RTOM 14" Moongel Workout Pad

As a workout practice pad, I was deciding between the Reflexx pad, the smaller gel pad from RTOM and this one. The Reflexx pad gets great reviews, but it was out of stock (and expensive). In my apartment, I have a snare for practicing brushes: thinking it would be great to switch easily between brushes and (quiet) stick workouts, I went with this one to put on the snare. It does the job, but there are a couple of downsides, and I would have probably gone with the smaller one in hindsight.

Pros:
- Easy to switch between stick workout and brush practice (or normal undamped snare if you don't live in an apartment)
- Fits the snare well, doesn't move

Cons:
- Still some rebound from the head of the snare; not as much workout as you would get by putting it elsewhere
- Rather large and heavy to carry around and put it elsewhere
- Not as quiet as I hoped: when you hit it towards the middle, there seems to be a low resonance with the snare that you can hear and feel with your feet on the floor
- Too expensive for what it is, really

I have had my eye on these for a while, but always worried that they wouldn't last all that long - that eventually they would break etc. However, I recently returned to a drum shop I hadn't been to for at least 6 months and they had the same one of these out that I had seen previously for trying sticks on. Considering it was in a shop where inevitably, the occasional idiot would bash away on it on a daily basis, along with the more technically minded, the thing was still in great condition! After seeing that, I bought this one immediately.

I'm a bit of a practice pad lover, so this is right up my street. Compared to any other similar products I've seen, this pad offers the most resistance, so for "working out" your rudiments etc, it's the best thing out there! Love mine already - very glad I bought it.