Thanks,
@olivianewtonjohn
Helpful in that you kinda confirmed what I suspected about the price of these things. I checked out both atomicsmokes and tqg, but both had pretty significant shipping costs. I might try to hunt down a tqg coupon, but (in addition to the price) I like that the stem on the ioffer piece I posted is curved like the DGs. I'll probably just hold off for now.
If you're only experimenting at this stage, why not just get the ash catcher that was linked and a j-hook or mouthpiece? A number of people in the thread have ordered that catcher and said it stacks well with low drag, so you wouldn't be a thread guinea pig on this one. Unlike the $80 pipe you linked, the ash-catcher has a clearly open frit, and offers better ergonomics for vaping as you can clearly watch the can while using it.
And it lets you try frits for about
$20 total. Hell, you could make a five-or-six-chambered frit bubbler monstrosity for the same price as the $80 bubb. Suh-moooooth.
The barrier to try once "exotic" perks like fritted discs is rapidly disappearing in the global market. Jesus, twenty bucks?! If they can make an ash catcher for US$13, they could put a fixed mouthpiece on it instead for basically nothing extra. $14 one-piece 8-10" frit bubbler, anyone? $15 with a base...
I wonder what Dave's thread has made of these developments? He's sure been doing a lot to try to maintain and justify the artificially high pricing of fritted discs.