Buying a New Snare

So in the process of upgrading heads and hardware over the last several weeks I've removed and reinstalled my heads more often than ever before in my short life as a drummer. What used to feel like a scary prospect is now just a pain in the ass. Mundane.

But this post is about snare drums, right? Yes. See what all that head changing has made me painfully aware of is that not every drum is so easy to tune. And I suspect this is due to imperfections in the bearing edges, the roundness of the drums, the hoops...and various other things related to the quality of the drums. This is fine because they are cheap drums and I wouldn't expect them to be perfect. They tune well enough for me for now.

But if I am going to buy a new snare drum...something that will become the centerpiece of my kit and my sound...and if I am going to spend more than $150...probably more than $200...for it...I want it to be decent. Which makes me realize:
#1 I'm not sure if I can tell what is decent and what is not
and
#2 The way that one buys drums is not very conducive to being able to tell.

The first of these can be solved with study. The second, not so much.

The ways one buys drums are generally:
-used in person from an individual
-used online
-used in person at a store
-new in person at a store
-new online

From my limited experience what I take that you need to do in order to properly test a drum is:
-take the heads off and examine the inside of the drum. Check the bearing edges and that the drum isn't warped or out of round and that there's nothing else wrong
-check the hoops and the hardware for problems (stripped screws, bent hoops)
-put on decent heads, tune them, and play the drum, preferrably along with the rest of your current setup

If one was able to DO all of this...it would take an hour or more probably. Trouble is, one isn't often in a great situation to do all of this.

For an online purchase, of course, all bets are off. Pretty much you are gonna get the drum and have to decide if it is bad enough to return (if you can). Returning it might be at your shipping expense too.

In person, things are better, but still not great. For a sale from an individual, you are relying on their patience with you dicking around. At a shop you might be able to at least take the heads off, and perhaps put on ones you brought with you...but you can't drag your whole kit with you...so you are still shooting in the dark a bit until you get it home. And I'm sure that the store attendant is gonna be THRILLED when you ask to take the heads off. I always feel rushed and nervous in stores anyway...and am rarely planning to buy THAT DAY.

Even with a high quality brand and model...each drum is gonna vary in quality and sound...and need to be tested on its own.

I'm not looking forward to the whole thing.