I recently received my (very) custom Prophecy LE from Ultra Sabers. I want to stress at the very beginning of this review that I am a critical person, and I don't believe in sugar coating anything. You should know this upfront and from the start! I was trained as a critic; my Bachelor's Degree is IN critique. Critique is not, as it is commonly held, a bad thing. Being critical doesn't imply you're unfriendly, mean, or characteristically negative. It for the most part means you’re observant.
Now with that kind of preamble you may be expecting a negative review, but that's not the case. I love this thing. I've hardly put it down since it arrived. It's wrenchingly beautiful. I've waited my WHOLE life for this thing and it's already my friend. I sing to it. I pet it. I look longingly at it from across the room. My wife won't let me bring it to bed, so that's out... until she leaves town. But, since I'm in a position of such contentment and happiness, I also think I can offer some critique from a position of strength, and in the process shed some light on the very common question on these forums:
Where the hell's my yellow saber?!
We’re going to address this first off and get it out of the way.
BLADE COLORLet me back up 30 years. I got my first light saber somewhere around the time I was seven or so. I got it for Christmas. It came in a surprisingly small box and was basically a cheap piece of crap flash light. It had an
inflatable blade. It was also, yellow. Now, remember, this was at least 25 years before Knight of the Old Republic. Right? Upon opening this thing for the first time, my thoughts were the seven year old equivalent of, “What the frell is this shell?” Not only was the “blade” inflatable, not only was there a huge seam running down the middle of it, NOT ONLY WAS IT YELLOW, a color that light sabers simply weren't, but it deflated so quickly after screwing the ring down onto the flashlight that it was all droopy before you could even swing it. What a disaster.
And for some reason, I’ve wanted a yellow light saber ever since. Enter Ultra Sabers. Hell, even they didn’t appear to want me to have one. But, after talking it out with Alex we came up with the following order:
LE Prophecy
Quick Disconnects (Silver, Yellow, Purple)
Econo-Sound
In Hilt Recharge
MHS Pommel #4
MHS Insert #6
Some fancy light up thingy
32” Standard Edge Heavy Duty
Now, due to some shipping mistakes, all I’ve got at the moment is the yellow. But since that’s what most of you are here to see, that’s OK. I’ll update the rest later upon receipt.
Though the above order states Standard Edge (which I typically like better) I’m going to show you pictures of the yellow LED on a 24” Ultra Edge. Why? Because this is the absolute brightest I can make this color. For comparison I’m including my son’s green on a standard edge. Both of these sabers have in hilt recharge systems, both are on overnight full charge batteries, in the same room, with the same camera, in the same light at the same time of day, in isolation.
With Flash:
No Flash:
Please note that the green UNDER A FLASH is about as bright as the yellow without a flash. And remember, these things look much brighter in pictures than in real life, AND, trust me, that 24” ultra edge is as good as the yellow can do.
I don’t think I need to delve too deep into this for you to see my point. The yellow is comparatively
dim. We’re talking dimmer than my old MR Vader. When attached to the 36” blade it was erroneously shipped with, it barely has the guts to light the end of the tube, and all but disappears 2/3 of the way to the tip before coming back in a bit at the reflector in any kind of moderately lighted room. When compared to our free saber in red (
review) or my son’s green it’s actually a little embarrassing. And I don’t mean embarrassing to Ultra Sabers, to the color’s own psyche. It just can’t pull it off. You can see from the above, it diminishes greatly even over the scant 24” of the Initiate blade.
So, folks, I think this is why Ultra Sabers is not offering the yellow. Me? Like I said, I’m fair, and honest. I was after a yellow saber, and they made it for me. It’s dim, but it’s what I asked for. My guess is that if they offered this standard, and people expected anything like what they’d get with the more standard colors, they’d be in for a lot of unfair anger directed their way. There’s a reason yellow’s not offered folks, and it’s not because they haven’t seen a rainbow or eaten a banana. I’m sure if and/or when they can offer you a yellow that is more in line with the quality of the rest of the colors, they will. Until then,
sit tight. I probably should have.
That said, the HUE of the yellow is really nice, IN A STANDARD EDGE. I find the hue appears very peachy in the ultra edge, especially as it peters out near the end of the tube. I don't have a longer Ultra Edge, but I imagine if it turns peachy keen over 24", it would be exacerbated longer out. That aspect of the color does not show up well in these images nor the video to follow. I think it bears mentioning though, that since the hue is what Alex had more control over than the brightness (I assume, don't really understand the tech) it is well done.
I was left unsatisfied with the above write up, and for posterity, I rated the "color" a 5/10. I'm going to revise this, because, I think the hue of the effect and its brightness deserve separate consideration. Hopefully this might clear up any perceived contradiction in my review.HUEStandard Edge: 9/10 (Really very nice. If I could magically adjust it I might add a touch more green.)
Ultra Edge: 6/10 (It's yellow at the bottom, but quickly becomes more peach like.)
BRIGHTNESSStandard Edge: 4/10 (Almost disappears in a moderately lit room.)
Ultra Edge: 6/10 (Has a little more longevity down the blade.)
On to more positive stuff!
ECONO-SOUND!Yes folks, econo sound in a Prophecy from Ultra Sabers! Step right up. In order to accommodate the sound board we needed to change the pommel to one that would allow room and ported inserts. I think it looks, utterly, f’ing, divine. I’ve seen a few Prophecy hilts with MHS #7 in them and I humbly submit that mine, with #4, looks a lot better. It really matches the clean over all lines of the hilt.
The sound is
good! Ok? It’s really good. I have an old MR Vader and this one blows it out of the water, hits it on the head and tosses it back in. No contest. It’s deep, resonant and rich. I see no compromise here from the more expensive boards.
And the flicker. If I could get rid of the flicker upon light up and power down, I would. However, I actually really like it on the clash state. So for me, it’s a wash. You might want to wait for the next breed of Hasrbo toy sabers to hit since they won’t have the flicker at all, but I’m perfectly happy as is. Remember, the yellow here appears way, way brighter than it is. I'm a video idiot so I'm not sure how loud it is, might have to turn it up.
| <![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9yQDouLKow" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9yQDouLKow</a>]]> |
The state detection is a little iffy, but from what I’ve seen of MR / Higher end Hasbro boards, absolutely no worse. Personally, I’d either go econo, or for one of the fancy Croutons / Focus things.
SOUND – 7/10Now the hilt itself. I put this last, even though it’s arguably the most important, since everyone knows what these things look like.
WORKMANSHIPFlawless. I’m tempted to stop there. But I get paid by the word, so… Oh my God. It’s just so wonderful. I would definitely recommend this hilt as a show piece, not equipment or weapon, like other hilts. It’s beautiful, did I say that yet? It’s smooth, shiny, perfect. I would not however recommend fighting with this thing. For my taste there’s just too much going on with the hilt.
I read on this forum a different Prophecy review where the owner had gotten an, inexplicable to him and fairly substantial, bloody gash while using this hilt. I’d be very surprised if he didn’t get his flesh stuck in between the blade and the angled emitter. Mine is sharp. The emitter is so well cut, and such a perfect angle, it’s basically a spear point. Ha.
I asked Alex to build in some little bell and whistle, either blinky lights on the hilt, or some cool recessed lighting up inside the pommel. He said he’d try to get an LED up inside the hilt. My guess is he ran out of room. However, as you can see from below, his workaround is a combo of what I asked for, and pretty damned cool as well. He put little LEDs in the holes of the insert. They’re not 100% constant on either, they kind of flutter a bit. I like that a lot.
You’ll also see the recharge port above. The system included works flawlessly, and is tucked safely out of the way. I’ll be hard pressed to order a single other saber without this feature. It straight up rocks.
QUALITY: 10/10And that about does it. I can’t talk about the quick disconnects, the other colors, or if the yellow looks better in the shorter standard edge blade until I receive them. I hold out a lot of hope for most of those, but not the yellow. It’s cool to have, but it just doesn’t measure up to the high standard they’ve set.
This is not a knock against Ultra Sabers, but they know that. I just want to be sure I don’t get any hate mail from you forum-ites for bad mouthing our guys here. My guess is it’s a technical restriction and an inescapable optical reality.
=========================================================================================
EDIT / UPDATE: I'm going to take another set of pictures comparing the two colors above. I think the images combined with my description may be underselling the color more than I intend. I'm sticking to my rating because, while I'm mostly happy with the result, I think most people would be disappointed. I just got back from a walk with my kids though, and thinking about the images, I'm worried the white tube of the ultra edge is gathering too much light from the flash. The yellow is noticeably, significantly dimmer than the green or red, but that picture probably serves to over state that. I'll update soon-ish.
Ok, the control so to speak. These images show the same two sabers from above under mostly identical situations (it's later in the day but still light out) but with the blades swapped.
With flash:
No flash:
So, in the end, you can see the ultra edge did not actually wash out the color as much as I had feared. This also shows you what I was talking about with the hue. The
color of the yellow is actually
very nice, but as you can see from the top image here, is unfortunately all but transparent. For me personally, that's OK, my guess is for most folks, the disappointment would outweigh the cool.
For what it's worth.
