I too have read every post in this thread, because they are all worth reading.
My username is an indication of how incredible vaporizing is, so much that it is a "I dread ever smoking again" item. Sweet... honey.... air. So sweet, it lines the inside of the tube with honey residue. Who wants bitter black tar after tasting something so sweet?
Am I the only one who has been shocked at the taste of that first exhale of smoked herb after becoming used to vapor? I feared in that moment that I had also burned a huge wad of hair, so much that I had to check, thats how bad it tasted to me.
I have NEVER had smoke taste that bad to me, not the first time I tried it, not after being away from it for months.
Clearly, vapor rules. How did we live without this?
When I was looking for my first vaporizer, after agonizing for the longest time I decided the best course of action would be to make my first mistake on the cheapest vaporizer, and that turned out to be the Biohazard.
Ah, a glass wand. So wonderful, yet so fragile. I made sure I kept the wand as close to the floor so I wouldn't break it in dropping it... but did not take into account things falling onto it from above. [CRACK]. I was able to superglue it together, but clearly it was going to go downhill from here. My vaporizer lessons were done, and it was time to look for the right one.
Here's what I needed...
1] Taste, taste, taste.
My Biohazard had no temperature control, supposedly to be 'at the optimum temperature' The problem is, there is a wide difference between something that reaches optimum temperature and something that has been sitting there for minutes building up heat, so that your first inhale is a scorcher turning the herb brown/dark black.
Bleah! The taste is bad... I eventually got used to it, but its definitely not conductive to answering your newbie friends question as to why you think vaporizing is better. All of my AVB looked like tobacco (dark brown to black), so I was confused when I'd see some people posting photos of green AVB.
Purple Days never gets out of the vapor zone,
never scorches. The only way to have the faintest hint of popcorn is if you milk the bowl long past its expiration. This is
perfection.
The proof is in the AVB. All my AVB is green!!! Even the bowls I purposefully tried to milk long past its expiration.
2] DURABILITY! [duh]
A nail was slowly driven into my brain as it tried to process the image of my cracked glass wand.
Unless you are in perfect control of your surroundings, you will always have a pet or kid or friend or foot caught in the cord that subjects your vaporizer to physical abuse.
If your home is no arena for the fragile, you want the toughest mofo on the block. This unit is it.
I would not be surprised to see this unit last me a lifetime, so much that I can even pass it on.
3] Efficiency!!!
If you never run out of herb and can consume tons of it inexpensively, then the SSV would outshine the PD for you since it would allow you to take the deepest rips you want.
For the rest of us... the PD is king.
I read about how hard it might seem to inhale the first time you use the PD. Even with this in mind, I still was taken aback. The thought, "If I was drowning and this was all the air I could get through this tube, I'd DROWN!" came up.
I had a thought that maybe the tube could be better if a tiny hollow tube was stuck in to help draw...
and then I had to stop myself right there. The tight draw... the packed bowl... THAT is the point! This is where the efficiency comes in! What the hell was I thinking trying to circumvent that?
This is where the posts in this thread helped clear the issue up for me, along with repeated experience. At least for me,
when the bowl is hot, the draw is much easier. Some people have posted that they like to put the stem in and leave it there for 5-15 seconds before inhaling... and that works very well for me.
Even if I don't heat up the bowl, repeated experience has helped me learn how to draw correctly that what I felt the first time I tried it is NOT an issue for me at all... the draw feels perfectly normal now and not at all suffocating.
I seem to be saving the same as others report around here... 40 to 50 percent.
I love the smell of the wood, which comes out more when it is warm. The BuzzButter smells awesome too when you put it on. I've used a timer with this thing so that it comes on before I wake up in the morning... so there are zero incidences of having to wait for anything at all. Its ready whenever I am.
I love the way the leather bottom seamlessly blends with the wood. Pam told me that Tom works really hard to do that right, and I appreciate that. The LED may be gone, but that purple leather complements the item's name perfectly!
This is a great community... its an honor to be a part of it and to throw my own impressions in.
