The moral of this story, and the lesson (and you can skip countless lines of text below), is that the true test of a Demonator, or any pedal, is not how many wobbles you get on the counter but how smooth it plays on the floor……. The Pearl Demonator compares well with the Tama Speed Cobra but is less expensive. Size and smoothness are comparable. It seems, however, that the Demonator assembly is a little hit-and-miss. There are no problems I experienced in parts/raw materials that caused me to return the Demonator. But I believe that the assembly is flawed. I’d heard of the following phenomenon through a survey of forums, reviews, etc. Some fellow has made a video showing a fix for a double pedal Demonator (mine=single) where one of the two pedals provided far fewer (of what one drummer I interviewed termed) “wobbles”. You know how you set a pedal on the counter and bring the beater back and release it, then stand in awe as you count sometimes up to 34 wobbles….or returns? NO? Me neither; just kidding… Seriously, though, a ‘good’, properly-assembled Demonator will deliver at least 25 such wobbles. Out of the box, the single Demonator I bought didn’t deliver…….NOTE: This is NOT necessarily the definitive measure of the worth of a pedal. On a good day, an old Rogers Swivomatic pedal would yield 6 to 8 wobbles before giving up the ghost. And this was a smooth, nimble, strong pedal that lasted for years. Everything was adjustable, too. These days, though, the bearings are so smooth and the design is such that they beg people to test smoothness by counting beater returns. In one shop I’d seen a second-hand Demonator go 28-wobbles. So I knew it could be done. I bought a Demonator in a moment of weakness. Unfortunately the DIY fix on the youtube video didn’t work out and the pedal remained sluggish if the number of returns or wobbles count for something. Ah, but under the foot it was fine. It was so smooth on the ground attached to the drum that it was remarkable. So I faced a dilemma. And I almost kept it but I reckoned, Why buy a major component of the drumkit that seems a little sluggish (up on a store counter) if you know the pedal is capable of better? I sent it back and got my cheerful Amazon refund. I urge Pearl to get it together here and ensure that all pedals do the counter wobble thing flawlessly. To the novice drummer, for whom such measures are totally relevant, and to veterans who are nerds, it’s going to be puzzling and confusing if one pedal wobbles forever and one beater returns, bounces back, six times. I should have kept the pedal despite the embarrassingly tiny wobble count….because it played so well on the drum and was smoother than my other pedals. Why did I buy another pedal if my existing pedals do the job just fine? As Irish singer Paul Brady puts it in his list of why’s, eg: “Why did Elvis throw it all away?….” Brady concludes the song lyrics: “The answer is nobody knows”. Bet you Freud would have had a field day with drummers for this reckless buying in the name of upgrading. (Tbw)