# NEW stradic ci4 vs luvias



## justcrusin (Oct 1, 2006)

Gday guys, I've been thinking about another quality bream reel for xmas and have been looking around. 
I reckon my choices are down to the stradics fi or ci4 or the sol / luvias.

The delema I own a few stradic fi's and they have been a great a trust worthy reel for me, shimano have just released the stradic ci4 a lightweight carbon fibre version of the stradic fi. The only difference i can see is the body construction plus the $229 for the fi or $299 for the ci4.

Then I have seen a lot of people using the diawas and i like the look of the sealed drag units on the sol's / luvias, to me these look similar the difference i can see is the luvias is made of zaion (whatever they hell that is) some new metal that i can't find any info on so I think diawa have made it up. or the sol another tried an tested reel. Again the sol $309 vs the luvias at $399.

Have any of you guys seen the new shimano, does anyone own both a stradic and a sol and luvias and can give a comparison?

Cheers Dave

ci4 http://www.motackle.com.au/index.cfm?pr ... ct_id=5819\
fi http://www.motackle.com.au/index.cfm?pr ... duct_id=83
sol http://www.motackle.com.au/index.cfm?pr ... duct_id=25
luvias http://www.motackle.com.au/index.cfm?pr ... ct_id=3202


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## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

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## craig450 (May 11, 2007)

Ive never tried the new Stradic, but own a Luvias 1003 and had a Sol until not long ago.
I liked the Sol but it didnt really stand out performance wise for me, and compared to some of my other reels it was a fair bit heavier too.
I love the Luvias, still one of my favourite reels, so smooth and ultra light which is great for punching out casts all day long and its corrosion resistance is good as well.

I cant give a fair comparison to the Stradic, but id be more than happy to own another Luvias


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## Buff (Dec 31, 2005)

If you are interested in the Luvias I would hang off till the new Luvias DA comes out as it will have a spare aluminium spool ;-) 
http://www.daiwafishing.com.au/daiwa.cf ... t=luviasda










I'm contemplating a 1000 size once I get to have a play with one


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## Rstanek (Nov 5, 2007)

I've got the Luvias in 1003 and 2000 and love them both to bits, I'll be getting another of each in the near future. Light, smooth and pretty! As Buff mentioned, the new Luvias is coming out; personally I hate the look of it compared to the current (super)model. I'd wait till that comes out and the shops are flogging off the current model cheap...


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## justcrusin (Oct 1, 2006)

Everyone's giving the luvias such a good plug, mmm going to have to get my hands on one an check em out. I'm after the 1000 size reel as i'm teaming it up with a st croix SC V blank and carbon fibre handle for surface fishing and if I like the blanks will look at getting a rack rod of the same.

Cheers for the replys guys, I need to go to a tackle store an have a play now.

Dave


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## craig450 (May 11, 2007)

Woah!!! that will be a very nice combo Dave!! 8)


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## justcrusin (Oct 1, 2006)

> Making a new rod Dave?


Yeah I'm getting to know what i want a bit more now so I want to try to up the quailty of my gear a bit. Before I made the rods the same because i liked the action and there a great all round rod, but not being able to get the G USA blanks i liked anymore i'm looking at the st croix as a replacement an going to make a fast action rod for the surface and then something with a bit of low down grunt for the racks next year.

Its good to here you like the blanks that makes me feel a bit more comfortable in my choice. Its hard picking out blanks you don't know from the states and hoping there ok when your on a budget.

Cheers Dave


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## sarod420 (Sep 25, 2009)

The luvias is a lovely reel but personally for value for money u cant go past the sol i have caught everything from whiting and bream to kingies and striped tuna on my 2500 i have owned it for 2 years nows and regularly grease and oil it and havent had any problems with it!


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## sarod420 (Sep 25, 2009)

If u want sexy check out the daiwa emereldas that is 1 hot reel would give my left nut for it!! :lol:


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## sitonit (Dec 29, 2006)

I was recently looking for a light spinning reel and looked at the luvias sol and Aspire. After visits to several shops I removed the luvias from the list due to lack of durability (several shop staff reported an increasing number of returns) once i compared the sol with the aspire I went for the aspire they are like chalk and cheese. I hope this helps.
This reel was to be fished with 6lb braid targetting tailor trevally and salmon etc.
The aspire comes with spare spool and is manufactured in Japan


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## justcrusin (Oct 1, 2006)

I'm going to check out the luvias, but i think i'm leaning towards the CI4 the stradi's have been such a reliable reel for me handling everything i have thrown at (i'm tough on gear) 
The other confusing thing is diawa spinning reel range its huge, so many spinning reels at the same size an price range. anyway thats getting off topic.

Hadn't considered the Aspires, will have a bow peek at them too.

Cheers Dave


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## nicktoozoff (Sep 19, 2008)

Don't discount the Diawa Heartland XA Reels. Starting at about $350 for a 2000 size. Made only for the Oz market, and with salt in mind. Where the Luvias only has 4 CRBB of it's 7 bearings the, XA has a full 7 CRBB count. Not as light as the Luvias, but for yak fishing situations (spray, dunkings etc) it's a wise option.

We sell both at work, I'd buy a XA over a Luvias any day, especially if you are hard on gear.

My two cents worth.

Cheers Nick.


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## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

----

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## johnny (Aug 12, 2007)

love the sols n get kingies on my 1000 stradic-n the newies must be better still....zaion is made from old boneyM records"rivers of babylon.. do you remember zaion"


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## Redfish (Apr 25, 2007)

Nice work with the Luvias/ St Croix combo. Got a 3000 luvias and SCIV blank- sweeeet.

However, I'll temper the Luvias praise a bit. The carbon finish is more easily scratched than metal, and the black "zaion" shows through noticeably. I also had a problem of salt collecting in my reel. I washed with all my sol's, the same way I've done since I was a kid. But after a couple of months fishing the finish started to delaminate around the end protection plate. It turns out the salt water was collecting there either during fishing or washing the reel down. Daiwa were fantastic and fixed everything up for me as good as new. But I pay a lot more attention to my luvias....that it's not resting against anything....that it's clean and dry etc that I do not have to do for my other spinners.

Aside from that it has performed beautifully! Would I get another one? Not in a 3000, but in the smaller sizes yes.


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## johnny (Aug 12, 2007)

i think the more sulfur you add to rubbers,the more it goes from rubber to plastic[old world war 2 technology-the greatest period of technological advancement ever]..hardness is the number of carbon links...resin is plastic...zaion is a high tech recycling of Boney M records.......so rust is not the problem but sun damage through neglect is an unlikely scenario...


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## GregL (Jul 27, 2008)

Hey Dave,
I'd been going for the c14 if it was me. Its basically a Fireblood minus 1 bearing (so I was told by the dude in the shop), and I also heard that it came out on top as 'best in show' or 'best value' at the Tackle show this year.
Daiwa/ Shimano for the last couple of years has seen Daiwa knocking out some really nice reels, while imo, Shimano was a bit off the pace.
Seems though that they've lifted their game in a big way with the new range (the FD stellas are all over the FB's), and I think that for what you'll be doing with it, the C14 will see you sorted perfectly.
Regards,
Greg


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## justcrusin (Oct 1, 2006)

> Its basically a Fireblood minus 1 bearing (so I was told by the dude in the shop),


Looks a lot like a fireblood don't they, but I think old mates being fooled by the colours. The fireblood to me was the up market version of the saros with the same body shape and slow oscilation speed as the saros but with a lot more bearings an other stuff and the saros isn't anywhere near the strady in quaility, they felt ok at the begining but a year or two later and the stady's out in front by a mile.

The ci4 has the same shape as the FI strady and looking at the web site the same running gear. You would need them side by side to comfirm, but in any case It sounding better to me all the time.

Cheers Dave


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## Maca (Aug 29, 2008)

patwah said:


> I managed to pick it up on a labour day special for $165US a few weeks ago.


I remember seeing you post about the US website but can't find that post. Can you please put the link in here? ;-)


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## justcrusin (Oct 1, 2006)

Theres one for the Fi stradic Maca, couldn't find the ci4 it'll be there somewhere

http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/store ... rchResults

Cheers Dave


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## justcrusin (Oct 1, 2006)

here ya go the ci4

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templ ... ISO-8859-1

Cheers dave


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## yakattack (Jan 12, 2008)

Luvias Luvias Luvius did i say Luvias.

Cheers MIcka


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## Revo (Aug 3, 2008)

I agree with Nick. I can't complain about my Luvias, but I prefer to use my Heartland XA even more (and it has a spare reel so even better value IMO).


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## craig450 (May 11, 2007)

nicktoozoff said:


> We sell both at work, I'd buy a XA over a Luvias any day, especially if you are hard on gear.
> 
> Cheers Nick.


Hey Nick, got the exist hyper branzino's in stock yet?


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## Alster99 (Nov 20, 2008)

I just checked out the Ci4 Stradic... awesome reel. I want one.


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## Redfish (Apr 25, 2007)

GregL said:


> Hey Dave,
> I'd been going for the c14 if it was me. Its basically a Fireblood minus 1 bearing (so I was told by the dude in the shop)Greg


I was told a similar thing about the Luvias- that it was basically an airity internals with the zaion body, which was a hell of a lot cheaper to produce than a magnesium body. Then again I was also told that the colour was cast through the plastic, so if it was scratched the underlying plastic was the same colour. I can say that last bit definitely isn't true, so who's to say about the first!


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