I recently received a tester pair of Radical Seas’ new response pads, the Seafoam pads, so I thought I’d give them a short little review
First Impressions:
These pads are a bit different than your standard CBC response. True to their name, they’re made of this weird teal-colored foam that has lots of microscopically tiny little bubbles in it. A definite departure from the standard solid silicone type pad.
General Comments:
When I popped these into my T’chotchkie, I was a bit worried. The pads are not as tall as standard CBC pads, they sit slightly recessed into the response groove. I tend to like slightly grippier response, so I was a bit worried that they wouldn’t be able to grip as much as I like.
Unfortunately, I think my original worries were correct. These pads, in my opinion, are simply not tall enough. I’ve played them for a couple of hours now, hoping that they might break in and suddenly become grippy enough. So far, they haven’t. Every time I try to bind, it’ll slip once, and then when i try again, it’ll work. I’ve tried countless different binds, and it never seems to get it first time. Every once in a while, about once every 30 throws, I’ll get a really nice bind, but it’s a rare occurrence. This seems to tell me that these pads have a lot of potential, they’re just too short. It’s as if the pads arrived already worn down, with very little life left in them. I think if Radical Seas made them a tiny bit taller, at the same height as standard CBC pads, they’d be much, much better. But, as they currently are, I would not recommend them unless you prefer looser binds.
OP, I also received a test pair of pads, but had the ccompletely opposite experienceas you did. I did put the pads in a shutter tthough. Review coming soon.
the top layer is the closed cell finish, the underlining layer is the actual open cell foam. which works surprisingly well as a response surface.
I appreciate the honesty, sending the pads out to get a feel for the community’s thoughts was the intention.
im going to make a version that’s a tad bit taller, and then test a little more. it seems that a lot of people have had good experiences with them so far. but I think another .1mm or .2mm would do them good.
I’m not going to do that. Silicone is great for me and I’m not going to go to the trouble of getting out the silicone only to add these unfortunately not very good pads on top of the perfectly good silicone. Sorry.
