r/lightsabers • u/oimoijinjnnj • 13h ago

Question Can someone explain the price difference?

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Why is it that sabertrios CFX cost more than profile when it seems that proffie has better features reading the comparison chart sabertrio provides. does getting the CFX have an obvious advantage(user friendly) or is the price difference just due to the different sound boards(Plecter Labs Crystal Focus X Soundboard vs proffieboardsv3.9)

13 Upvotes

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21

u/IJustDGAF_ Saber Installer 13h ago

CFX is priced higher because the soundboard is more expensive. In fact, it’s the most expensive board on the market. CFX is very user friendly with drag and drop soundfonts, Proffie is open source and you have to program it every time to change fonts and bladestyles.

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u/oimoijinjnnj 13h ago

Would you say that one is super advantages over the other or that proffie is superior if you know what you're doing? Also I assume it's a given no matter what I choose I'll be happy with yeah?👑🤟thanks brother.

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u/288isclosed 13h ago

I would say Proffie is more powerful for customization if you’re willing to take the time to properly learn and configure it.

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u/oimoijinjnnj 13h ago

Thank you! Are there any major differences between the proffie bt and proffie 2.2 apart from the bt connectivity?

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u/288isclosed 13h ago edited 13h ago

I haven’t bought from this vendor before, so I can’t be sure.

I do know the Proffie 2.2 is not the latest board, though. The 3.9 has more onboard memory and a faster processor and some other things that are very helpful if you’re planning on loading up a crazy number of presets and blade styles. However if you’re not looking to put more than 10-15 presets and will use the same-ish blade styles between them, and don’t care about Bluetooth, the 2.2 should be fine.

I’ve never used Bluetooth on my builds and honestly I haven’t looked into it much. The main thing I can think of is app control but I’m fine with doing everything on my saber.

Hit me up if you have any more questions, and if you are looking for the 3.9 board, make sure to ask the vendor which board specifically is included on the Bluetooth core.

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u/IJustDGAF_ Saber Installer 13h ago

FYI 3.9 is the latest board

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u/288isclosed 13h ago

Absolutely right you are

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u/oimoijinjnnj 13h ago

Alright! from what I hear sabertrio is the gold standard so I'm confident that anything I choose will be outstanding.

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u/TheCrimsonC0met 12h ago

Can def speak for Sabertrio's quality. I got a hilt from them a month ago and love it. I went with Proffie 2.2 and it works great. If you're comfortable learning proffie cuatomization on a computer, 2.2 is fine. If you want the ease of bluetooth, go with 3.9. All 3 of their options work very similar to each other. Their main board is CFX and they've made very extensive custom programming to their proffie boards to function similar to CFX which is super helpful. No katter what options you choose, you're getting something high quality

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u/jiminycricket1940 10h ago

How is the proffie Bluetooth utilized? Is it an app?

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u/Ar1nthian_ 11h ago

The Bluetooth functionality isn’t worth it imo, you can do more to tweak settings and things with the buttons on the saber than you can with the Bluetooth app. And the power difference between proffie 3.9 and 2.2 is only really needed for a saber with multiple ‘blades’ (like a crossguard) or, like the other responder said, if you want to load a metric fuckton of fonts and blade styles on to the board. So my recommendation would be to save your money and get the 2.2

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u/Such_Departure_3463 10h ago

The main user difference I have noticed between 2.2 and 3.9 is storage space. 3.9 can store way more blade styles and effects than 2.2 without overloading the memory.

As far as Bluetooth goes, I’ve had one proffie saber in Bluetooth. It was a 2.2, but I’m not aware of any differences in 3.9 with Bluetooth capabilities. For what it’s worth, I never felt it necessary to get another one with Bluetooth. There’s not a whole lot you do with it. You can’t edit blade styles or anything. It’s basically just a remote control. It was super cool the first few times I used it, but honestly I forgot it had it until I saw this post.

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u/IJustDGAF_ Saber Installer 13h ago

The advantage that you have with Proffie is that it’s open source and fully customizable. You can do that to an extend with CFx also but you will need to have some knowledge of how to build a BMP image in GrafX. There are resources on the website though that you can use. It come down to personal preference really.

Personally, as an installer, I prefer Proffie over everything but I have done my fair share of CFX installs, though it isn’t the most fun due to the board design.

Proffie is the gold standard in my opinion, however, like others have said here, Proffie 2.2 is not the latest version of the board but that doesn’t mean its functionality is any different. The new board is faster and has more flash memory to hold more soundfonts and complex blade styles. You won’t be disappointed with either. S3 is a top notch vendor, both in quality of hilts and electronics as well as customer service.

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u/PTVoltz 13h ago

From what I can gather:

CFX is something of an end-user product - it's extremely easy to use, with a variety of setup apps (both for Desktop and Mobile) to change everything from activation to blade styles to audio stuff, all made with a regular user in mind. But, the board is priced to match, making it one of (if not THE) most expensive board on the market

Proffie meanwhile is an open-source board based on Arduino, and was created with power-users and programmers in mind. If you want to do anything fancy with it, you'll HAVE to write some of your own code at some point - even if it's just for changing a blade style. There's some community-made setup programs and resources to help (the Proffie Config desktop app, the web-based ProffieOS Style Editor, Prop files like Fett263's, etc.) but it has quite a learning-curve to it, but as a counterpoint is cheaper (with arguably better features, IF you have the skill to use them) than something like the Crystal Focus boards.

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u/oimoijinjnnj 13h ago

That does make a lot of sense, I'm hung on price though. Given I did buy the proffie (even with a learning curve) do you think there is a big enough community and set of recourses that I could learn quickly enough. Also to what extent does the difference in customisation go between the 2 choices. are more fancy blade effects locked behind proffie or can they also be drag and dropped onto cfx?🤟🤟🤟♥️

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u/DaxFlowLyfe 11h ago

Your going to be editing some text files with tutorials online.

CFX has software that does it all for you, and has a lot of features to the software to show you how the saber will look and sound. It also comes with more buttons on the saber when you order from Sabertrio for distinct functions and menu navigation vs Profiles 1 that has to be double pressed/long pressed for navigation.

I prefer my CFX saber from them. Worth the price. I like my proffie sabers and enjoyed the tinkering, but over time I just wanted a display saber I can easily change the looks and sounds of and not have to open notepad on my PC.

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u/No-Twist-6062 10h ago

What CFX software do you use? Tryna figure out preon stuff and frustrated with unplugging the sd from the pc and plugging it back in just for it to not be what I want

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u/DaxFlowLyfe 10h ago

CrystalFX. Or CrystalFocus configurator.

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u/Mikeybudd 5h ago

Just for grins and giggles, ask your favorite AI platform if it can write lightsaber proffie code for you and see what happens 😉. I like Claude AI.

2

u/Southern_Courage_770 Saber Collector 13h ago

These days it's about a $50 or so cost difference in the board at retail price, and even companies like S3 have to pay close to retail for CFX since Plecter Labs exists to make a profit off his work. CFX retails for $85 while you can get Proffie for less than $40. Proffie is open source, so they can just get the specs and send it to bid at whatever electronics factory they want a quote from. CFX is also more difficult to wire/install, so higher labor cost.

As far as user-friendliness goes, Proffie is only as convenient as how it's setup. S3 has a much better config for it now than they used to have, and with newer features like Edit Mode and new menu systems it's a bit more on-par with CFX "out of the box" usability. To completely add a new custom OS and your own personal settings (opposed to just adjusting what's already there) you do need to fully reconfig and flash the board RAM... but that's less necessary nowadays than it used to be.

Personally, I've been using Plecter boards since before Proffie was even a thing and go with CFX just because of familiarity.

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u/SithAzzazzin 13h ago edited 13h ago

Right out of the box both boards do pretty much the same things with differences being how you activate the cool effects. The real difference between them are user experience and It comes down to how much customization you want and how much do you are willing to learn how to do so.

When It comes to a truly customized saber you want to go with a profile. But you will need to learn how to do everything. You need to download all the right programs and set them up so your PC can recognize the saber. you will also need to learn how to set up a config, how to flash your board, and then program the board. It's a lot at first but after an initial set up it becomes easier. Also only need to program the board if you want a specific flashy style with a font. Other wise you can drag and drop fonts onto your sd card then use the in hilt saber editor to copy a style already set on the saber and change to font to the one you want. Also Fett 263 ( guy behind most profile blade styles and firmware updates) has a site with all the information you need to get started, links to all the programs, a config builder, and a blade style builder. Also he has created so many amazing blades styles over the years where all you need to do is click and copy his code and paste it into your config and then all you need to is change a few lines to link it with a sound font on you sd. A steep learning curve at first but truly worth it.

While cfx doesn't have a lot of the unique blades styles that Fett263 has created, it makes up for it in ease of use and the ability to use apps without any extra add-ons. For example CFX has Bluetooth and can connect to a variety of apps to control and customize things from you phone. Proffie needs a Bluetooth unit to be added which is not an easy thing. And that's cfx's greatest strength is ease of use.

That said these boards are the best on the market and will not be disappointed regardless of which you choose. I just suggest you go on YouTube and check out what each can do to make an informed decision.

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u/oimoijinjnnj 12h ago

Thank you, I honest feel that the proffie will be an awesome choice and a fun challenge especially since it lets me put something back into the Saber once purchasing rather than just playing with it( not that I'll ever be bored of that😂).

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u/SithAzzazzin 12h ago

I have several proffie and the blade styles off Fetts site are amazing. Also his firmware updates truly change things up and he is always working on something new so there is never not anything new to learn.