Tought to give an answer on this because there are several understated pieces to the puzzle. Since you are just starting out, you don't want to make a big investment, so of course there are nicer sets out there...

With that said, the Pearl sets are generally pretty good. They have been around for a long time as well.

I would say that it is worth the drive to check them out. The Sabian's are going to sound either harsh, flat, sharp, mellow, blah, blah, blah depending on what YOU like, so they will need to be listened to.

The drums themselves can have their sound altered by tightening and loosening the heads, removing the bottom heads of the toms, or the "outside" head of the bass drum, or even just using different types of drum heads. You can take a mediocre set of drums and make them sound pretty good just by changing a few things, of course the reverse is true. You can take a good drum set, throw on some crappy drum heads, and really mess things up.

So long story short, I think that you will have to go there and check them out in person. That is the only way to know if they sound good or not to you.

To get something new that would have the similar specs (a little nicer though) would run you about $800 if that helps at all.

Farewell - June 4, 2020