Introduction
I have a love/hate relationship with Vapefly products. I fell in love with some of their earlier releases such as the Galaxies RDTA and RDA, Pixies RDA and Holic RDA and was less enamored with the Brunhilde 1o3, Alberich V1 and Lindwurm – they weren’t all terrible, but they seemed to be trying so hard to be innovative and different, that they forgot to make sure they weren’t a pain in the ass to use.
However, this review isn’t about any of the above, it’s about the Alberich 2.
Product overview
The Vapefly Alberich 2 is a 23mm MTL RTA, with 4ml juice capacity, top-to-side non-adjustable airflow and a series of airflow pins.
- Vapefly Alberich II MTL RTA
- Spare 4ml Glass
- 1×1.0ohm KA1 Prebuilt Coil
- 1×1.0ohm Ni80 Prebuilt Coil
- 2xFirebolt Cotton
- Spares/manual
Getting two different coils and two pieces of cotton is all I could ask for.
First impressions
After the overly complex designs of recent Vapefly RTAs, I was pleasantly surprised to see a relatively normal design for the Alberich 2; the aesthetics are a little more restrained than on other recent Vapefly designs, I could do without the gothic style Alberich 2 on the side, but apart from that it’s a decent looking RTA.
All of the tolerances are good, the base is removed conventionally, while the top-cap has a quarter-turn bayonet style fitting, the airflow control ring is…oh that isn’t an airflow control ring, the airflow is fixed.
The deck is a standard two post design, with the posts on one side of the deck and the airflow hitting the coil from the other side.
Build
Coiling – the deck is a dream for coiling, slide the coil in, tighten it up, align it using the channel provided to rest your coiling rod in, and it’s done. This is about as easy as it gets.
Wicking – this is where I had issues with the original Alberich RTA; the good news is that the Alberich 2 is much better for wicking, the bad news is that it isn’t quite perfect. The Alberich 2 doesn’t have conventional wicking ports, it has channels on each side of the coil that you rest the cotton in, and when you put in the inner chamber, it holds the cotton in place. While it won’t leak, if your cotton is too short or thin, the deck will flood and you will drink juice. If the cotton is too long or thick, it will dry hit. It took me three attempts to get it perfect, and once I had it perfect every subsequent attempt has been perfect. What I found to work the best was to fluff (but not thin) the cotton, and have it long enough to touch the base of the deck, but not long enough to start folding under itself.
Overall, the coiling is a dream and while the wicking initially requires a little trial and error, after that it’s simple.
Airflow
The top-to-side airflow design is quite ingenious, there are inner and outer chambers and the air comes down from the top between these chambers and hits the side of the coil.
This design on its own isn’t a problem, the problem arises when you combine this with fixed airflow and airflow pins that can only be swapped once the tank has been removed. Inserting an airflow pin with a build+wick in place is very easy, removing an airflow pin is a little trickier with a build in place, but it can be done.
There are six supplied airflow pins, the tightest three (0.8, 1.0 and 1.2mm) are domed, while the looser three (1.5, 1.8 and 2.0mm) and flat.
Even with the 2.0mm airflow pin, it’s nowhere near a restricted DL draw, this RTA is pure MTL.
Overall, there’s a decent range of airflow settings, but I’m trying to understand why Vapefly didn’t include an airflow control ring.
How does it perform?
- Ni80 1.0ohm round wire – this was one of the supplied coils. This build worked well with the three tightest airflow pins from 10-16w. I used it mainly with tobacco and more subtle juices and the flavor was excellent, with the different flavor elements of the juice easily recognized. The throat hit was surprisingly good considering that the airflow is hitting the coil from the side.
- 30g 2.5mm MTL fused clapton – this build came to 0.77ohms. I enjoyed this build a lot with the three more airy airflow pins from 16-22w and I used it mainly for custard, pastry and RY4 juices. Like the previous build, the flavor was excellent. With the 2.0mm airflow pin at 22w, it reminded me a lot of my Galaxies RDTA that I fell in love with near the start of my vaping journey.
Overall, the Alberich 2 performs very well. It’s up there for flavor with the best MTL RTAs that I’ve used. What is more impressive is that unlike a lot of one-trick RTAs, the Alberich gives great flavor from 10-22w, with 0.8-2.0mm airflow pins and with round wire or fused claptons.
Conclusion
The Alberich 2 has some frustrating aspects and some wonderful aspects. Do the pros outweigh the cons? Yes, by a long way, it’s a great RTA.
Disclaimer
The Vapefly Alberich 2 RTA was provided for the purposes of this review by Healthcabin.
This review was written by Owen from Vaping Underground, click to view original review there with more details.
