If you switched from a Mira to a Diamante, please comment

[Deborah M.]

Please comment specifically if you have switched from a MIRA to a DIAMANTE.  I am interested to hear what you think of the differences between the two machines re stacking, the touch, how you feel after an all-day job, whether you think the switch was worth the dollars.

I am specifically interested in talking about this part of it, not about other machines or where to buy them.  Thank you!!!

[Deborah M.]

Well, I did it.  I ordered a white one.  I'm really glad I waited this long for them to refine it.  I love the shallow depth and not a single stack while I played around on it.  Now the question is, wide TS or wide DZ?  What's the diff?

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

I don't know that it matters which you get.  I don't want my pinky falling through the crack so I get wide DZ.  Never really paid attention to the wide TS, sort of the same thing but next to it.  Whatever.

[Eric Gilliam]

I've just ordered a Diamante with a wide TS.  I've had wide DZ on my last couple of writers, and I've always had issues with the D and Z showing up as shadows or drags.  It occurred to me I must be brushing the edges of those wide keys.  So I decided to try the wide TS this time instead and see if that helps clean up those strokes. 

[Mary Ann Payonk]

Comments about my recent retrofit aside, Eric, you will LOVE the touch of the Diamante (if you don't have one already).  Hopefully those wide keys will make a big difference for you.

M.A.

[Eric Gilliam]

Well, thanks, M.A.  We shall see.  I was using a friend's Diamante for about a month after struggling with another manufacturer's writer for over a year.  Oh heck, I guess I can say it:  I was using a Passport, which I really wanted to love, but it just wasn't working for me. The first thing I noticed with the Diamante was my untran rate was immediately cut in half right out the gate (which had doubled once I started using the Passport).  The touch and feel were very similar to my old Stentura 6000, though I had become accustomed to a much shallower stroke on the Passport.  So I am eagerly awaiting my new Diamante with the shallower stroke than the one I was using (it had not been upgraded yet).  I also noticed that the passport keys appear to be a couple mm's further apart than the Diamante keys.  May not seem like much, but I think it made a big difference in my writing.  After all, I'd been trained on and using Stenograph products for most of my 30+ year career.  So it sorta felt like coming home in a weird way.  Anyway, I can't wait to dive into it with my new Diamante.

[Mary Ann Payonk]

I just HAD to come over here and post, not sure if this is the thread.  Just got my 2nd Diamante back and IT BOUNCES TERRIBLY.  It's awful.  Very disappointed.  So freakin' glad I have two Diamantes so I'm not stuck trying to write.  I DO now understand the bouncing thing - wow, terrible.  I'll work on it later this weekend.

M.A.

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

I wonder how you're supposed to get rid of bouncing.  I'm not sure what that feeling is either.  Let us know what you did to fix it, if you can fix it, M.A.

[Kerry F]

Mary Ann,

You mean your 2nd Diamante you had retrofitted bounces?

Wonder what causes that.  What does Stenograph say?

[Mary Ann Payonk]

Someone else complained of bouncing but I can't find the post here.  I know I posted that the Diamante has a wonderful touch, etc., etc., singing the praises of the Diamante.  I still do - of the first one.  This one is going back to Stenograph.  Of course, Kelli, I will keep track of what it's going to take to fix it, restore it back to the wonderful awesomeness of what it was when it left out of here.  I'll start with the cost to send it in, my time dealing with it.  I was quite surprised to receive an unsolicited call from Stenograph tonight, and I thanked the technician profusely for calling unsolicited.  But I was quite, quite clear with him that the machine left me in great shape, the change in the touch because of the retrofit is unacceptable.  He asked me to adjust the tension to tighten it up, which I rejected out of hand.  The whole point of the awesomeness of the Diamante is the shortest stroke and the heavenly light touch.  Interestingly, that was the exact same suggestion from Stenograph when my Mira from years ago was stacking ... tighten up the tension.  Uh, no.  Sorry, that's not the point.  It was unacceptable back then.  It's still unacceptable as a fix.  Besides, even with a tightened-up tension, which I had to do to get through the day today, you can still feel the bouncing of the keys.  The technician also asked about my tripod.  Where, oh where are Seth and Amy when you need them.  "Really?  Really??  My tripod???"  Uh, no.  So, Kerry, that's what Stenograph says.  I'm heading out of town tomorrow but I'll pack it up and send it back.  The one thing that I do NOT want to hear is that there is no such thing as this bouncing you're talking about, Mary Ann.  

M.A.

[Alice Clark]

I have had trouble with the bouncing...  I didn't even know what to call it at first.  It never goes away, but it is definitely at its worse on my machine when I shorten the stroke.  It's annoying but not terrible.  It does make your realtime not look as clean, of course.  And it occurs in places where you know you didn't bounce the key(s) creating a false short stroke before or after the complete outline that was actually what you were writing.  Mine has never been the perfect machine some people have, but I do appreciate the touch that is so much less tiring than my Mira.  I can only assume their is some problem somewhere that doesn't show up in all of their machines.  Mary Ann, that is definitely having an advantage having one machine that is working like it should because otherwise the finger always gets pointed back at the reporter.

[Mary Ann Payonk]

Hi, Alice!  You must be much more patient than I am.  You say it's annoying but not terrible.  I say it's terrible!  Anything that affects my writing that's not ME is unacceptable.  So I sent Diamante No. 2 back in and we'll see what happens when it comes back to me.  Also, Alice, a reporter on another message board described it p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y as Boing-Boing-Click, and that's exactly what it feels like when writing ... boing-boing-click ... boing-boing-click ... and it should be ... nothing.  No sound, no click, no funny feel.  Nothing!  Thanks for sharing your experience, because every technician I talk to gives me the same thing, "Uh, could you explain it ONE more time for me?  I'm not quite understanding you."  Uh-huh.  No need to point a finger at me.  It's not me.  Thanks, Alice!

M.A.

[Alice Clark]

That's something different than I'm having then because there is no indication at all while I'm writing where it is going to have one of those bounced strokes.  I was calling them "popcorn" the first time I called in to a tech to try and get some improvement.  My best machine as far as actually only writing what I wrote was the Baron Data TX writer.  I did have some of what I call this popcorning start with the Mira.  The Stentura I had stacking issues but didn't have this bounce problem that the Mira and now Diamante have.  I can improve it with the Diamante by changing adjustments but it doesn't completely go away.  It's not that I'm happy about it, but I just don't think Stenograph has a grip on what causes this, so my confidence that the writer would come back improved is low.  I'm sure in four or five years I'll be purchasing another writer in hopes that they have solved these issues.