What NOT to buy

[psisar]

I've decided to start a new thread, if anyone wants to participate, on what brand of dance pad NOT to buy. My reason for this? My friend bought me a $50 soft pad two weeks ago and it's already ghost stepping and the right arrow only works when it wants to. On that note, from my experience do NOT buy dance pads from these brands:

Cosmo Interactive (Softpad, lasted about a month)
Intec (For $50, you should get more than 2 weeks usage)

This is with using the pads every day for about 30 mins- 1 hour. Honestly, I think they should be a little more durable than this.

[havix]

Personally, I like hard (metal) pads, or the ignition pad. Most soft pads I have bought are those cheap-o soft pads you find in Game-Stop or other gaming stores. Usually when I am really into DDR I will abuse the pad at least 2 hours a night. So usually those cheap-o pads burn out after 1-2 weeks of play, and I dont feel like going out and spending 30 bucks a week on a new pad. My suggestion is to also NOT buy the Red Octane Metal Pad. This metal pad is made very cheap and will wear down very fast. For example, I bought one for my club at my school and the club only meets like 22 minutes 2 out of 3 weeks. After a semester the metal pad was pretty much shot and wouldn't respond. That being said I went out and bought a Cobalt Flux Metal Pad, although its a little more pricey, they are SOOOOO much better than the Red Octane metal pads. I have had my cobalt flux pad for over a year and it is still going strong, only thing is you have to clean it out every few weeks, but nothing that bad.

[ryanddrfreak]

psisar said:

I've decided to start a new thread, if anyone wants to participate, on what brand of dance pad NOT to buy. My reason for this? My friend bought me a $50 soft pad two weeks ago and it's already ghost stepping and the right arrow only works when it wants to. On that note, from my experience do NOT buy dance pads from these brands:

Cosmo Interactive (Softpad, lasted about a month)
Intec (For $50, you should get more than 2 weeks usage)

This is with using the pads every day for about 30 mins- 1 hour. Honestly, I think they should be a little more durable than this.

right then i just buy mats thx for the advice though

[ryanddrfreak]

havix said:

Personally, I like hard (metal) pads, or the ignition pad. Most soft pads I have bought are those cheap-o soft pads you find in Game-Stop or other gaming stores. Usually when I am really into DDR I will abuse the pad at least 2 hours a night. So usually those cheap-o pads burn out after 1-2 weeks of play, and I dont feel like going out and spending 30 bucks a week on a new pad. My suggestion is to also NOT buy the Red Octane Metal Pad. This metal pad is made very cheap and will wear down very fast. For example, I bought one for my club at my school and the club only meets like 22 minutes 2 out of 3 weeks. After a semester the metal pad was pretty much shot and wouldn't respond. That being said I went out and bought a Cobalt Flux Metal Pad, although its a little more pricey, they are SOOOOO much better than the Red Octane metal pads. I have had my cobalt flux pad for over a year and it is still going strong, only thing is you have to clean it out every few weeks, but nothing that bad.

exactly what to buy.finally someone who nos what to buy to be good in ddr!!! :oits good though that you made this thread because now people cant make the bad desicion .perfect i also wanna say what games not to buy:ddr for gamecube,madcatz ddr,and ddr stepmania ssmax! ;D

[OrderlyChaos]

Also want to note that one should use extreme caution when buying a dance pad from Ebay. My hubs bought two for about 350$, thinking they were genuine RedOctane metal dance pads (even posted pictures of Red Octanes pads in his bio). We got them about a month or so later and came to find out that they weren't Red Octane at all. They were knock offs closely crafted to look like Red Octane pads.

We were going to complain, but after a more thorough inspection of his item list, we discovered he wrote Red Octane "style" dance pads in his auction (albeit he used the word "style" only once and in the small print), making it mostly on us for not noticing. We went ahead and used the pads, but noticed there was definately some sort of malfuntion in one of them.

After about 4 months of use, only one of them really works any more and though it picks up steps just fine, its buttons are almost all cracked all the way across. (we used medical tape on em to keep it together)

The main point is, be careful when using ebay. Read every little detail about what your getting, whether its a converter or a pad...and above all else... NEVER buy a homemade knockoff, no matter how good of a deal the price sounds.

[xstatic]

OrderlyChaos said:

.its buttons are almost all cracked all the way across. (we used medical tape on em to keep it together)

you can order replacement arrows.

www.redoctane.com/ddrarrows.html

[ryanddrfreak]

xstatic said:

you can order replacement arrows.

www.redoctane.com/ddrarrows.html

how long have you known that?i need to get mine repaired thx!

[xstatic]

I saw that when I was browsing around looking for a metal pad (still haven't got one yet though) but since I've seen the arrows crack at the arcade I thought that it was a nice safeguard to have with the home edition.

you are welcome, by the way.

[secretsof2113]

i have a red octane ignition pad, only b/c I am too poor to buy a really expensive pad. I like the ignition tho, its nice and soft.