TOPIC: The Truth About Ultrasabers

Alright, so let me preface this by saying this is all my opinion. I don't want any hate for this, I am going to list things I like and dislike about Ultrasabers.

But to start right off the bat, Ultrasabers was the first company I ever bought from. This was back in 2013, so they could have gotten better, but I've heard quite the opposite. Anyway, I was getting a gift for a friend, and bought myself one as well. To make a long story very short; the sabers were shit. The bodies were cheaply made and the electronics lasted three months at best. They were pretty good about getting us new sabers, but those ones ended up doing the very same thing.

Ultrasabers' work is half-assed at best. The soldering is very poorly done, the hilts are cheap material, and the wiring could be much better.

However, on the other hand, Ultrasabers also light up very well. They are perfect for customization.

That being said, the only thing I would ever buy from Ultrasabers again is a grab bag saber that I'm not afraid to take a dremel to and make my own customizations.

These types of threads can get hostile fast so remember to keep the tone civil and respect each other even though your opinions may differ. This topic is sensitive to a number of people in the saber community so check yourself (and double read your posts) before posting. I know I have to.

Ultrasabers has never been my thing and I feel like they've settled into a market driven niche below the "higher end" sabers from SF and other manufacturers like VV. If people like them, more power to them for finding something they like. I'm a bit turned off by what I perceive to be some rather shysty business practices and their overall design aesthetic doesn't fit my preferences.

Ultrasabers was the first saber company I looked at. I heard so many shining things from the members of their saberforum (go figure) and their sabers looked amazing. This was when SF was still getting better at what they do, when they were the sketchy ones and not US. Now I've got a Gladius coming in the mail. SF worked to get ahead. US was content to sit where they were.

Every company is going to get bad reviews. Sometimes it's opinion or a grudge. Other times it's just facts and experience. But you can bet that each bad review will blot out a hundred good reviews when buyers are looking around. People will notice the black dot, not the white canvas all around.

No experience with US here.

That being said, I don't really like any of their hilt designs at all. I've seen them around for a long time, but nothing they've ever built has called to me whatsoever.

I was actually on the cusp of buying a Monarch from US (their version, which admittedly looks like the result of a torrid one night stand between the Darth Sidious saber and a vibrator) and a different, separate pommel (see previous parenthetical for reason behind that decision), then whipped back around to my original desire and ordered the Bane from the SF Etsy.

I agree with bro2044, though, US's hilt designs, for the most part, seem kind of plain and uninspired. I was looking at their Monarch because it seemed to me to be the only thing on their site that had any kind of "personality" at all.

That being said, however... I spent a good three weeks before I ordered my saber doing research on both companies, and I watched probably a hundred video reviews and comparisons on Youtube; and all the other bad things I've seen/heard about US (aside from the simplicity of their designs), I've also seen/heard about SF. Seems like there's always someone more than willing to sh** talk one maker or the other (or, in some cases, BOTH), and sometimes it seems like the complaints have very little to do with the products themselves. I finally had to decide that I was only going to listen to reviews from the past six months or so, because problems from years ago don't necessarily reflect what a company has going on today.

But I know plenty of people have US sabers and are just tickled to death with them, and this forum is obviously filled with people who feel the same way about SF sabers. It's all a matter of personal preference, and if something breaks or goes wrong, all you can do is hope that the seller in question will fix it.

I personally am just going to continue sitting here shaking like a small yappy dog waiting for my Bane to arrive, and then order me a parts kit to build myself a SWG-inspired saber when the ASP goes public.

Because I've chosen my side now, and I'm gonna stick with it.

I have bought a ultrasabers manticore back in late 2012, before I discovered saber forge. They do produce decent sabers, as step up from the master replica and hasbro force fx sabers. I find I like the quality, designs, and price better here at Saber Forge, but I will admit there are two areas where ultrasabers seems to be ahead of saber forge. First is lead time. The time from order to delivery is much shorter at US than SF. I feel SF is worth the wait but if you are in a hurry for a saber US might be a better choice.

Edit: This portion is based on what I've seen in on boards like this and seen in videos. The US I own was from before the emerald sound board was available and I have not yet been able to purchase a hero tier saber. My understanding is that the emerald sound is superior to the champion sound board, but in light of subsequent posts not necessarily better than hero. The remainder of my my post may not be accurate but I'm leaving it in for context as it has been commented on in later posts. /end edit.

The other is sound boards. The US emerald sound boards are more customizable and just do more than the current SF sound boards. I here SF has sound boards in the prototype phase that are as good or better, but for the moment US is ahead on sound.

bro2044 wrote:
This is generally how I've felt. While I just recently made my first saber purchase, I've researched sabersmiths 4 or 5 times over a 15 year window. In most of those searches US and SF were top names and high in my considerations. I never liked the appearance of US hilts and if I were going to buy it would be from SF. I never bought till recently due to not enough disposable income/had no real use for them.

Yeah. Make sure this topic says completely civil, as h2soy says... it's really a hot button issue and some people can really get bent out of shape over things, and unfortunately a lot of that can be caused by bad/misinformation.

The hardest part of doing any research any any company is sifting through the lies and exaggeration and finding the truth. Honestly I don't think there are any negative reviews out there on any company that aren't at least a little embellished by their own personal emotions tied to the event. Everyone sees things from their own perspective and when you're having a negative experience as a customer it's even harder to step back and look at a situation that you're involved in objectively and give a truly unbiased opinion on it.

So in my personal experiences, I've owned both several ultrasabers and several SF sabers. I now only own SF, for a couple of reasons. I had a saber come DOA from US, and they basically said too bad so sad. When I got it back from their "warranty repair" and it was still DOA, emory personally accused me of intentonally breaking it and said derogatory things about myself and all other smith's out there. I had an issue with a SF order, they sent me the wrong coupler and the wrong soundboard in a saber. I hate the right coupler in hand two days later and they offered choices on how to handle the other matter. I love SF; their quality is outstanding and when challenged their customer service rises to the task.

Now, jatne, you said a couple things I'd like to address because I see this a lot and US has really gotten away with this one. Shipping time is shorter: yep, that happens when you order enmasse and offer cheaper substandard quality that isn't hand produced and had a spot church quality control. Otherwise why would they send out dead sabers? They offer little to no customization. The MHS system that they so recklessly take advantage of they originally used without permission and TCSS owner Tim eventually just stopped fighting because the legalities of the hobby are extremely grey. So, they offer their mass produced hilts on a system they didn't design in a few base selections and are able to get them out the door quickly.

Secondly, their emerald board. It is far, far FAR inferior to even the spark color 2 board SF uses in the hero tier. Many people don't realize that the emerald is in no way unique; there have been boards on the market for a long while that offer color changing and selection. The spark color 2 has a very in depth color editor that you can program with I believe it's 9 color profiles (each color can be completely customized, especially if you use the RGBA, setting each diode to the strength desired) and 6 different sound fonts. Not to mention the color profile editor on the spark is in-hilt... you can literally change your colors on the go without needing to disassemble the saber and plug it in.. and then only have one color profile still. So the emerald is by no means superior to other boards on the market. It's basically a marketing sham that's taking advantage of those that aren't more versed in the saber world and hobby that are aware of other options and boards that are out there and available.

Edit: one thing to add to that: when you price out a saber such as the manticore, add in the options SF comes standard with, and add obsidian and emerald and flash and all that fun stuff, a lit AV switch... you're paying 500+ for that saber... and a SF hero tier can do so much more. It's really a shame that more people aren't as well versed on what the hero tier offers... it's an amazing piece of quality and stuffed with options and customization options.

Second Edit: That whole previous post was from my phone. Talk about numb thumbs.... anyway! Something else I forgot to mention; their emerald board doesn't have sound, either. They actually use two separate boards, Obsidian for sound, and Emerald for color editing, which provides a whole new set of points of failure for soldering wires, joints, etc... and if you've ever pulled your battery pack out of an US saber, then you've seen the black rubber... stuff.. they coat their boards with, which is notorious for causing them to overheat and burnup. Literally. Catch fire. But they use those covers to hide some of their soldering and prevent end users from being able to easily access the wiring, to "protect" it from sabernoobs, so to speak. The more and more I've learned about US as time goes on, the gladder (is.... is that a word?) I am for SF, and other various options, including independent smiths out there, who offer custom install services and the like.

I am new to the saber market. When I looked over the various vendors and saw what they had to offer, and knew I had the money to invest in what I liked.. I researched the hell out of the saber providers. IN MY OPINION, from what I have seen I just didn't like the hilts US offered. I heard good things and bad things about both providers, but what worried me more was a poorly build product. Since I liked the look of SF hilts and knowing they may take slightly longer to deliver, I would gladly wait for the quality I was paying for.

I am not up to all the tech involved in making these works of art, but as Knytiri has brought up.. I would rather not deal with a company who I may have quality issues with and stay with one who is offering a good warranty and quality parts. I did not hesitate on ordering my Descent Hero and although I would love to have it in my hands now.. I'd rather have the time taken to make it perfect than to receive something I will not be happy with. Just my 2 cents.

Knytri, I personally agree with you on the shipping. I said in my original post that I feel SF is worth the wait, and I agree the difference is in lead times is a result of SF's focus on quality.

On the sound issue I realize that my information on the matter was second hand and have edited my original post with that disclaimer. In fact once I have funds available again for saber purchases I am strongly considering a hero tier saber.

Yeah, I know, I just wanted to expand on that, because some people, especially those that are new to the hobby and industry don't understand why it is that way, why US can do what they do, and such. Just giving more background information, is all.

Same with the second, because I see that a lot, because people just don't know that other boards have better color editors. The Spark Color 2 isn't the only board that offers these services, the Crystal Focus and Shard boards do as well, for a couple right off the top of my head. Having more information, cutting through the marketing hype and finding out the bare bones of the matter, is what's truly important. And when you stack what's been said up against what is, you can tell the difference between the two and make a far more educated decision, instead of falling prey to potentially inferior products. And that goes for everything... even a snickers bar.

Cause I'm hungry, but I haven't turned into like... a raging Viking.... yet.....

I kind of figured the MHS usage was how US got their stuff out so fast. Get an order, screw some MHS parts together, and throw it in a box. Order filled.

WARNING: I MAKE A WHOLE LOT OF ASSUMPTIONS IN THIS POST FROM HERE ON. Please note that this is merely me theorizing, and that I don't know for 100% if any of my hypothetical conditions are/will be true.

Which kind of makes me wonder if US' "advantage" of faster shipping is going to survive the ASP rollout. If SF can keep sufficient stock to where they can ship & deliver ASP kits in a time frame comparable to what US does with their sabers... that's going to pretty much obliterate anything US has going in its favor right now. Because why buy an MHS saber that someone else designed, when you can design your own ASP saber and get it in about the same time frame?

And when you factor in the continuation of SF's current products (which I've seen even a few haters admit are quite a bit above US, in terms of quality/construction/appearance), plus the new Customs Shop.... I think US is either going to have to step up their game, or become forever quagmired in the niche of "the cheap saber store".

I did a bit of research before purchasing my first saber and to me it was a no brainer, so that is why I am here.
The wait time (from Etsy) does not bother me in the slightest. I am used to much greater wait times from colecting other art, toys and collectibles.
Hot Toys Star Wars figures do pre-sales almost a year before you have the figure in hand.

I owned (and still own 2) US hilts. At the time when we were customers, they were a step up from the Force FX sabers we had. With a bad transaction on one of the orders, that they (Emory) refused to make right, I was very happy to find SF. I like their designs better, and their customer service has been outstanding to date.

The two US sabers that I still have are adequate, but one day, I will have them gutted, and give them a second lease on life with better electronics. However, there is nothing in their current offerings that I find inspiring. On the other hand, there are a great many models from SF that I want desperately.

So, there you have it.

Wow! Glad to see all the feedback on this! Knytiri, you said it perfectly. They offer very little. So as a low-end saber company, I guess they are pretty good. Personally, I just think that (as you said), the MHS was abused illegally and without integrity. Honest business practices always have more respect from me than ones where they have literally TAKEN something that someone worked so hard on and tried to make it their own.

In my opinion, when it comes to aesthetics, business practices, and customer service, Saber Forge will always be my favorite.

^^^ this is nice to see, especially from a dedicated forum such as this. The civility shown here says a lot about the customers SF has and keeps. Kudos to you all, for cooler heads prevailed. I am not going to go into my personal opinion but i would have to agree with Kynitiri on all he has said. I just wanted to show my appreciation for how this post went. i don't know if reading this people realize that 95% of the time in any other place conversations and posts like this get out of control very quickly…You go SF fans, be the best fans for (in my opinion) the best company!
May the force be with us always!

I have to agree with what was said above. I own several sabers, both US and SF. The difference really is in the customization and the customer service. SF has, especially with the ASP, created a much better product for those in the hobby.

Also, service-wise, I only ever hear good things coming from SF owners, and many horror stories from US owners. Hopefully they will learn their lesson as more and more customers flock to SF.