ZNA vs. Vamo

I've been mulling over this post for a while now, and I wanted to get my thoughts out there on my new, high-end mod, the House of Hybrids ZNA, especially in comparison to my old, faithful KSD Vamo V3 that I've had almost since I started vaping.

As I said, I've had my Vamo V3 for a long time, about a year at this point. I saw the reviews on it, the features, the looks, it had all the goodies I could want in a mod, especially when I got the full kit for under $50. It was a phenomenal value, and I will never understand why I don't see more of them. The only downside to the thing was the shiny finish and how easily it can scratch and chip, but I knew that before I hit the "Purchase" button, and to this day I say it just gives it character. I have beaten and bruised this thing. It's been dropped, knocked over, gotten wet, covered in juice top to bottom, gone hiking with me, left in the sun and sub-zero temperatures, gone on roadtrips, everything. It has never once failed me. The Vamo has out-lived and out-performed everything I've bought to date. The only negatives I have to say for it are nitpicky little things, like how the 510 connection is slightly too high to flush mount anything, and that the threads are kinda squeaky. Overall, I absolutely love my Vamo, and when it inevitably dies, it will either be framed and hung on the wall or given a Viking funeral. Well done, KSD, this thing's almost a perfect 10.

Like most people that vape, I am always looking for the next best thing, so I got a ZNA last month as an early Fathers Day/One Year Smoke Free present. I'd wanted one ever since I first saw it. Zen talked of perfection, durability, engineering, and how it was painstakingly made from all American materials, etc. Lucky me, Sky Vapor in Everett had one when I went looking to get it. No resellers from eBay for me! I paid my $300+tax for it, plus new batteries since I didn't have any 18490s (I didn't like the extension tube purely because of aesthetics). I was happy, I was excited, I finally had a quality device (according to propaganda apparently)!

Cut to about a day later. I was taking a good look at my ZNA and I noticed that the battery meter looked a little weird on the screen. I pulled up a picture of the DNA30 display screen and sure enough, my screen had a row of dead pixels running across the battery meter. Well that's not the perfection I paid for... I came across a post somewhere that said that you can sometimes turn a device on and off quickly to try to reset the screen, but that didn't work. It did allow me to notice the scratch that my battery cap came with though. I didn't send it back to warranty at this point, I had a vape meet coming up in two weeks!

Two weeks went by, and I figured I should clean off the threads on my ZNA, I didn't want gunk on my precious before the meet. My battery tube was surprisingly hard to remove. After slowly putting it on and taking it off a few times, I discovered that the threading wasn't the problem, it was how the threads on the ZNA were pointing. It was off center just enough to rub up against the body. I was kind of hoping it was the tube, but alas, it was not. I tried my tube on a fellow vapers ZNA at the meet and there was no problem with it. But it was ok, right? Just a minor annoyance on a product touted for its attention to detail.

Another week goes by and I'm taking a break at work when I think hey, I'm gonna bump up the power half a watt and see how she goes. I went from 10.2 to 30 with a single press of the button. It stuck. What made it better was that I didn't notice and got an awful burned hit from my kayfun. I was hoping it was a fluke, but when I tried to turn it back down, no luck. I had to pull the battery out before it would let me turn it back down. After a day I just didn't even mess with it, and for whatever reason it was fine. Ok, weird, but better not happen again. Once again, I didn't sent it back to warranty at this point since the issue seemed to self resolve, and I did really enjoy using it.

Last Saturday is when the final straw came that seriously shook up my faith in buying high-end products. My friggen fire button got stuck, while I was driving in heavy traffic no less. What the hell? Why was I having all these problems with my ZNA? I pulled out the battery and put it back in, hoping it would be like the wattage button problem and kind of take care of itself, and it did, for about 5 minutes. I now had a very expensive stainless steel paper weight. Off to warranty!

I kept wondering if I had somehow managed to mistreat this thing. I knew I hadn't done anything harmful to it. I kept it on my desk at home, not even out in my garage like the rest of my gear. I never dropped it or knocked it over. I wiped it down with a dry cloth daily. At work driving around I kept it in a little bed I made out of a beanie and a cup holder. I only used my kayfun on it since my igo-w4 is built way too low, so I know I never got juice in the internals (which I understand aren't sealed at all) as only the slightest bit ever even got on the 510 connection. I used the recommended batteries. I babied the hell out of this thing, and it still quit working after less than a month. Overall, I regret purchasing this device. It has failed to live up to the promise that is a Zen product. I could have bought any other DNA30 powered device and got the same vape quality, not to mention nice things like USB charging and the ability to use batteries other than nipple-top AW IMRs. Perhaps my opinion of the ZNA will change once it gets back for repair, but if all the problems aren't addressed, you can be damn sure I'll be letting you all know about it.

Now let me vent my frustrations. Skip this last paragraph if you don't want to read hatred. Why in the holiest of fucks did my brand spanking new, highly sought after, and allegedly phenomenal device turn in to a massive piece of worthless SHIT after such a short time? How the hell did this thing get out of the fucking shop with all these flaws, when it comes straight from your mouth that you won't sell ANYTHING with the slightest defect? I call bullshit on you, House of Hybrids. Buying this device wasn't a frivolous purchase from a collector with a large disposable income that just wants it to display. I didn't buy it for bragging rights. I bought it to FUCKING USE IT! I had to save for it. I had to beg my wife to let me get it. I had to get extremely lucky just to find the god damn thing! It was a huge fucking deal to me. I don't buy things for myself very often, and usually put extravagant purchases off by the way-side so I can make my family happy. I sacrifice for them all the things I want so they can have the things they want. You can imagine my anger when, not even after full month, this thing that people treat like it was shat out by God Himself stopped working. You assholes had better fix it right, and all of it. If you're just gonna sell mods to people just so they can say they have real Zen shit, then maybe consider putting a disclaimer on everything saying it's not actually meant to be used and in fact isn't worth its weight in pig vomit. I would definitely go as far as to say you were outdone by China, Zen. My allegedly low quality, cheap piece that you elitist types look down your noses at has been by and far more reliable and trustworthy than the snake oil you're peddling. Sure, it's made of chromed brass. Sure, the chip is in about a thousand different mods and makes a weird sound when it fires. Sure, it's mass-produced on a large scale. But you know what else it does? It works right, which is more than I can say about my ZNA. I feel better now. Rant over.

My hardware collection slowly expands!

So I haven't done anything but the MBV reviews lately, so I figured I'd fill some people in on what I've been using hardware-wise. I keep picking up new toys, and I'm definitely not regretting any of them!

The most recent thing I've bought is a copper Nemesis clone that I'm in love with, even though it's only been in my hands since Memorial Day, where I picked it up at the Tobacco Joe's vape meet in Everett, WA. I'd been wanting a new mechanical, since my love-hate relationship has been a lot closer to hate lately with my Kamry K100-101. I picked up the Nemmy and loved it, and even more when I put the magnets in instead of the spring. It's got the lightest button press and always fires, which is a lot more than I could say about the crap K101 button. Its already starting to develop a nice patina. I haven't checked voltage drop on it yet, but I'm sure it's better than what I'd been using.

For my early Fathers Day gift I was allowed to go buy myself a House of Hybrids ZNA, which I picked up at Sky Vapor, also in Everett, WA. I love 90% of it. The only thing I have a gripe with is that the screen for the DNA chip has dead pixels that run right across the battery meter. Is it performance impacting? No. I did pay $300 for the damn thing though, so it's gonna be perfect once I get it shipped back for warranty repair. Other than that, it's solid, heavy, durable, and lets not forget beautiful. The dual-adjustable positive pin is fantastic and I've been able to flush mount absolutely everything I put on it. It does look like it might be uncomfortable to use, but the opposite is true. It fits in the hand very nicely, and the fire button has been very nice to use as well. Even though it uses an 18490 battery I still get almost a whole day of vaping in before needing to swap batteries. I could have got the extension tube, but I decided against it purely due to aesthetics.

As far as atomizers go, there are only two I use at the moment. On the ZNA I use a Kayfun Lite Plus "Black Edition" clone. It has adjustable airflow, SS construction, come with the extra metal tank section, so on and so forth. Cost me about $50, and worth every penny. I haven't had a single issue with it. I have it built with a 1.5 ohm microcoil and wicked with cotton, and I generally run it between 8 and 11 watts. On my mechanicals I've been using a Igo-W4 drip atty with a dual twisted 28ga microcoil setup that comes in at 0.34 ohms, so around 50 watts on a fresh battery. I was using regular microcoils, but the twisted wire gives me more vapor and flavor. I wick it with cotton. I run the wick over the top of the center post and through the coils, so when I drip in to it gravity works in my favor and keeps the liquid in the coils, and if the juice gets in to the well the little ends of the wick that stick out soak it up, so it's been very juice efficient. One of my friends changed from a cotton cloud to the setup I use, and he mentioned he was getting more flavor my way. I also drilled out the airflow to 2mm holes. For a cheap-ish atomizer it's kicking some ass.

That's about all I got at the moment. In the next week I hope to write up some other things besides the juice reviews. If anyone has a specific suggestion, post in the comments, tweet me, or email me at vapifier@gmail.com.

The Great Mt. Baker Vapor Review: Cake (Yellow)

Yellow cake, the classic Betty Crocker boxed cake mix. Who hasn't had that? Usually with some chocolate frosting and "Happy Xth Birthday!" written on the top, sometimes with those god-awful hard candies that no one really likes, but they look nice.

That was the image that came to mind when I ordered this juice. It's not a tank cracker, so that's a plus, but it is a bit of a darker juice that will gunk up a coil. That means it's going in my dripper, and that means it's going to be max VG, because clouds are fun!

Upon arrival, the juice was sweet smelling with notes of, well, cake. Upon the first vape it was pretty tasty, and it definitely had a cake flavor, but it was more cake batter than the finished confection. I didn't have a problem with that, since I don't think it would be terribly easy to make something taste exactly like a cake. Also, the thing about every yellow cake I've ever has is that I couldn't precisely tell you what the cake alone tasted like. It seems to me that yellow cake is more of a transport device to get the frosting to your face without eating it out of the can.

Throughout the course of the bottle, I could definitely tell when the juice was starting to gunk up my coils, because the sweetness was greatly overshadowed by a charcoal taste. Not a big deal, juice gunks up. After a wick change everything was OK, and I only had to change it every 5ml or so. Not too awful really.

Overall, I'd have to go with a 3/5 on this one. Tasted like yellow cake, and I have no major complaints about it. Now, if you could make it taste like the cake with chocolate frosting and those stale candies...

The Great Mt. Baker Vapor Review: Cola

This juice... I wanted to like it so bad. I tried, I really did, but it didn't happen, and that makes me sad.

When I got this juice I cracked it open and took a whiff, and it smelled like, well, cola. I figured we were off to a good start here. Then I looked at the juice itself, and noticed it had seemed to have seperated, all the flavor floating on the top. I'd seen that before, so I let it sit. This steeped for around a week before I got around to vaping it.

Since it was a tank cracker, I decided to drip it. I got the full bore flavor out of it and the best description I have for how it tasted was from my brother. He said it's like a spicy store brand soda. I say it tasted like straight Soda Stream syrup. We both agreed that it was missing a vital component to a cola: sweetness. The distinct cola flavor was very prevalent, but there was way too much of it. I figured I would try it in my kayfun and see if lower power helped with the flavor.

With my metal tank on my kayfun, I filled it up and had a vape. First thing that happened was it now tasted like some kind of lemon, not really cola at all. I'm clueless as to why this happened. Second thing that happened was the juice burned. I've never had an issue with juice burning using the kayfun. Same setup I'd been using for months (0.8 ohm microcoil on a magneto). I figured maybe I wicked it funny, so I drained, rewicked, and refilled. Same problem, until my battery got down to about 3.6v, then I could vape it like I normally do with little to no issue. And before you ask, no, the juice wasn't separating anymore at this point. I checked before I filled it up. I still shook it for good measure though.

Overall, I'd have to put this juice at a 1/5. I've never had a juice just burn like this unless I was roasting a near-dry wick. The flavor was either super overpowering or wasn't cola at all, depending on the atty I used. I also got the unpleasant side effect of wicked throat irritation. I do not have a sensitivity to many things, but this crap made my throat feel like I had a mild case of strep. I can't say either way if there are better or worse cola flavors in the world, but I can say I wouldn't recommend this one.

The Great Mt. Baker Vapor Review: Peach

What can I say about Peach? More than I thought, apparently.

I received Peach as a freebie on one of my orders. It was clear, smelled like peaches, and it was STRONG. Since this flavor is a known tank cracker, I decided to use it in my drip atomizer that, at the time, was a 0.7 ohm dual microcoil. It was super overpowering in there until my battery was on its way to dead. What I decided to do was dilute it with pure VG by a little more than half, and it was pretty close to perfect. No exact science here, folks. If I mathed right it ended up at about 4mg and about 60% VG, but that's an approximation.

The flavor on this was, as I said, really strong straight out of the bottle. So strong in fact I could taste it in my mouth for some time after I'd finished vaping it. It comes off as an artificial peach with none of the tang you usually get from a real peach. It also became very tiresome after about a half an hour. It definitely did have a bit of a weird flavor that I couldn't really put my finger on, almost like it was a green, unripened peach. After I had the epiphany of diluting the juice, it got a lot better. More of the peachiness came through, and less of the greenness (best word I can think to describe it). Plus I got bigger clouds, and that made me happy :)

Overall I'd have to give this one by itself a 2/5. If, however, you dilute it it would go up to a 3 or 4 if you mix something with it, like that white tea I got an order or two back. I think that would have ended up pretty good if I had any white tea left to try it. Oh well, maybe I'll try that out at some point in the future. Either that or you MBV guys can make a tea line and name it after me, I wouldn't object. In any case, I'll say it's a decent juice, but it's too damned strong, and unless you like to challenge how much peach you can handle, DON'T GET EXTRA FLAVOR SHOTS! But if you do, max it out and send me a video of you trying it.

The Great Mt. Baker Vapor Review: Bananas Gone Nuts

Bananas Gone Nuts is exactly what the name implies, bananas with nuts. It is NOT banana nut bread, as I kind of figured it would be. Thanks to my wife, I can say for sure they are different flavors since she has the Banana Nut Bread flavor.

The banana component of the juice isn't quite a candy banana flavor, but very close to being one. As far as what kind of nuts, I largely got walnut, maybe a little bit of almond but I could be imagining that.I didn't get any weird off flavors or unidentifiable tastes, so that's a plus!

Overall I'd give this one a 4/5. It was pretty enjoyable from start to finish, didn't destroy my coils with gunk, and I didn't tire of it too quickly. Definitely a solid juice.

The Great Mt Baker Vapor: Get Razzled

I'm going to start this review off by saying it's probably unfair. When this came around in my rotation my allergies decided to kick in, so my taste very well could have been compromised.

Get Razzled is a raspberry milkshake flavor. I really like milkshake flavors when they're done right. Surprisingly my favorite one is some off-brand juice from a local smoke shop, but they only have banana strawberry.

The smell on this was like a (surprise) raspberry milkshake. It reminded me of the real ice cream shakes you can get at small mom and pop drive in type places in small towns. You know the ones, they dump a bunch of soft serve in to a cup, dump a big scoop of fresh berries on it, and blend it up.

I had some issues with the flavor on this one. Again, allergies may have been a contributor. My first few puffs would be about average for what I'd expect. Sweet, berry, and a little creamy. After maybe four the flavor would just be gone, except a little bit on the exhale, but other off flavors would come in. There was a pretty strong artificial taste that would come through, as well as a complete lack of flavor with what I can only describe as being like when you get water up your nose on accident.

Since I was all congested and junk, I can't fairly review this with certainty, only share what I experienced. Under heavy allergies, I'd give it a 2/5. I would estimate that if I could taste and smell properly, it would likely move up to a 3.5/5. I may have to revisit this one in the future.