these beaters have many cons. they are not sturdy, they are made from a mold so they are not solid steel therefor they break quiet easly when played at a moderate to hard stoke. i have had 2 beaters break in my time of owning the axis pedals and needless to say i wont play axis anymore.

This is a great beater for specific applications, and it works great, if set-up correctly. The biggest complaint (among other reviewers) is the head loosening up. I spoke with the engineers at Axis, who explained the photograph shows the wrong set-up. The head (tightening knob) MUST be rotated off to the side (at either the 3 or 9'o'clock position ... simple enough)), NOT at the top (12'o'clock position), as pictured. This will alleviate ALL head-loosening problems.

I play an 18" Gretsch Catalina bass drum, and with a 'normal' pedal set-up (because the head is so small), the beater strikes too close to the top. So, I got a Gibralter bass drum riser, which works (and looks)great, but the pedal now is too far away from the head. The Axis Sonic Hammer was the PERFECT solution (with its adjustable head extension). It is a touch on the heavy side, but (with the cork pad), packs a real whollop ... the neighbors are even noticing. The Axis tech suggested trimming the excess (back end) off the head rod, to save weight.

The felt pad is 'warmer' sound, and also has a slight problem: It was impossible to cleanly peel the paper off the sticky part (from the back of the felt), leaving me with no choice but to glue it on. Also, there's no way to swap the felt/cork pads w/o ruining the stick'um.

Overall, this is a VERY durable product, which was the PERFECT solution to my situation. It looks and sounds GREAT! The Axis people were VERY helpful, and I'd definitely recommend The Sonic Hammer.

The first problem i seen about these hammers are that the actual beater part of this tends to loosen while playing causing the hammer to not hit your bass drum perfect, basically its just wobbling all over the place. They are heavy as well and cant seem to get great momentum out of them. Buy some IC beaters.. felt or rubber.

I picked up a pair of these for my two Iron Cobra single pedals to check out the supposed "louder impact" they make with less effort compared to standard beaters; I immediately sent them back the next day after a couple of hours of playing them. I had heard a lot about how loud these beaters hit because of the much larger than average striking surface they deliver and wanted to see for myself since I play a lot of double bass in my music. After adjusting the Sonic Hammers to my personal playing preferences and taking them for a test spin, I noticed how loud they really seemed to hit and was very impressed. I should have saved my enthusiasm because one repeated problem quickly followed. Maybe I play my bass drums to hard or maybe they wern't designed for heavy hitters, but literally every couple of minutes the striking surface would adjust on their own while playing to where the beater was no longer impacting the bass drum heads flat. This left me doing the same adjustment repeatedly no matter how tight I locked the impact head just to save me from having to buy new bassdrum heads. Axis should have taken a hint from other companies’ beaters and made the adjustment range strictly up and down and not every direction for the striking surface. Why would anybody need to adjust a beater to strike the drumhead at a forty-five degree angle when pedals all connect square to the drum themselves? The forward adjustment really is a good idea but that wasn't the problem, they were always in the same spot and never moved by itself. After swapping the Sonic Hammers back with my Iron Cobra beaters there were no more problems with the beaters not hitting flat (as flat as a non flat beater surface hits.) Wow what a waste of time and money buying these were. Until Axis makes a better version of the Sonic Hammer, don't waste your money. They may sound "loud" with the first couple of hits, but you will be spending more time re-adjusting the beaters from playing them than you will be drumming.

I bought a pair of these to put on my Iron Cobra double pedal to check them out. The flat beater is supposed to make a louder sound on the drum with less effort because of the 'slapping' effect but haven't found this to be true, exactly. They look awsome, but they're a pain to adjust, they break easy, and they offer zero weight with which to get momentum. When I bought the Longboard pedals (awesome) they came fitted with these as well, but I haven't changed them yet. If you don't have a heavy foot, go for these.