where can i get the best deal

[sairel]

Where can I get the best deal online on a soft pad price+delivery. I'm in the contiguous US. The red octane ignition sounds good but it seems like there are others ones just as good for cheaper. I'm not really interested in ebay unless you have a particular seller and item to recommend.

I'd get a red octane ignition if there is a place that sells them cheaper than the official site. Also I've heard of a replacement program from best buy but when I go to their site they don't have the red octane ignition listed, does best buy sell them usually?

I just want a dance pad that is relatively good and that helps me sense where my feet are.

[yukihime]

Hi Sairel!

Ah, let me tell you, if I could find a GOOD soft pad (foam insert type) that lasted more than a month, maybe I wouldn't be losing my mind trying to decide which metal pad to get (that will last longer than 3 months

Best Buy, GameStop ... I highly doubt you're going to find an RO 3.0 at either place - that stopped I believe? last year (before my time). Why? the pads kept getting returned/exchanged and I think the companies just got tired of it.

All pads are, imho at this point, a matter of luck on whether you get a good one that'll last you 6 months to a year or whether you get one that'll die in 2 days or 2 weeks and then have to go through the hell that is Customer Service.

AFAIK, the only place you might find a cheaper RO 3.0 is by checking ebay now and then, I have seen a few turn up there. There's also a seller, game4lezz (unless they changed their name AGAIN) who off and on is claiming to sell Mymybox 2008 version dense foam pad. Do NOT buy from them. They're sending out 2006 must've been sitting in a closet somewhere cause they suck so bad pads. And there's no communication from them. Personally? I think it is mmb using a different name and a cellphone. I could be wrong on that ... but I made the mistake of bidding on and "winning" one of these pads - the company has the same address as mmb. So of course now I'm in dispute via paypal to get my money back.

The "best" dense foam pads with inserts are supposed to be RO 3.0 or MMB 2008 Blueshark. I've had a bad experience with MMB and the Blueshark, have not tried the RO. But people seem to either love or hate the RO 3.0. Again, it seems to depend on your luck of the draw!


Whatever pad you decide to go with, DO use either paypal or a credit card. That can really be helpful if you get a bad pad or one that breaks after a couple weeks and CS won't help. Deal the "If I don't hear from you I'll be contacting my CC (or PP) card" ... that usually gets their attention.

There will hopefully be more replies to your post and in the meantime, try the search here and just cruise around and read posts on different pads.
_________________

Live Like There's No Tomorrow,
Dance Like Nobody's Watching!

[sairel]

I went to the mymybox website, there is a variety of pads there. Are you talking about the 40 dollar one or the 80 dollar one? And then there's both soft and metal referred to as "blushark"... I went to the thread about the brand here and I can't tell if people are giving their opinion about the soft or metal pad.

Is this the pad you are talking about?:
http://www.mymybox.com/ddrmbsdx2.html

I was thinking of ordering from ddrgame.com but their shipping seems kind of high, and they have so many pads with slightly different names it is confusing.

And then there's buynshop.com, their site is even more confusing.

I was just wondering if there is a brand that is just-as-good as the more popular brands but cheaper.

[yukihime]

OK, deep breath, it's Yuki's gonna write a short novel time!

MyMyBox Nexen/Blueshark/etc Official Thread is 99.9% about their metal pads. The metal Bluesharks are almost impossible to lay hands on, they're expensive and they weigh a ton (well, not a ton, but 85lbs). Their CS - the only way to get to them is to call, otherwise there's a good chance you'll be ignored. Which is basically how most of the companies deal with problems.

On page 54 of the MMB thread, scroll down - I posted on July 15 about the problem I had with the $80 MMB Dense Foam Blueshark, then on the 24th and 31st.

Fun times ... NOT.

Now, YMMV, you may order one and have it be perfect for a long time, which would be a good thing. I can tell you the MMB dense foam 2008 does take a little "breaking in" - about a week for me. I was getting AA and AAA (Basic) on the blueshark before it went south - after 34 days.

BNS used to be a highly recommended pad - the sparkle and fusion dense foam. However, again if you do a quick search, you'll read that people ordered one thing and got a cheaper, lessor quality "generic" type pad. So their rep's gone way down.

DDRGame? Way overpriced, their products don't work well or hold up at all. This holds true for just about all the sites you'll find selling dance pads. Most appear to be resellers and probably have never even seen the products they're selling - i.e.: Cyphergames, they're also on ebay as plegend2001 - and they have some of the same pads on both the site and ebay, just slightly different prices.

Basically, as I've said before, buying a pad is a crap shoot - you'll either get something fabulous or you'll get something that dies the first day (yes, I have had that happen). There's no way of telling until you get a pad and use it.

The cheaper "insert" type pads I've had (what I'm using right now, no choice atm) ... those inserts are a thin, denser foam - not hard plastic - not the ones I've had anyway. They're glued to the underside of the top layer. After a few weeks of just the heat from you playing, and worse if you live where it's hot? The glue will start to give and the inserts will start to shift.

Then your options are to open the pad and what I did - carefully undo the cording along the edges, baste the bottom of that back to the zipper (it's all sewn together), then sew the inserts down then sewed the cording/edging back or go through the bottom - but that's 4 layers to get through before you get to the underside of the top. Either way it's a major PITA. And you end up with what my roomie calls a "frankenpad"!

The RO, I've read that the inserts are better made but ... they still shift and end up almost tangled up or bent - which again means having to cut into the pad to try to duct tape them back in place, then tape the pad together.

I didn't have the mmb blueshark long enough to have an insert/sensor problem per se. The bottom layer of vinyl split in 3 places and caused the pad to be unuseable. Knowing what I know now? I should have just tried taping the splits up and seeing if that fixed the problem. But I was mad - spent over $90 with s/h and have to deal with that kind of problem was just not acceptable to me.
_________________

Live Like There's No Tomorrow,
Dance Like Nobody's Watching!