Pulled the trigger on a aD5 late Sunday afternoon, ordered through Drum-Tec.de and it arrived already this morning (!)
Upgraded straight away from 1.01 to 1.03. Very annoying that this can't be done using an USB-stick, but has to be done via the SD-card, so I had to steal a card from some other device.
Able to install the module in the same spot on the rack where my TD-9 used to fit, no adjustments needed.
Seems to support the TD-9 cable assembly, just connected the DB-25 and everything, *but* the hihat, works as aspected. Will still have to connect my BT-1 and additional CY-8 cymbal to both aux-ports, will look into that. I can ask ATV suppport, but I suspect I will have to go and replay the TD-9 cable tree by this AD5 cable tree anyway to get the hihat to work.
The hihat pad plays, but the controller does not work.
Initially volume between pads was quite unbalanced so setup all the right pads and went through standard crosstalk and triggering setup procedures and the started playing. After this triggering was of course much better, but not great. I now really have an annoying hot-spot issue with my PD-105 (hi-tom) and PD-125 (used as floor-tom), which I did not have as pronounced with the TD-9. My DIY 13" snare works fine though. I personally do not really care that the tom-rims can't be used as triggers.
Took me some time getting used to the user-interface, quite different, not very intuitive.
Kits sound quite good and usable. Especially good bassdrum and cymbal sounds, not overly enthousiastic on snare-sounds. Cymbals sounds are quite good (real Zildjian and Sabian samples, I like the Sabian GrooveRide and HHX ride and HHX crashes, nice and warm).
Response-time is great, no delay like I experienced with VST playing. Sounds and dynamics is just as inspiring as with VST-playing, but VST-latency in my setup really put me off, and I only used the TD-9 internal sounds so far.
When going through the dynamics for instance with single strokes from pp to ff you really noticed the changing sample-layers, bit of a put-off. Luckily not noticeable when playing backbeat with ghostnotes.
I find I cannot setup independent triggering sensitity between bow and edge of a cymbal, so when I set the bow for normal sensitivy a forceful crash to the edge comes in at defeaning volume and have yet to find a way to adjust this if at all possible, need to be careful for my ears. Such a crash does sounds great, like the difference between a glancing blow and a really forceful hit.
So yes, as far as sounds concerned and playing feel really an upgrade compared to the TD-9, if it where not for the hihat, it would've been a completely drop-in replacement. Triggering is not all that consistent yet and needs work.
To be honest, is this really a worthwhile upgrade? I would give it a 7 or 'B' right now. I did consider buying a 2nd hand TD-15 or trade-in my TD9 for a 15 through Drum-Tec. A 2Box might have worked out better, but would have required many more hours of fiddling to get it to work, and time is money.
