To start with: my favorite drum stick is the little brother of these, the Vater 5AN Power Drum Sticks -Nylon- . They are identical in lenght and material and I got used to the half an inch extra lenght and the additional power. The big difference between the two is the thickness and resulting weight increase on the 2BN. It took me a while to get used to as it is quite tiring on wrists and hands. I play rock and therefore the louder sounds trough extra force are fine with me and the band, as they love to crank it up anyway at practise. The pair of heavy sticks is lasting me two weeks now which is above average.
I recomend these high quality sticks to drummers who like playing hard and do milage practising. It trains muscle and feels effortless when switching back to a 5AN or similar.
I never had problems with the nylon tips coming off and i never go back to wooden tips as they were always the first part to crumble on the cymbals.
The price of the Vater 2BN is sound and a solid piece of wood for the money.
The service here at Thomann was as fast as always.