I have had all 9000 and Recording Custom kicks (Japan, Taiwan, England), and played the new ones (China) too.
At the moment I use a 24x14 from the 70’s, this is a failry thin shelled kick (with an even thinner laquer).
I never get that good, nice feeling on the players side, unless I play a 24” (which brings its own set of challanges for me as short guy), regardless heads, tuning, and space.
The 20x18 came close, but was still not satisfying enough.
When I did the demo’s for Yamaha on the new RC they seem to have fixed that issue and those are incredible on the players side now too.
Also what didn’t help (although I love them for nostalgic reasons) were the 10” centre holed heads where the feel was out of the kick much quicker.
But even then, the head was only part of the “bad experience” equation.