The Pearl hi hat stand I had in the 80s was the BEST hi hat stand EVER! I thought. Loved that thing!
When I was working at Guitar Center the huge craze was the DW5000 which, true... it's a fast pedal. I was always repairing them for people - mostly replacing bearings or fixing broken chains - and who really knows what they put the pedal through, so I'm not criticizing the DW5000 by any stretch. Great pedal that I've never owned.
Tama came out with their "Camco" chain drive to compete, and I loved it. I think that was later replaced by the Iron Cobra series, but I don't know for sure... stopped paying attention for years.
But also back then, Pearl came out with an amazing chain drive pedal for almost half the price, and it was awesome! I don't recall the model name/number, but it was a Solid contender, so I made sure everyone looking at bass pedals saw and tried it. There were already plenty of folks going for the other two due to being recommended by their heroes.
Pearl started shipping their Export kits with pinstripes and a Remo Muffle for the bass drum. I set one up on the demo floor and was absolutely amazed that I didn't have to tune it at all! Not even the snare drum! So I sat down to play it - and that's when I noticed how truly amazing their really inexpensive belt/strap-drive pedal worked! I was floored!!! Really nice pedal. Well (Very Well) built, nice braided nylon strap coated in a rubbery plastic, and the acton was smooth, tight and solid! Sure, it wasn't a speed champ like the DW5000 or the Tama Camco Chain-drive, but I never really needed anything faster than something like this anyway, and I was playing a lot of Metallica covers back then.
Sorry... just two more cents fr you guys!