I can attest that Cane drone reeds do in fact sound "better", but unless you play them everyday for 20 minutes, they will give you ulcers!

There are different degrees of synthetic drone reeds, vibrant, full, harmonic and so on. Some synthetic drone reeds sound better on some pipes and different on others. It's one of those "trial by error" kinda things. Cannings sound very nice in my Hardies (as they did on my P3 Dunbars), but the EZee's had a higher "fiddle-with" factor than the Cannings.

Anytime I start on a new chanter reed I do a few things first: Blow it first to see how hard or easy it will be, give the sound box a good "pinch", then do a quick "dunk" in warm water to give it the initial moisture...then go from there. Evereyone has their own method concerning chanter reeds I guess. I have used my method with very good success....so far.