Rorabacks “Premium” 45mm Rotary Cutter

Since rediscovering my “crafty” nature, I’ve found there’s a world of tools and accessories that passed me by in the many moons that I was away. One of them, that has become nigh indispensable, is my Rotary cutter. And anyone who’s come to rely on a tool knows, you can never have too many of them lying around for the if/when one fails. I’m please to say the Rorabacks cutter should do nicely for most folks.

Made from injection-molded plastic, with a rubberized “no-slip” grip, the Rorabacks cutter fit nicely in my hand, and the ergonomics felt good. The blade release slide was placed well, and can be reached easily without having to constantly adjust one’s grip. It’s large enough to get a sure hole on, but no so large to cause had fatigue with long or large products. The standard 45mm blade is sharp and cuts almost everything I threw at it with just one pass. The blade also has a coating of titanium (though it lacked the usual tell-tale gold-ish tint that most titanium coated blades have) should help with edge retention and keep the cutter sharp. It also accepts the plethora of “notched” 45mm blades for replacements. The price is decent (I not the lowest) for the quality and Rorabacks has a “replacement or refund” offer of indeterminate length, so they should stand behind their products.

There’s a few caveats here, though. The blade has a fair amount of “wobble”, which could lead to losing your line on precise cuts, and anyone who’s worked with rotary cutters knows, once it wanders off that line, running it back can lead to disaster. Next is the blade cover. While the blade safely and securely retracts back to avoid any accidents, I tend to put a thin coat of machine oil on my blade when it will stored for a prolonged period of time (Thanks to Hubby’s almost obsessive oiling of his tools, it rubbed off on me). Putting the cover on is a great way to keep the oil from staining things in my craft box. But putting the cover on and off means your fingers come in contact with the cutting edge of the blade to seat the cover properly, and that can lead to cuts. Lastly, and it’s a common grip of mine, is that the Rorabacks Rotary Cutter is more expensive that the industry-leading Fiskars. Like them or hate them, they set the bar here (and elsewhere) for quality and reputation. and while it’s only a dollar or so, I can’t understand why you would be charging more than the one everyone knows and loves to get your foot in the door? And everyone knows every Fiskars product is guaranteed for life, no problems or questions asked. I can’t see ever recommending Rorabacks over Fiskers for those reasons alone. It’s a good tool and functions well but for the reasons stated above I would rank this item about a 3 & 1/2 star, rounded up to 4 because you can’t give 1/2’s on Amazon.

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I received the above product(s) free of charge from Rorabacks. I am not obligated to provide a positive or favorable review, just my honest opinion. My review is based on my experience with the product and/or brand, which may differ from yours.

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MARSEE MSH03 Active Noise-Cancelling Bluetooth Wireless Headset

03/23/2016 Edit: Well, the customer service is just plain awful. After contacting me to confirm the unit I received is defective, they then proceeded to ask what rating I would give their defective product, and then informed me they have “No return policy”. Yikes. I would avoid these earphones, this company, and their products and stick to a larger, better known company that stands behind their products (and after some comparison shopping are much, much cheaper, too) and isn’t content selling people defective products. Horrible service, no QC, and no returns. 3 strikes and you’re out.

I’ve tested more than a few bluetooth wireless headsets, both in ear and over the ear. I have yet to find a set that has what I would consider truly premium sound, But MARSEE’s MSH03 set is the closest I’ve found to fully premium, awesome sound. Except that there’s one major, major drawback: The “Active Noise Cancelling” feature ruins the sound! Oh, the irony!

See, I’ve all but give up on what I would consider an affordable bluetooth headset with honest to goodness premium sound quality. And with most folks downloading low quality rips of music anyways (usually 128 kbps quality, which is usually pretty awful, but also the most ubiquitous), it became a giant game of cat and mouse tracking down high-quality downloads and then getting high quality headphones to listen to it. Everyone claimed HD sound quality to only deliver mediocre at best. But lo and behold, the set MARSEE sent me was pretty darn awesome. With controls for playback right on the earcup, soft, enveloping padding, and a firm, secure feeling on the head, these feel like actual premium headphones without being heavy, and no need to handle them gingerly for fear of all the cheap plastic cracking and breaking! They twist and form to even Hubby’s big ‘ol pumpkin head with ease. The bluetooth connects and pairs quickly, and no worries if there’s an issue with the bluetooth, MARSEE provided a nice, braided-cloth covered cable to take your wireless headset to wired int he blink of an eye! And the sound! Oh, the sound. Crisp, sharp highs, with full, thumping lows, clear mids. These might easily be the best sounding headset I’ve put on in over 20 years.

And then the wheels came off my little red wagon when I engaged the active noise cancelling. And it all went to pot. The full, rich lows went away, and were replaced instead with a screechy, tinny, horribly shrill sound that absolutely ruined my experience with these headphones. I tried both wireless and wired and the results were the same: The noise cancellation feature ruins the sound and I can’t for the life of me find a workaround. At $79.99, these should not have this kind of issue. Emails to the company through Amazon have yet to answered, but if not for the fact that I got this headset at no cost, with this kind of problem they’d have been returned post haste. Yes, the sound is amazing normally. The braided cloth 3.5mm audio cable and flat USB charging cords have a premium look and feel. Yes, the headphones seem to have been engineered with quality in mind and feel premium in both build and materials. The bluetooth pairs quickly and easily, but for $80, the noise cancelling feature is important and with it borking the sound so completely, I can’t recommend them as highly as I’d want.

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• On Amazon

I received the above product(s) free of charge from MARSEE. I am not obligated to provide a positive or favorable review, just my honest opinion. My review is based on my experience with the product and/or brand, which may differ from yours.