Morning Shinies,
Good to see all the deliveries turning up.
Suffering a bit of an vaping existential crisis today as I look at my collection of standard mods and RTA's. Once you have been seduced by the smoothness and flavour from a 3mm macro coil on a 22mm dripper, you realise you are in the same territory as the difference between a freshly baked loaf of bread, a lump of decent cheese and a McDonalds. Both satisfy hunger, but the bread and cheese, like the Mustang, Apple pie or Jim Beam, will always be a classic.
I can't remember who said here that it will be a long time before we will get the same flavour from an RTA as the smaller drippers, but I get it now. It is not that you can't achieve the same flavour from an RTA as a dripper, it is just that you can't get the same flavour consistently.
I look back to about 2 weeks after I purchased my first mod and the Cleito 120 and being astounded by the flavour of some commercial juice I tried. It blew me away. No matter how hard I tried, and the different permutations of airflow, temperature or technique, could I recreate that experience regularly. Sure, it was OK, and some experiments really shone through (like twisted wire coils), but depending on the time of day, temperature, what I'd eaten or drunk, mood - these variables all had an effect and changed the flavour experience. I was beginning to think it was just me, and I was not sufficiently disciplined.
The Wasp though, was fundimental in helping me discover what was going on. I'd dripped using the Nautilus previously, but it was a bit clanky and messy. Flavour was, again, a real eye opener. It fell down at the practical hurdle, and so I carried on with RTA's, and splashed out on a few. While good, to date they haven't totally scratched where I itched. What the Wasp did was draw a consistent baseline. Or to put it another way, I didn't know what I was looking for, but I would know what it was when I found it. Like the alchemist or the magician, once found, to the untrained eye, the skill would appear to the uninitiated, almost as witchcraft.
I get it now. And the whole shinyitis thing. We are sojourners on not only the path of experience, but also self discovery. I realise my next goal is to develop my own style, to find a way of tuning and taming those RTA's to squeeze every last ounce of flavour out of them. But to also listen to my inner "vape voice", and not accept anything but perfection.
Vaping is truly evolution in action. Anything else is just second rate.
The Halady clone is superb BTW, not as "moist" as the Wasp, but a bit crisper and slightly better defined.
