DRUMMER CAFE

I'll leave the historical questions about Musser's and Deagan's bars to others, but FWIW, I got a quick tour of the Musser factory back in 2000 courtesy of John Piper (hell of a guy, but that's a story for another time).  I got to try a couple of sets of vibes, and in both cases, the bars were outstanding.  Whether they dug out a special couple of sets for John (one was a "Piper" vibe, the other a new "One Nighter") or not, I'll never know - but I'd put those bars up against any Musser bars I've played (including a few 1960s instruments.)  Some of the bars produced in the 1980s were (IMO) sub-par, but they really seemed to have turned things around at the factory.  "One man's opinion..."

I've also played a few newer Yamaha instruments - great bars as well.  I got to try some of the new Premier vibes a few years ago, and those bars really put me in mind of old Deagan bars, in terms of the shape, sound, and feel.

However, if you really want to check out some great bars, look into the vibes being made by Nico vanderPlas (http://www.vanderplas-perc.nl), or those made by Doug DeMorrow.

FWIW, the bars on John Piper's own prototype "Piper Vibe" were an old set of Century gold bars that they had back in a vault. The production Piper Vibe bars are the same as the Pro vibe.

I second the DeMorrow or vanderPlas as the best made today. I think the new Yamahas are pretty comparable to the new Mussers. I like the bars on my school's Ross instrument, but the frame work is so bad, I would not recommend those instruments. I still have tuning issues with the Adams. We went to a festival in Dallas, Texas last week, where the venue supplied instruments (we still brought our own, I don't trust others maintenence). They had a fairly new set of Adams vibes on stage, so I thought we would try those instead of our creaky framed Ross. The tuning to the grand piano was so bad, we rolled our vibes out instead.