Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsNice and comfy, good speakers, with a few design flaws and workmanship issues to be aware of...
Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2016
Love the chair but it isn't without some little annoyances. Wish they went back to the drawing board and made a few minor improvements and it would be perfect.
+ Comfy, 'leather'..sitting for many hours doesn't hurt my back and feels good playing games.
+ lots of speakers that get pretty loud
- Arms are somewhat fragile and as the manual warns, aren't to be used for lifting the chair or as I've found even pulling it around the floor. For some odd reason the bolts that seem like they are more than adequate become loose in the mounts they screw into. The bolt is tight, but it 'clicks' back and forth in the chair (which moves the arm slightly to and fro) in a disconcerting way that should've been a non-issue with better design.
-I've heard there is blue-tooth tech now in newer gaming chairs so no need for wires, but on this one there are wires, and getting it set up on a home stereo with PS3 was not so intuitive, I had to google how to setup the PS3 to 'multi-channel' output in the settings in order to get sound to both speakers on the chair as well as the home theater speakers. It's somewhat of a pain to have to be limited by cables, and a tripping hazard having them lying across the living room.
-for whatever reason, there was a slight dimple or recess or lack of padding in the exact spot you sit that's only gotten worse over the last year or so. I hardly use this chair, but it almost feels like sitting in a little bucket, its fine at first, but after an hour you feel the need to adjust your bum to get the blood flowing again. It just seems that the padding on the part that you sit on could have been made more stiff, or thicker..to be flatter and more uniform. This seems to be a trend lately with other leather padded office chairs we've purchased.
-some of the stitches seem rushed and half-hazard. They seem like they're made very fast in an assembly line environment by low wage employees. Some of the stitches on the seams are straight, then curve and go off-track here and there. More concerning, the upper corner seem actually has a half inch of stuffing poking out that i'm worried may encourage the stitching to become looser if i don't keep the kids off of it.
- and last but not least, the speakers seem high quality and the bass is adequate..(could be slightly more)..but it seems odd that the top speakers are pointing outward on either side, away from your ears! You really have to crank the volume up a bit to achieve a good full sound, but it just keeps the family up if you play at night like I do. For the bottom two speakers, on either side of your calves, I came up with the ghetto solution to prop up some magazines at a 45 degree angle to my ears so the sound 'reflects' off of them somewhat, and there is a big improvement with just that little fix. Wish they would've thought about speaker positioning a bit more...like right behind the head facing forward on each side would've been better.
Hope this review helps, but I suspect there are newer models that are hopefully an improvement on the design. Overall I like the chair and am glad I got it.
[Update after 1 year- Vinyl severely cracking, cushioned seat feels flat/ recessed and bit adequate. Like sitting in a plastic bucket with a blanket over it.
Update after 3 years- power receptacle connection has gotten loose where you plug in power adapter and so im counting the days until it breaks off completely internally and this unit's speakers are unusable. Unless I take it apart and try to fix it myself. Should have been mounted stronger to withstand repeated use. I'm very careful plugging cable in and its only been used maybe 15-20 times in 3 years] Hope next model (gold w/ pedestal) is made better but with 3 star reviews I'm guessing it's not.
