a 
10."