I hate how much I love the CSL DD

now this is a story all about how the sim racing market got flip turned upside down and i would like to take a few minutes so just sit right there i'll tell you how the csl line is for everyone not just the millionaire fan attack out of the blue basically threw a curveball to deliver one of the most exciting pieces of sim racing hardware in news an affordable direct drive a direct drive for almost everyone's wallets well at least compared to what was before the direct drive market the cslt came accompanied by a new version of the csl pedals so we have the new generation of the csl line which is the entry level for fnatic products with a super aggressive price scheme and some snazzy features up its sleeve can the csl line deliver before going to the review all the equipment you see here was sent by fnatic and i have an affiliate link below that means if you use the affiliate link i will be financially compensated therefore take everything in this video with the grain of salt so why direct drives how do they differ long story short direct drives like the name implies has the drive or shaft of the motor directly coupled to the wheel this means no belts gears or pulleys of any type are required to increase torque which was the case with the outgoing csl wheelbase resulting in an action that is fast crisp and detailed for feedback those pulleys allow for belt or gear-driven wheels to have smaller motors whilst not lose too much torque in lowering costs but because of it they will not have the raw performance of a bigger electric motor what the csl brings to the table is that the price point is phenomenally low compared to other traditional options that tend to be outside of everyone's reach this comes with some compromises but most of them aren't really that important to the typical sim racer buying at this specific price range in this review i'll be centering myself mostly on the csldd and briefly touching on the pedals the pedals will have a video and another time while you're there don't forget to subscribe to the channel the cs ldd comes in two flavors vanilla and chocolates or five new meters and eight newton meters depending on which power supply you choose the wheel is a flux barrier type of direct drive compatible with all the fan attack and in terms of shape it's basically a cube the motor is housed in an aluminum housing and then is sandwiched with plastic front and back covers it has the same quick release as other bases and apparently it will be compatible with the new quick release once it comes out to mount there are t-slot compatible rails on the side and in the bottom notably in this design there are no cooling fans as for price points the 5 meter will have a price of 350 euros or dollars and the 8 millimeter boost kit bundle 480 euros or dollars you can buy the 500 meters in later upgrade but that will have a cost of 150 euros there'll be many that will complain about the price model but there's more than meets the eye with this choice assembling the csl in the rig is one of the most interesting experiences in sim racing due to the thinking outside of the box factor all related to the design choice they made it's great right that's the advantage of using a t-slot as a mounting system more options more flexibility faster installation it can also be installed in a desk with a 30-year optional accessory it grabs well to the desk but lower your force feedback and you should be fine you know desks are really not the best place for a wheel of this type let's talk about the quick release for a second i've tried this with all the current quick release types in the fan attack roster and the old csl type of the p1 wheel the p1 wheel does whatever it has always done it wobbles the new type of csl wheel release secures very strongly to the wheelbase there's no wobble there though the podium type one it has some wobbliness almost a clicking one when the sight is pushed forward and backwards i never did require the usage of the securing bolt on the dd1 but on the csldd for this quick release it was indeed needed after installed it's pretty secure but we are here because of the driving experience so one won't convince any words and say the gist of it upfront for the price the performance and feel of the csldd is unmatched i've also tested it extensively using the pre-release firmware which talks about what this base is the cs ldd has no business to feel this good at this price it just punches way above its price point in all cases the way the wheel loads up the four seat back is snappy responsive crisp and reliable it has the capacity to deliver high fidelity force it back with the loading in and compressing of suspension in the sims that i've tried in this case both of a set of courses so competition and the old one and race room drifting is where most of the abilities of the base are tested and in that it excelled with flying colors amazing centering and counter steering speed excellent peak responsiveness even at five newton meters though there needs to be a differentiation between the five nanometers and eight meters power supplies the differences that happen between the power supplies in for example the leading one are all at peak torque where the wheel starts to feel out of puff this is mostly notable with the standard power supply where it shows it needs more torque to perform being brutally honest and this might miff some though plenty will find this fascinating there isn't much difference between the cs ldd with the boost pack and the podium dd at a similar power setting and when configured with the same settings i'd assume if you had to blind test one or the other you might find difficult to find which one is which this is very likely due to the firmware and software side of things too the difference found are more at peak torque levels where power headroom could be an issue if the csl is used at the limit in that case the dd1 will still have plenty to show but i would still say for most people eight newton meters will be more than enough my biggest worry is that since it doesn't have any fans installed in this unit the whole unit is a heatsink i didn't find any issues with heating it the case was just skin worm but i'm not sure if any more problems will arrive from heat if you use this constantly at high power settings i couldn't be happier with the performance of the csl dd it did everything i wanted at the performance level i was used to from the phonetectd1 every single use case was basically able to go toe to toe with the dd1 delivering the same performance i was used to with that wheelbase since i use the wheelbase at a lower torque level and we're talking about it being configured to six newton meters it was surprising to see almost no difference in that use case between both wheel bases for those looking for more peak torque the cs ldd will have shortcomings and in that case looking for bigger motors whatever brand myth may be should be the option it is worth noticing that the form factor brings a huge advantage the wheel is somewhat light but very very short so if you are on a rig you can bring the monitor really close to you while at the same time keeping it behind the base as there isn't any active cooling the monitor can be mounted as low as it needs to be small form factors also have advantages of this type time to touch on the pedals now and speak of the csl as a whole package this refresh of the csl pedals came with a few surprises the design is totally changed this time instead of using a whole aluminum construction they are using a steel construction the result is an alternate design and starting price lower than the outgoing csl starting at 80 euros or dollars this is an amazing deal for a set of pedals it's about 20 cheaper than the outgoing model and with that it doesn't give you any less features there's an optional clutch pedal for 40 euros which is installed in my unit and the metal construction is definitely different the ease of construction is front and center in the set it will only take you some five to ten minutes to assemble and i had an issue with one of the screw holes that was threaded though the greatest improvement of this set is the addition of the hull sensors that will resolve the potentiometer failure of the previous versions with the addition of the optional pedal faces which is not yet released i think it looks rather nice it's minimalist and subdued it's tasty it just needs some rainbow rgb leds and then it will look the parts using the pedal set is a pretty straightforward experience for pedals of this type it has a decent resistance on all pedals it is quite accurate with 12 bit resolution and the brake for a non-load cell it gives a lot of confidence the provided rubber has a good progressive resistance to your braking so you can feel confident and the csl pedals do just that though some might want a stronger rubber but since these pedals are also supposed to run in the floor there are some rubber pads at the bottom and middle of the roads choice needed to be made the csldd when paired with the pedals is centered squarely at the tgt in tgt2 at the price of 750 euros or pounds with a wrc steering wheel or mclaren gt3 wheel it fits that purpose though without the playstation support because of this price it really makes you think should i go for something like a tgt or a tgt2 at 750 euros or should i go for the fanatex csl dd for 750 euros and i have a direct drive if you don't need the playstation support i think the answer is kinda obvious if you don't need the playstation support and you can buy online and you don't need the brick and mortar type of store the answer is pretty obvious in my opinion the real question will be which one of the power supplies should he get i would say unless you're using it on a desk get the boost back the price of the boost pack is controversial topic when looking at the item alone at isolation the boost pack is expensive but as a package it has a better performance than the cs sub while being cheaper so i would say while the boost pack looks expensive alone as a pack it is really not the case what happens is the csl dd alone has a really aggressive price point so the loss revenue has to come from somewhere in this case from the upsell i cannot recommend the csldd enough it is a disruptive piece of equipment that performs superbly with the price that is fantastic if you are looking for an upgrade to the mid tier or even looking to buy your first wheel consider this one the pandos round up the package quite nicely

Channel: random callsign

Views: 68,723

Keywords: csl dd, fanatec csl dd, direct drive, fanatec dd1, random callsign, fanatec csl review, fanatec csl pedals review, csl dd vs dd1, fanatec, logitech g29, logitech g923, simracing, wheels, fanatec dd, fanatec csl, sim racing, jimmy broadbent, direct drive wheel, fanatec csl dd review, fanatec direct drive, csl, randomcallsign, csl dd review, best sim racing wheel, csl dd pro, fanatec dd pro, csl dd setup

Id: NdqYu6tqIis

Length: 11min 8sec (668 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 09 2021