TSP9 Practice Pad : Great pad with very realistic rebound while remaining quiet and soft enough on the hands.

Great pad with very realistic rebound while remaining quiet and soft enough on the hands.

Comparing the rebound of this surface to a double-sided Vic Firth 12" pad that I have - the VF has one softer gray surface and one very hard black surface. The softer one is quiet but too bouncy, the black one gets closer to a snare rebound-wise, but is too noisy and very hard so that your wrists may suffer after a while. This TAMA new pad is almost as quiet as the gray surface of the VF, but response is only a little bit bouncier then the hard black surface of the VF, and IMO gets VERY close to a real snare. 9" as size is the perfect IMO - not too small as a 6", and not too big as a 12". Pad has also soft and non-slippery foam on the back so it can be played on the table top as good as in a stand. I remove one star from "quality" because the play surface of mine was not glued exactly in the center of the wood-alike base, which does not affect playability, but optically is not pleasant.