Ardent Elite

This is my first purchase at Vaders Vault. I own a Ultrasabers Archon and its just not the same. The Ardent Elite is colorful, light and well balanced. Fits well as a one and a half hilt so it can be wielded by one hand or two. It fits well in the hand and moves gracefully. It really feels like an extension of my arm and feels like a katana blade.

The colors are very bright and does not dull. Even with it arriving in the box and not being fully charged it was still bright. But once the battery was fully charged man was it BRIGHT! It also reacted very well to being struck when flash was engaged or when i swung it. Far slower then my Archon.

I can't tell you how loud this thing is. It overpowers everything, but not to the point of being to loud. The humming sound is so surreal it feels like your holding a real lightsaber.

Craftsmanship is top notch quality. Smooth and no sharp edges. When i take apart my archon if I am not carful ill get a cut. Not the Ardent Elite. Its so smooth I love it.

The emitter is my favorite part and of course the RGB option. The vents show the color and it is amazing.

If you decide to get a Ardent Elite or any Ardent please don't hesitate. It was worth the wait and the money. And with the purchase of this saber I will come back for another. :)

Where to even begin... If I could give this thing more stars it would be deserving of any number you come up with. I am in love with the Ardent and receiving it and seeing it in person, holding it in hand... pictures and videos do it no justice compared to experiencing it in person first hand.

Hilt:
The craftsmanship is top notch. The hilt is beautifully designed and machined to perfection. There is no part of the saber that is not comfortable to hold or beautiful to behold. The switches are intelligently placed for easy activation of the AV and aux switches. The AV switch is recessed so you can grip over it and not turn it on and off accidentally, and you have to hold the button down a moment to deactivate it as well to further prevent accidental deactivation. The powder coating on them is beautifully done as i am sure it would be on any hilt you purchase.

Electronics:
The sound is nice and loud, the sensitivity is very nicely set so that I dont get any ghost swings and clashes seem to be just the right setting. Having 6 soundfonts to witch between is great, though there are so many great fonts out there it is still so hard to narrow it down to 6!! The LEDs are nice and bright and I LOVE that you have 10 color banks to switch on the fly, and that each are customizable to anything you want, including flicker and pulse settings! AWESOME!!

An amazing saber in every sense, and a great team of people here at Vader's Vault who helped me with questions along the way and produced 2 AMAZING looking sabers for me. I highly recommend the Ardent or any of Vader's Vault's sabers. You cant go wrong with them. Absolutely worth the wait time, whatever it may currently be as you read this, it is worth it.

As far as sabers go, I have the Ardent Elite and two sabers from a different company. I bought them all around the same time in 12/2015. I had never held any of these custom sabers so I was going with my gut on these purchases. The reason I bought two from the other company was because they had their standard models and they had their adaptive parts version which allowed you to design your own saber.

Though I liked the other company's sabers, this Ardent Elite from Vader's Vault beats them, no question. I find myself picking up the Ardent Elite all the time over the other ones.

The other ones I got are nice but there are a few little issues with them that I feel shouldn't be there if you're spending so much. The speaker on the other company's saber cracks even after I sent it to them to look at since the speaker started shutting off. But the speaker on this Ardent Elite is louder and doesn't crack. Maybe the design of the hilt affects the other company's saber but I don't think it should crack.

This one is perfectly balanced with the sound clashes. It doesn't take much effort to make the clash effect. But my other sabers takes a little too much effort to make that effect trigger. I tried adjusting the other sabers using the software that you can download but it still isn't as nice as this Ardent Elite.

My Ardent Elite LED Emitter is very bright too. I can't tell whether it's brighter than the other company's saber but believe me, don't rely on wattage to compare brightness between sabers. I know some other companies use that as a basis of comparison but it's not reliable.

Another really great thing about this saber is the weight and size. This thing is light yet really sturdy. The design is so streamlined I can spin this thing in my hand so much easier than the ones I have from the other company. And it feels so much better in the hand, like it's meant for fine swordsmanship. My other ones are a little heavier so it's harder to look like you're really nimble swinging it around.

I think the only complaint I had with my purchase was the wait it took to complete building the saber. I ordered it about the time when The Force Awakens was released so there was a lot of demand for sabers so it took longer than expected. But I will say that when I called for an update, someone at Vader's Vault answered and updated me about the status and was apologetic. And now the website seems to reflect the wait time now. So that's good.

All these custom sabers are expensive and take some time to make no matter where you get one. This one was a little more expensive than each of the two that I bought from the other company but it's so worth it. What does that mean? Well, if I could turn back time and buy two more sabers from Vader's Vault and just pay the difference, I would do it. That's how much these little things make a difference.

Those other sabers are good. They're not junk. But they're not great. Everyone who i've shown my sabers to picks this one as the best over the other two non-Vader's Vault sabers. Difference is just immediately obvious.

My Ardent arrived today and wow i truly can not find the words to describe it. put simply its incredible