You can’t really go wrong with drums, weirdly I was thinking about this this morning.
The best sounding kit I ever had was a pearl export kit that cost me £100. Stick some decent heads on (remo pinstripes for me but YMMV) and almost any kit will sound half decent.
Cymbals wise, make sure they’re made of actual bronze and you cant really go wrong, the cheaper brass models sound shoot and break easily.
Hardware is the thing worth paying more for, Try and get stuff by one of the big brands, Pearl, Tama, or Yamaha are good and shouldn’t cost the earth, my pearl double pedal is about 15 years old and still fine, cheap stuff is cack. I had a dixon pedal that fell apart in less than a year.
I’ve got an electric kit now, but I wouldn’t recommend a cheap one for learning on, they’re ok for practice but nit that nice to play on. You’d need to fork out £1500+ for a half decent one