Evans Level 360 Review - Practical Heads That Sound Good

Posted in Drum Heads, Gear | Last Updated on June 18, 2019

This past NAMM Show Evans Drum Heads released their new collar branded “360″. I really didn’t care or even take notice as I know everything and don’t care for drum head gimics. Fast forward 2 months later and I have some to try out. Upon opening the shipping box I notice a bright red box, this is the new point of sale box, I thought “thats cool”, they will certainly let you know you are buying a “new” level 360 style head.

We are delving deep - Evans LeveL 360 Review

At first it seemed a bit gaudy, then I got it. What do you think when you see that orange and black color scheme in a music store, Remo. Ok, cool, I dig it, branding. The back of the box has the normal stuff you see, selling the technology and the sizzle.

I can dig that too. Being that Guitar Center has reduced the IQ of the normal music shop employee to match my shoe size, I understand why Evans needs to sell their drum heads via marketing on the box.

Finally I flip that patented Evans box open and see whats inside, oh looky here, a Powered Center Reverse Dot. If I didn’t have the attention span of a nat I would have looked at the label.

All joking aside, I did feel a noticeable difference right away. The collar did feel smoother and the crimped part of the head felt like it had a steeper angle to it.

The first drum I tried 1 of my couple of Evans LeveL 360 heads on was a 64′ Gretsch 4166. I dropped the head directly on this slightly out of round drum and it fit like a glove, not too tight, not too loose. Also the COB hoop slipped right on too. Sweet! I have had issues with non Aquarian heads fitting on my vintage drums so I was happy to see this. I also noticed right away how out of round my snare actually was. Because of the steeper angle these head laid directly no the bearing edge. Also when comparing this head to previous Evans and Remo drum heads I noticed it seemed to sit a bit deeper on drums. It felt like it automatically fell into the sweet spot.

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With my Acrolite it really brought the drum alive. It made the drum feel like an instrument and not just something you bang on continuously while being wasted on bad American beer playing bad British music. Once tuned up (on my 64′ 4166) the 360 head did not slip, creak or loosen up. It did seem to take higher tunings better than I have seen heads before on this drum and keep its body.

But that could just be my brain fooling me into that. I also had the opportunity to try some clear hydraulic heads on my recently refinished Yamaha Power V’s. On toms it did feel like these heads sing at high tunings, even with a thicker ones like the hdryas.

All in all I am very into the change, these heads feel like they have the depth physically of a Remo head, with the nice fit of a Aquarian head and the coating of a Evans head. I can say this is one of the best drum heads I've ever tried. Kind of exactly what I wanted!

Lastly below is a video showing the fit on each drum head, you can see the non-360′s Evans are very loose which could lend to splay, the 360 has just a bit of play and the Remo is pretty snug. There is not much to say about a drum head, even thought we believe that this review will help you in your decision.

Evans Level 360 Vs Evans NON-360 vs Remo