Looks like the Matrixx and Freeracer had a baby?
https://hq4.com/en/produkt/empulse-2/
It is your opinion
Yes, Matrixx is quite nice kite, it is very light weight kite, it can handle a lot of wind, it is controllable, smooth and safe kite to use. But to compare 18m Matrixx by its turning speed to a 18m inflatable does not make much sense. In reality not even 15m Matrixx turns as fast as decent big LEI, hardly 12m Matrixx either. There is many 9m foil kites which turn slower than 17m LEI.RalfsB wrote: Maybe this is a bit an off-topic; I was thinking of buying an Empulse but stumbled upon a very good deal on a HQ4 18m Matrixx. Yesterday I tried Matrixx for the first time. I do not have a huge experience with different foil kites but I used 1st generation Ozone Chrono 18m for one season so I have something to compare it to, let me share my impressions. When I started my session, wind was between 4 and 5 m/s. I had line extensions, total line length about 30 meters. Inflation was not too quick and the kite felt a bit loose, few times it went into a kind of a bow-tie but recovered, also got wingtips inflated. The kite is quite responsive to power settings; in the beginning I had it depowered and flew through the power zone -- it did not pull much. I adjusted my trim to more power and got a very decent pull. I used a long bar (65cm) and kite was very responsive, turning speed was much higher than that of Chrono, actually comparable to an 18m inflatable. On water (with a surfboard) the kite was very smooth and provided steady power, did not feel overpowered when I was riding fast, it was easy to go upwind, it did not pull me down. In about an hour rain clouds started moving in, wind increased to 8 - 10m/s, sometimes more and was not steady. I depowered Matrixx a bit and surprise -- it was still quite controllable and did not feel dangerous. My friend was riding a 13m C kite at that time and doing high jumps. When I was landing the kite, wind was over 10m/s, sand was being blown all over the beach. I pulled safety, the kite nicely folded and landing was easy. So Matrixx was a very very pleasant surprise for me: it turns fast, has a great depower and wind range.
I mean, I did not test Matrixx side by side with an 18m LEI and my perception may be very subjective but I have had my share of light wind LEIs, like Zephyr (the first make of them), Airush Vantage, RRD Emotion. They were not particularly fast turning (overall I think Airush Vantage was the most usable of those) but their character was that you initiate a turn and the kite responds. Chrono was annoyingly slow. On waterstarts it felt like sitting in the water for half an hour until something starts happening, and it did pull a lot during the turn and then kind of stopped pulling when it came to the edge of the window -- when I actually needed that power. When I was flying Matrixx, it had all the smoothness of a foil kite but the character was more like of a LEI: turning was responsive and reasonably fast, and power delivery also felt closer to LEIs than to Chrono.
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