u/Foreign-Boat-1058

I’m choosing between the Sonor AQ2 Bop, Sonor Safari, and PDP Concept Maple Bop kits for Jazz/Brazilian Jazz/Latin jazz in a half‑office/half‑music room or part of a garage.

I already have an Acrolite snare and Agean silent cymbals, and I’ll be using dBones heads for quiet practice. My main question is whether the footprint difference between Safari and Bop actually matters once hardware is set up, or whether one of these kits better fits the way I’ll be using it.

My priorities are:

• Practice quality for timing development
• Long‑term instrument quality
• Appropriateness for jazz/Brazilian Jazz/Latin jazz
• Reasonable footprint in a shared room
• Good feel with quieter heads
• Quiet practice for a home with a family
• Price isn’t a major factor since these kits are already close in cost — I just want the correct long‑term setup.

I’m also considering the PDP Concept Maple Bop shell pack since I already have a snare. I’m not sure whether it gives anything up compared to the Sonor options or whether its footprint is noticeably larger than the AQ2 Bop or Safari.

Thanks for any insight.

I have the opportunity to get a basically new Majestic V6530S 3.0-octave Deluxe Series Vibraphone | Sweetwater on the facebook marketplace for I think about $2000 or $2200 which would include all the accessories such as many different kinds of mallets. Item is in very good condition. Is that buy now price? I dont expect it to last long at this price from my understanding. I live in a medium sized city (300-400k in metro area I think? so used Vibraphones will not be coming up very often.) Does this one seem good enough for a hobbyist?

Or do I look at my other options listed in the title?

My background is that I mainly play other instruments as a hobby such as mandolin, bass, cello but did play a bit of percussion in high school including marimba and glockenspiel which were pretty fun.

I'm looking to add a mallet instrument to help really internalize melodies for some music styles, and since it will be a bit of fun. I do have a keyboard for theory work.

My preference is to listen to all kinds of music but lots of Brazilian jazz music, American jazz, classical, bluegrass etc

I have a baby coming any day but have a 2000 sf house and realize that i might just need to not play these for a while. A marimba will not fit as nicely into my current home.

My budget is flexible in that I can save up for a lot of years to get the right instrument if that is better but have the large house, new baby, mortgage etc so money is responsibly probably better saved then spent if an equivalent item could work.

TYIA

Found this Q&A today. Anyone hear of anything upcoming?

https://www.doi.gov/employees/reorg/reorganization-qa?utm\_source=copilot.com

I'm starting to learn drumming and am looking for a snare to pair with my acrolite for Brazilian jazz where I've seen they use multiple snare drums to replicate caixa and repinque.

I'm looking to get a second even though I am just learning and have an acrolite so I have a lower volume option when my partner is home (acrolite with rtom) and a second snare at more normal volume and for brushwork without pulling the head off that will also work for Brazilian music in the future.

Does anyone here use this setup?

Chatgpt is recommending a Omar hakim 13"*5" mahogany snare for my issues which actually seems like it might work.

Thoughts?

Budget is flexible to get the right snare but obviously not looking to spend a crazy amount when just learning if I can find something for less.