The 2023 MOZA Sim Racing Buyer's Guide & Comparison

hey guys we'll here so it's hard to believe that it's been nearly 18 months now since we first took a look at Mozart racing now you guys would have seen if you've been long-time viewers of the channel that we've had a couple of review videos looking at various different products within their ecosystem but they've been releasing products faster than we can keep up with the review videos so what we've been doing behind the scenes is testing out pretty much every single product that Mazda racing sells for a long period of time now and in today's video what we're going to be doing is taking you through the entire ecosystem at each price point letting you know which products we recommend which products we don't and where we think the value for money sits within the Mazda racing ecosystem so let's get going so there's a lot of stuff to get through today but before we do get started just a quick thank you to Mazda Racing for sending it across all of the gear that we're going to be looking at today for uh for review purposes now we will also be doing a lot of comparison today against a lot of other competitive products too so it's important that you guys know that all the things that we're going to be looking at in today's video were all sent to us under exactly the same conditions now if today's video does help you decide what direction you want to go with your sim ring we will have some affiliate links in the description down below for all of the products that we talk about from mozzer racing right through to all the other brands as well so if you do want to help support our work here at booster media that is an awesome way of doing so at no additional costume we really do appreciate your support there with that said let's get started so let's begin the journey at direct drive wheelbases so we've got three bases here on the table you'll also see the r21 which is actually installed on the rig behind me so we've got the R5 which is five newton meters Peak the R9 which is nine newton meters Peak the R16 16 newton meters and the r21 21 newton meters now I'm not going to get today's video bogged down in pricing because pricing does vary depending on where you are in the world as I said before we do have some links in the description below to a couple of resellers as well as mozzer directly but I would definitely recommend do your own research there make sure you're getting the best price in your particular region so we're not going to talk about pricing in today's video but suffice to say that obviously the R5 is the cheapest and then it goes through to the r21 as the most expensive now when we did our full review of the R5 wheelbase and I would recommend you check out the full reviews that we've done on all three of these bases the R5 was being sold as a bundle only so it came with this steering wheel and they've also since released a formula style mod for that wheel as well which you can just bolt onto the front you remove this wheel replace it with this one and actually it does work pretty well it's quite cool as a cheap alternative to having to drive formula style cars with a round wheel so that works really well but yeah they were selling it as a bundle with that wheel and the SRP light pedals and I said at the time that I felt like it was a really good entry level you know package that gives you everything you need to get up and racing but I wasn't a big fan of the SRP light pedals and I wish that they'd sold the R5 base on its own now they do now sell the R5 based on its own which makes it an even better value proposition my recommendation at the time was that I felt that it was better value overall if you could stretch your budget a little bit to go for the R9 and then get yourself a decent set of pedals like Houston belt Sprints or maybe vrs pedals something like that they are a significant jump up in the Driving Experience we'll talk about pedals a little bit later on in today's video but now that they sell the R5 base on its own I do think that it's a really great value proposition as an alternative to a lot of the belt driven wheels that are out there so say some of your thrustmaster wheels for example so the experience with this base is very very smooth is very precise as well you get all that direct drive feeling that you're looking for in a direct drive wheel it is a little on the weaker side though five newton meters for me Isn't Enough uh you know if you're stepping up from something like a Logitech G29 or a g920 something like that then you know you will find that it gives you everything you need to drive quickly and consistently but if you're wanting that really immersive experience if you're really wanting the car to sort of you know fight you through the corners then you're not going to get that with this now we can unpack this all day but there is going to be a point for everybody and depending on your physical strength will determine whereabouts this uh whereabouts this lies but for me it's around the sort of 12 to 14 maybe 15 meter Mark but there will be a point for everybody where you transition from a point where you're feeling more immersed and you're getting the strength in the steering that allows you to sort of feel what's going on with the car and it starts to transition into where you're just fighting against the car and it actually will make you slower at some point if you're really sort of having to fight against the car and use I guess explosive muscle movements rather than you know finesse muscle inputs to handle the car then that's actually going to end up making you slower so for me it's a round sort of 12 to 14 15 newton meters at most will of course also depend on the type of driving that you're doing as well but the R5 is definitely enough to get you up and running with a direct drive base it's going to give you that quality feeling just a little bit more on the weaker side so I'd say if that's as far as your budget can stretch then it's definitely a good entry point I do think that you're probably at some point inevitably if you end up going down the sin racing Rabbit Hole want to upgrade whereas I think if you were to go straight to the R9 maybe save up a little bit longer and get something like this there's probably less chance that you'll end up ultimately wanting to upgrade from something like this I think that the R9 does provide enough strength to keep the majority of people happy and one of the things that I was really impressed with the comparison between the R9 and the R5 is that the overall driving experience strength aside was quite similar between the two I was a little bit worried that the R5 might just feel sloppy and unresponsive compared to the R9 but it actually does stack up really well performance wise strength aside now if we quickly turn these two bases to the side as well you can see the R5 also does have a absolutely tiny any form factor which can be effective particularly if you're running a smaller monitor and you don't have the space to drop it between the base and the wheel maybe that's a little bit too close for you then it will allow you to get the monitor right up nice and close behind the wheelbase which is definitely something that I appreciated about the R5 similar with the R9 as well you can see the size difference there between the two and again check out our full review of the R9 for all the details on this but again you can get the monitor up nice and close behind this and the R9 really does give you a overall very well balanced Driving Experience so if you're wondering about the comparison between these guys and the fnatic CSL DD or gt DD Pro unfortunately the mozzle bases don't have direct console compatibility there are a couple of ways around that with some third-party adapters but the thing that's so important to be aware of there is that those third-party adapters aren't officially supported by those consoles so a software update on the console side could at any point break that compatibility whereas with an officially licensed product like you have with the GTD Pro from fanatic for the PlayStation and the csldd with the Xbox you are guaranteed that native console compatibility but yeah overall the actual Driving Experience between them is very similar the the experience is maybe a little tiny bit smoother on the R9 and the R5 than it is with the CSL DD but overall there's not a large difference in the overall Driving Experience so then we step it up to the R16 which is 16 newton meters Peak as we discussed earlier now as you can see here very very different form factor in our full review of the R16 we did pull it apart completely and show you the internals now we did have a couple of concerns with build quality at the time we did our original review they have since made some adjustments to their process and none of the issues that we had in that original video with rust on the motor shaft and pinched cables internally uh issues at least they haven't been with the R16 and the r21 that we have in our possession now you might remember we actually sent all of that original equipment back to them and said hey send us another set when you're ready to go to production because we just weren't happy with the quality we didn't feel it was indicative of what customers would be receiving so very different form factor here it's going to be a Love or hate thing it is also available in an orange model as well look I think it's a little bit over the top in terms of its visual design I'd prefer something a little bit more understated and plain that's a subjective thing you might absolutely love it but my quick summary on the R16 is I think this is where the performance sweet spot is within the moza ecosystem the R9 is absolutely fine if that's as far as your budget can stretch I don't think you're going to be disappointed with it but the R16 is going to provide you with all the torque that you're ever going to need so as I've said a couple of times now I run between 12 and 14 newton meters 15 newton meters at the absolute most that's on my Simi Q2 ultimate which is capable of 32 newton meters and I found on the R16 I was never running this at 100 now a lot of people do argue that it's good to have a more powerful wheelbase so you've got that little bit of extra Headroom that little bit of extra dynamic range so you're not running into clipping issues honestly when I've got this thing dialed in to suit my driving style regardless of the type of driving that I'm doing I don't run into any clipping issues anyway with this base so I just didn't really find it to be an issue for me at all so I guess you're probably wondering why then would you look at something like an r21 honestly it's just going to come down to whether or not you need that additional strength are a lot stronger than I am maybe you want to have that extra strength if you're driving particular styles of cars like Indy cars for example those in the real world do have a lot of strength coming through the steering so if you're wanting to replicate the most lifelike experience as you can then yeah maybe you might want to step up to the eye turning one but it kind of comes back again to what I was saying before about that transition between you know fighting the car rather than feeling what the cars you know trying to communicate to you through the steering and I feel like the R16 provides everything that the vast majority of sim races are ever going to need so I just don't really see a compelling reason to spend the extra money to get the r21 unless you're built like the Hulk and you just really need that extra strength so the overall driving experience with the R16 again very smooth very well refined they have made a lot of improvements to their software over time as well which have refined things even further one of the big issues that we had initially with all the mozzle bases was a lot of oscillation in the steering so when you're going down straight the steering would want to shake itself a lot that definitely has reduced itself over time although it's still not quite as good as it is with some of the other Alternatives like semi-cube or acetec or fnatic for example but once you've got your settings dialed in it does provide a very good overall Driving Experience the one observation that I would have with the Driving Experience across all the mozzer bases compared to some of their Alternatives is that they do tend to require a little bit more filtering than some of the other brands do particularly if you compare to the acetec Forte and in Victor bases that we reviewed recently one of the things that really impressed me about those was that they didn't require a lot of filtering so you were getting a really kind of raw feelings uh sensation through the steering but without some of that robotic feeling that you get with some other bases when you try to run them with not much filtering so with the muzzle bases by comparison if you try to run them with the filters turned all the way down you do get quite a notchy and robotic feel coming through so you do end up having to run a little bit more filtering just to smooth things out once you've got to dialed in it feels absolutely fine but it is a it is a bit of a trade-off there you have to trade off some of the Finesse and some of the detail and the force feedback to get rid of some of that robotic feel like it's it's really a difficult thing to communicate all I can really suggest is you watch our reviews of all the various different Sim racing uh bases that we've tested over the over the years here at boosted media and sort of determined from that what you think is going to suit you best alternatively to that really all you can do is just try to get your hands on these things to test them out for yourselves everybody is going to be different and it is a very subjective thing at the end of the day but I think the point here is the R5 is a little on the weaker side if it's the best that you can afford you're going to have a great experience with it you're certainly not going to regret buying one but I think if you can stretch yourself to the R9 you will appreciate that extra strength and I think if you are still worried that the R9 isn't going to be strong enough then the R16 will certainly have you covered so before we move on into Mozza Racing's steering wheel offerings let's just quickly touch on the quick release because this is something that I think is absolutely outstanding and definitely absolutely has Fanatics current qr1 quick release at least completely beat now the qr1 from fnatic as you guys have seen in our reviews does have a little bit of play in it it does wobble around a little bit has a little bit of flex this quick release by comparison is absolute really brilliant so they're using an NRG style quick release which is exactly the same as what's used in a lot of real-life race cars and you can see it's as simple as literally just pushing the wheel onto the base it clicks into position locks it in place nice and securely there's no play in any of the bases or wheels that we've tested whatsoever so that's never been an issue for us in a year and a half that we've been playing around with these products and then when you want to release the wheel again it's as simple as just pulling on the collar and the entire assembly just comes away it has that really beautiful kind of clunky sound to it it just feels really purposeful and really race car like when you install it on the rig but just something that I wanted to quickly point out because I do think it's a really strong selling point for the mozzo ecosystem okay so let's move on now into steering wheels now the first thing I want you guys to understand is just a little bit with regards to compatibility now all of the wheels that we have in the moza ecosystem with the exception of the FSR wheel if you use it with an accessory that we're going to look at in just a little bit uh or only compatible with moza wheelbases so they don't have a USB port or anything like that you can use to connect them to other ecosystems or directly to your PC now the other thing that I want to highlight here too is that unlike what you get with the fnatic ecosystem by comparison here even from the very entry level Wheels like the es wheel they're obviously straight at face value looks a lot more toy-like than what you get with something like the rsv2 wheel for example they do have the same high quality quick release mechanisms that we were talking about just before so slightly different way that they mount to the wheel itself and you can see on this particular wheel it is a plastic housing rather than the aluminum that we have on the more expensive Wheels but the fact that we have that nice solid NRG stock quick release right through the entire ecosystem doesn't mean that you get that same high quality relative Flex free mount on all the wheels obviously being a plastic housing it does have a little bit more Flex inherent in the wheel itself and you can see our review on the Mazda R5 bundled with this wheel for more details on that if you wish to check that out but yeah definitely Far and Away beyond what we get with the simplified quick release for fnatic with the comparable Wheels to this kind of price point those have a lot more Flex in the quick release than what this does so the es wheel is a 280 millimeter diameter so nice and versatile you can use this to drive formula style as well as GT style cars a little on the small side for GT but I do like the idea of having a smaller diameter wheel that gives it a little bit more versatility definitely easier to drive things like formula style cars with this wheel than what you would find if you try to drive an F1 car with a 330 mil wheel you're going to have a not so good time just becomes a little bit more vague and a little bit less precise on the inputs so definitely a good idea I think here to go with a smaller diameter particularly given that this is generally used with a R5 wheelbase the smaller diameter the more detailed the force feedback is gonna feel as well it doesn't have quite the same dampening Effect one thing I wish they had done is gone with a completely round design rather than the D shape here just make a little bit easier for drifting and rally style although it is relatively easy to slip through your hands still I just think it would have been better if it was around you've got push button style shifters here as well not the magnetic ones that you're going to get on the more expensive Wheels but otherwise I think for the money it's a very well-rounded well-designed and versatile wheel you do also of course have the option to switch it over I wouldn't say upgrade because it's you know one thing or the other that you might want to be doing with the wheel but you do also have the option for the formula wheel mod that's only about 60 Australian dollars I believe as well so relatively cheap and I was actually surprised at just how solid this is as well no flex there really at all to speak of trying to twist that in my hands so a nice simple mod there that gives you a cheap and easy way to switch between formula and uh and GT style driving without having to Fork out for a whole entire second wheel should you wish to do so so we then step up to the Cs wheel now we took a more detailed look at this wheel not all that long ago on the channel so I'll link that video down in the description below for you guys again but look this really impressed me because for the price once again I felt like it delivered a lot of the quality components and quality feel that you want out of a more high-end wheel and it's not really sacrificing anything that's overly important to the Driving Experience so you still get your RPM LED strip along the top here you've still got a plethora of inputs as well and they've got nice quality metal touch points on the rotary encoders the push button switches are still plastic with the plastic on most steering wheels even ones that cost a lot more than this one does but you still got the aluminum actual Rim here you've got your leather bound wrapping and you do have magnetic shifter paddles on the back here as well and the same again high quality quick release that we see on the more expensive wheels so again a good option there if you're not quite ready to Fork out for something like the rsv2 wheel but it gives you a very similar Driving Experience to the more expensive rims just with a little bit less functionality for the drop in price so then we move across into the RS Wheels now this was the original RS V1 wheel that we looked at back when we first took a look at Mozza Racing's gear and look I wasn't a big fan of this wheel aesthetically I just felt that it looked a little bit toy-like with all the colors going on it is a relatively well laid out well you've got two rotary encoders here with push button functionality you've got your two analog switches here which do operate in the digital manner in the software and again check out our full reviews of moz's ecosystem for more details on that but you've still got the RPM LED strip plenty of buttons here as well and you do get the magnetic shifter pedals here with the addition of analog clutches on the wheel but yeah I just wasn't a big fan of this wheel aesthetically I thought the horn button looked a little bit cheesy as well and I know a lot of people agreed with me with regards to that now they've just recently released the V2 RS wheel and that has addressed a lot of those things so you can see straight away this wheel looks a lot more classy at least in my subjective opinion you've got different knobs here for all the buttons as well those are plastic hat switches there on the rotary encoders but look in terms of functionality it's pretty much exactly the same you do have the addition of RGB LEDs behind each of these buttons so you can actually go into the software and adjust those to your heart's content but otherwise the overall Driving Experience is very similar same shifters same analog paddles on the back and of course once again the same high quality quick release so it's interesting that the RS and the Cs are actually the same diameter as each other I would like to see a 310 or 3 20 millimeter Rim added to their ecosystem I do find that for GT style cars if this is going to be your only rim and you're not ready to step up to something like this then this diameter is a little bit wide it's more suited to sort of street cars rally style driving drifting things like that but I do like the fact that they do have a relatively round wheel here you can see there is a little bit of variation around the hand grip area just to make it a little bit more ergonomic that does come at the detriment of the wheel sort of bumping a little bit as it slips through your hands if you're drifting but not to the extent where I think it's going to be an issue but overall I definitely think aesthetically the V2 upgrade is well worth the change and I'm glad that they went ahead and did that so then we move across into the formula style wheels so we've got the gsv1 wheel here now there is a V2 wheel for all intents and purposes it operates exactly the same way uh just with the difference in the quick release that we were discussing earlier we also have perforated leather grips now on the gsv2 wheel as opposed to the Alcantara that we had on the V1 so just bear that in mind as well otherwise operates exactly the same this is a 300 millimeter diameter wheel so a little bit on the wide side for some people maybe I do tend to prefer 280 or 290 millimeter for more formula style cars although this is really great for GT3 GT4 and whatnot so just a little bit more sensitive the smaller diameter as we mentioned before so you will find with say F3 F1 cars for example they feel a little bit more vague than you get with the smaller diameter wheel so it may not be an issue for you but just something that I thought was worth pointing out there again we've got RGB backlit buttons we've got two rotary encoders here for your thumbs too which is a welcome addition anybody haven't seen any of my wheel reviews knows how much I rely on those thumb encoders we've got five rotary encoders here on the phase two and those are metal hats which feel nice to the touch if you're not driving with gloves and then again if we flip it around we've got the same magnetic shifters and analog clutch pedals and they can be assigned to other functions on all the wheels that we've seen them present on so you can use them as a throttle and Brake or a handbrake if you wish to do so but generally most people are going to be using these as a bite Point clutch I would imagine so then lastly we have the FSR wheel now you guys would have seen this featured in a lot of our F3 racing videos recently I've actually really grown to enjoy this wheel one thing that I'm still not a massive fan on with this wheel is the fact that you do have to rely on the moza pit house software for the display to work so this doesn't integrate with Sim Hub or Z1 dashboard or any of those third-party Dash apps which is a disappointment but having said that the flip side to that is the ease of use and I will admit that moza have increased the number of different dashboards that are available in their pit house software quite significantly in the time that we've been using this wheel so it's good that they are continuing to support this wheel moving forward you can see we've got the perforated leather grips on this wheel like what we discussed with the V2 version of the GS wheel 280 millimeter diameter out with this wheel as opposed to the 300 that you get with the GS so that may be a selling point for this wheel over the GS for some people as I touched on earlier I do prefer the 280 millimeter to the 300 millimeter for the majority of the types of cars that I'm using this style of wheel for driving so that suits me well otherwise look in terms of functionality very similar to the GS wheel again we've got all the same buttons and configuration here a couple of additional push buttons here and then again the same magnetic shifters and analog paddles on the back now while we've got the wheel spun around you might have noticed the little RJ connection that we've got at the bottom here so what that allows you to do is connect to a new accessory which Mazda have just released and we've been testing this out for about a month and a half now I want to say on the rig and using it for my F3 videos that I've been posting recently so this little box connects to your PC via USB here there's a USB B connection there's also a USBC connection for auxiliary power too just to make sure you've got enough power to run all your bits and pieces then you've got a port here for pedals spinning around this side you've got a port for your wheelbase your wheel your shifter and your handbrake so what you can do is you can actually connect all your accessories through to this module and that allows you to run pedals a dash a shifter or a handbrake all off this without the need to actually have a mozzle wheelbase so if you are wanting to run the FSR wheel but you don't have a Moser wheelbase you can use this module just be aware that you will need to run the pit house software to get the dash working uh also some of the more advanced features for the rotary encoders analog paddles and whatnot will also require the pit house software now one little Gremlin that we have noticed is that occasionally the dash will just freeze up or start responding very slowly almost like the uh like the sample rate drops down also sometimes it starts to just run with weird Telemetry 2 in iRacing in particular so I found if I go to a replay and I'm watching that the Telemetry will start to run the replay and then if I jump back in the car sometimes it does weird things and it just shows Telemetry that doesn't seem to match what the car's actually doing I haven't been able to find a solution for that as of the time of recording this video and this time that I've struggled with for quite a long period of time now so if you are looking at an FSR wheel to use with another brand wheelbase just keep that in mind but otherwise I have found the FSR wheel very very comfortable to use ergonomically it's really well designed no issues at all there no issues with flex or twist or anything like that either you can see this one does have an aluminum enclosure here so it is nice and sturdy one thing that you may have noticed while we've been testing out some of the wheels here is that the magnetic shifters on muzzle wheels are quite noisy they do include Inside the Box a little rubber pad which you can just stick underneath that to soften it down a bit it does give you a little bit more of a dampened feel to the shifter on the return so if you'd like to have that kind of metal to metal clunk like I do then you probably won't want to install those it will also reduce the throw ever so slightly as well so that's the reason why I haven't installed them but if the metal to metal contact noise does bother you you at least do have that option so that is a run through of all the current wheels in the Mozza ecosystem so let's move on now to pedals now this is where I personally believe the weaknesses in the Mozza ecosystem throughout the entire range at the moment I feel like there are still a lot of improvements that can be made to these panels fundamentally they're okay there's nothing you know inherently wrong with them but I just feel like there are better options at every price point throughout this range that's what we're going to unpack for you guys now so we'll start off with the SRP light pedals now these are the ones that come bundled with the R5 If you buy the R5 bundle so these are a very very basic pedal set similar to what you would get with say a G25 or G27 or G29 the g923 actually upgraded the pedals somewhat significantly in terms of the brake feel and I would actually rate those pedals in terms of the actual Driving Experience a little bit higher than what we have here so we've got an all metal construction here fundamentally underfoot the pedals feel relatively good they're well constructed there's no horrible Flex or anything nasty like that so you know at a fundamental level like that there's nothing wrong with them so all three pedals using hall effect sensors all three pedals also have a very linear feel to them so not really an issue when it comes to the throttle and the clutch the clutch doesn't have any of that sort of rollover or two-stage effect like what we get if we step up into something like the CRP we'll look at in just a minute but what I don't like about these pedals specifically is the brake there's just no real feeling in it now when it comes to brake fill in a simulator it is a very very subjective thing but having said that the fundamental things that you need to drive consistently are some sort of a threshold point that you can feel underfoot so you can always break to that level consistently so if you're wanting to hit say 80 braking pressure inside the game you can always hit that brake pressure and then modulate around it without varying too much in your consistency and that's where I really struggle with these pedals now if you're used to driving with a G27 or something like that which you know is also a position based system then you'll be used to this but what you're doing is you're relying on the position of your ankle or the position of your leg on the pedal rather than the amount of force that you're actually applying to the pedal and because it has that linear feel to it you don't really get a sensation of change in the in the force fighting against your foot so it makes it feel rather rather vague underfoot compared to something more expensive so look I'm not trying to put anybody off I think if this is the best Pedal set that you can afford combined with the R5 basic if it gets you up and racing something is obviously better than nothing and you can definitely learn to drive quickly with these pedals so I'm not saying don't get them if it's the best you can afford but I'm saying if you can afford to save up a little bit longer for something a little bit better I think that you know you're definitely going to benefit from that because these are definitely the weak point in the system and the first thing that you're likely to want to upgrade now of course it is also important on a Sim racing rig that you have a nice solid mount for the pedals too and as you step up into load cell pedals that will become more important so if you've got pedals just mounted on the floor for example and you're trying to run a load cell then you're going to find they're going to slip around the seat might move backwards and if you again anything that sort of gets in the way of being able to have a consistent input is going to create an issue so yeah nothing inherently wrong with them but definitely the weakest link in the overall Sim them now they do also have a upgrade kit or a Performance Kit as they call it for these pedals and this adds this little elastomer and spring stack here which literally just sandwiches between the uh back of the pedal here so you can see it goes in here you can see the little linear spring in there as well which we're just discussing so that just bolts in here bolts into position and then when you push the pedal down it operates very similar to the elastomer and spring stack that you would find in a load cell pedal but you can see there isn't actually a load cell on the back of this so what that does do is add a little bit more sensation under the pedal and give you that sensation of a threshold point which you can then modulate around so I would say that that is a worthwhile upgrade for the money it's definitely a transformative thing for the SRP light pedals but it still isn't going to get you to the point of something obviously a lot more expensive so just keep that in mind my recommendation would be if you can afford it maybe save up a little bit longer and and go for something a little bit more high-end when it comes to pedals so that brings us across to the SRP pedals now they look very very similar and again you'll notice with both of these they look very similar to the fnatic CSL pedals again which we've reviewed here on the channel link down below so these in terms of the throttle and the clutch pedal feel pretty much exactly the same they're both linear once again one one thing that I did notice is that these are actually using potentiometers for the throttle and the clutch and a combination or a hybrid system with a potentiometer and a load cell for the brake unlike the hall effect sensors that we see on the SRP light pedal so I'm not sure exactly why we have that difference there I'm not sure whether maybe they have actually upgraded the the SRP pedals to use hall effect sensors since they sent these ones across to us but it doesn't make any difference in terms of the actual feeling of the pedals underfoot it's just a difference in how they actually operate so one difference you'll notice straight away is on the SRP light pedals you've just got pressed metal for the pedal plates over here we've got this nice CNC machined anodized aluminum so it does give it that more premium look and feel doesn't really feel significantly different underfoot to be honest with you particularly if you're driving with boots you're not going to feel the difference but really the big difference here is the step up into a load cell so if we spin these pedals around you can see the elastomer and spring stack in the back here and then you've got the little load cell sitting underneath here so what this is doing is is rather than detecting the pedal position remember it does also have the potentiometer here too so it is using the position at least to some extent What's Happening Here is as you push the pedal down it's measuring the amount of deflection in a little metal tab on the load cell and that is basically interpreting the amount of force that's being applied to the pedal so what that means in a practical sense here is when we push to the point here we've got a nice clearly defined pressure point that we can feel underfoot and then we can modulate our input around that in a force-based sense rather than just purely relying on the position of our ankle so that gives you a lot more control and feel underfoot now the thing that I don't like about these pedals is that you can see there's quite a lot of movement in the spring up until that point so you've got quite a bit and what you'll find is when you're braking you're kind of pushing to that point almost every single in every single instance anyway and then sort of just modulating your input around that so you're not really making a lot of use of this not dead zone but this initial phase of breaking and there's not a whole lot of adjustment available here so they do include a couple of different Springs and elastomers but nothing really gets rid of that vague area underfoot there so that's one thing again stepping up to more expensive pedals I feel like these do a good job for the price but again I think provided that you have a relatively solid way of mounting the pedals so things aren't moving around on your rig or your setup then these are probably once again going to be the first thing that you're going to be looking at upgrading so in that sense I would say you know again if you can afford something a little bit more expensive then it's worth doing and the the recommendation I would have there is you know these do feel quite similar to the fnatic CSL load cell pedals and honestly I'm not a huge fan of those pedals either I think again they do okay for the price but when you step up to the fnatic CSL Elite V2 pedals and again we reviewed those recently here on the channel too those are absolutely fantastic value for money they genuinely do give you at least in my opinion everything that you need to drive quickly and consistently for a very very aggressive price now you can of course step up to something like you know your vrs pedals your whosovelt Sprints but those are a big jump up in price point and I don't want to sort of come across as like I'm trying to encourage you to spend more money money when you don't need to so I really do feel like the sweet spot for value for money right now when it comes to sim racing pedals is those phonetic CSL Elite V2 pedals but yeah my recommendation would be skip over these pedals if you can afford to spend a little bit more because I think that they're going to end up being something you're likely to want to upgrade anyway so that steps us up then to the CRP pedals now again I haven't been overly impressed with these pedals using them for a good number of months now I've kind of gone back and forth with these quite a bit trying other Alternatives as they come out onto the market then going back to these testing them again and we never really did a review on these pedals initially because I kind of wanted to see how they evolved we included them in our initial Impressions video 18 months ago now but we never actually really unpacked it further on video at least so I wanted to see whether they made any significant changes to these over time and they haven't really done so so the CRP pedals are a significant jump up in price from something like the SRP pedals that we were just looking at but they also a significant jump up not only from say the fnatic CSL Elite V2 pedals that we're just discussing but also the fnatic club sport V3 pedals now those are getting a little longer in the tooth now they have been on the market for a long time but even if you add in the Performance Kit which I do feel is an essential upgrade for the V3 pedals they still come in quite a bit more expensive and honestly in my subjective opinion I don't think that these are as good underfoot as you get with the phonetic SL Elite V2s or the fnatic v3s with the Performance Kit so I'll explain to you the reasons why and again feel free to disagree if you have a set of these pedals and you absolutely love them let us know down in the comments because at the end of the day this is just my opinion but I'll unpack this a little bit for you now just so you understand where I'm coming from with this so look I mean the throttle feels absolutely fine it's nice and smooth underfoot a couple of things that I did notice here is that it does have a very loud metal to metal contact sound when it Springs back into positions so you'll hear as I let go of the pedal it really Springs back extremely loudly and even if you do it more lightly you kind of just get this metal clanging sound you can even hear the sound of that spring oh reverberating through the assembly so it just it just doesn't scream quality even though they look well presented you've got the beautiful machined aluminum everywhere and it is a full metal construction just underfoot they don't have that premium feel that I would expect for something of this price point and again we are using rotary potentiometers here for our sensing of the position of the throttle and the clutch pedal and it actually is quite a clever design with the cam that they've used here to actually roll over and give you that sensation it does feel quite smooth through the transition so I'd say that's probably the best and most authentic feeling pedal on this pedal set but then the brake pedal on this it I just feel like they've gone overly complex with the design so let me spin it around a little bit more here so you can see exactly what I'm talking about so we've got a two-stage kind of effect here once again you can see we've got a preload spring here in the upper arm and then we've got an elastomer which is a little bit more difficult to see sitting down here now they do give you like we have with the SRP pedals the option to change these out with included different Springs and elastomers but look I've experimented extensively with all of them and again I've just never really found a combination that feels exactly right to me the best combination I found was the medium elastomer here with the harder spring in the first phase but again it does it does give you that two-stage effect so you you can threshold break appropriately and you can't you can control your inputs and you can modulate properly so you can definitely learn to drive quickly with these pedals but that initial phase of braking just still feels a little bit too vacant you just don't have the same level of control and the same level of finesse and feeling that you get with something like the CSL Elite V2 pedals for example when you consider just how much cheaper those pedals are then you know it's just a hard sell for me I just don't see any reason to recommend these pedals over something like that when you consider the price difference other than just if you're wanting to stay within that same ecosystem the other thing that I don't like about this brake pedal is that it's really really complex to change out the elastomer as well this this spring isn't too bad all you need to do is just remove the clever pin here pull that out and just swap the spring out but when you want to remove the when you want to remove and change over the elastomer you actually need to remove the entire load cell assembly from it from the underside which means you actually have to take the pedal completely off your rig now if you compare that to something like the acetec Forte pedals for example you know it's a couple of seconds to change out the elastomer in that particular example and there's plenty of other examples again you can check out all the reviews of various different load cell pedals that we've checked out on the channel to date but yeah these have been the most complex to change out now another observation I had with this brake pedal too is that in Long driving stints so we're talking more than 20 minutes or so so not particularly long the pedal did actually seem to change in its properties as well I think what was happening is that elastomer was actually softening up and as that was happening obviously the feeling of the brake pedal changes Under Foot now that is obviously very detrimental to muscle memory that's not something that you want and it was definitely noticeable more so with this pedal than any other load cell pedal that I've tried in the past so I think when you combine all of these things you know I don't want to sound like I'm tearing this thing to shreds because at the end of the day you know you can drive quickly and consistently with this to a point but when you consider the price point of these pedals I I just can't think of any reason to recommend them over some of the other options that we've looked at you know in the past here on the channel so at the end of the day we could nitpick these pedals till the cows come home but it doesn't change the fact that these I believe are too expensive for what they offer I think that there are better options at a far cheaper price point available on the market as long as compatibility doesn't prove to be an issue further on down the line with consoles if they do end up introducing console compatibility that may mean that you actually have to run your pedals through the wheelbase to have that compatibility and if that does happen then this may well end up being the best option that you have available to you but if you are playing on a PC then yeah I just think that there are better options out there so look I am at the advantage of having had experience with a lot of different pedals that I can draw from to make comparisons like this but if you do own a set of these pedals and you've used other pedals as well that you can compare them to do let us know again in the comments how your experience has been whether you agree or disagree with my observation but I think that'll do it for pedals for now so let's move across now into accessories so time to take a look at accessories now we're going to run through the main accessories that Mozart racing have available there are a couple of different mounts they've got a 200 millimeter wheel extension as well available which we don't have here in the studio but we're going to have a look at their handbrake their emergency stop their H pattern shifter as well as their hub adapter so let's start off with the hub adapter now we already talked about the little accessories module here which allows you to connect your handbrake your pedals your shifter and your FSR wheel at the moment and maybe other Wheels which become compatible with this later on so if you're using one of these guys with your FSR wheel what you would do is plug in the cable like this guy into the little RJ Port that we looked at before now if you wanted to mount this on some other third-party wheelbase you would need a way to mount this quick release onto your quick release Hub so what they've done is they've made available just a very basic base side quick release adapter so it's just the Hub part with a 70 millimeter stud pattern around here so you can see I've just bolted that to my zero play quick release which I use on my CME Cube 2 ultimate and that allows us to literally just pop it on to any quick release that we want and then pulling on the tab allows it to release just like that so nice and easy relatively cheap as well so that's going to allow you to use your FSR wheel and future wheels that are compatible with the accessory Hub to any wheelbase of your choice so moving on now to the emergency stop button this guy is a little bit overpriced to be honest with you guys I just had a look now and it's around about 100 Australian dollars I think which is a lot of money just for a button I mean you can pick up a reset button like this guy from you know somewhere like jaycar Electronics if you're in Australia for you know under 20 bucks so all it is is just a plastic and I think there might be some aluminum in there too not 100 on that but I mean all it is is just a switch that's wired through to an RJ connector on the back here so we might have to pull that down actually and see if we can come up with a pin out for you guys so that you can build your own a lot cheaper but I mean it does what it needs to do you push it in it will cut off the torque to the wheelbase and then you twist the knob and it releases again gets you up and running again so a good thing to have on your rig I do generally recommend having an emergency stop button there's only been a couple of instances over the last stuff three or four years that I've been running direct drive wheelbases where I've needed it but when you need it you need it it's one of those things you don't need it until you do right so that's the emergency stop button nice little convenient tabs there as well for mounting it onto whatever rig you happen to be wanting to mount it to so let's have a look at the handbrake now so this is able to be mounted in an upright or or flat position so it's 90 degrees tiltable at the moment you can see in the upright position it does kind of pivot downwards a little bit awkwardly it works quite conveniently if you're doing drifting or Rally or something that I need to be able to just grab it quickly I don't have to reach down and yeah that's the reason why I've got in that orientation now this isn't using a load cell unlike a lot of other hand brakes that we see on the market these days although it is cheaper than a lot of those load cell handbrake so there is that to consider what this is using is a 16-bit hall effect sensor internally to measure the position in a contactless fashion now if you compare that to the fnatic handbrake which is very old now that actually uses a rotary potentiometer and I have seen a few people have issues with that taking on dirt and debris and over time becoming unreliable in fact I did have to clean my one out a couple of times when I was using that regularly on my rig so yeah I do like the design of this guy one thing that you will notice compared to a load sole handbrake is that you don't really have that threshold point that you can then modulate your pressure around kind of like what we talk about with load cell breaks earlier on it's the same kind of thing with a handbrake if you're really wanting to get into the Finesse of really controlling the slip angle with a drift or something like that using the handbrake then you may find that you miss being able to modulate around that threshold point but if you're just wanting something that you can just grab out and pull to just initiate a slide or something like that and then this is going to do the job absolutely fine so I'm going to reserve judgment on that to be honest with you guys I think it's better that you guys go watch a review from somebody that's more experienced with drifting and things where you really do need to rely on the handbrake more heavily but for the kind of driving that I do it suits the need just fine and this guy can connect directly to your PC via USB so you don't necessarily have to have the accessory Hub so that is the handbrake and then we move on down to the H pattern shifter which is a relatively new addition to the ecosystem as well now honestly I've been really impressed with this for the price it comes in quite a bit cheaper than the fnatic shifter by comparison one complaint that I've seen a lot of people have is that it doesn't have a sequential mode like what you have with the fanatic one so if you're familiar with that and again we do have a video on our Channel where we covered it in detail there's a little slider on the side of it and you can move that between H pattern and sequential mode and it does have quite a nice action in both modes so you can just sort of Slam away to change gears and I ran that shifter on my rig for quite some time now this by comparison does only have H pattern mode they will be bringing a sequential shifter in the not too distant future I understand but obviously being a dedicated device for each function it's not as convenient as having one device that fits all so you know you might have to take this off the rig or move it out of position most people I don't think are going to want to have a h pattern and a sequential side by side on the rig it just gets a little bit clumsy particularly if you're adding a handbrake into the mix as well you want to be able to just sort of reach across quickly and grab it without sort of fumbling to sort of make sure you've got your hand on the right knob that sounds rude but um in terms of the functionality of the H pattern I actually really like this shift I think it's got a really nice positive action to it does feel quite connected like you're shifting gears in a real gearbox generally speaking I'm not a huge fan of gated shifters like this one simply because I'm not overly experienced in Driving Manual cars with them I'm sure if I spend a lot more time driving cars that use a gated shifter it would be absolutely fine what I mean by that is the metal plate on the top here that actually stipulates exactly where the gears are located I have tried other shifters in the past that are a little bit more clumsy than this one so if I'm going to go from fifth to Third I'm not finding that I'm sort of bumping and accidentally getting into first gear too often and again you do establish muscle memory one little observation that I did have is that it can be pretty awkward to get into seventh gear so what they've done here is they've got a lockout system for reverse and seventh gear you can see the position of those on the top plate here so you've got a standard H pattern for first second third fourth fifth and sixth and then what you have to do is push the shifter down and then move it across to get it into seventh gear or reverse now what I've found is if you push it down from The Middle it barely requires any effort at all to put it into that second stage so if I'm going from say fourth to seventh which is not something I'd imagine you would ever do you can just kind of rest your hand on it and it goes very easily into seventh gear however if you're at the far right and far left extremities of the travel here you have to push a lot harder to actually activate that gear so if I'm going from six into seventh it's not a simple action of just going up into seventh I really have to kind of go push it down and then go into seventh so it requires quite a bit of force to do that now there aren't many cars in the Sim racing World these days that have seven gears on an H pattern so I don't think that it's going to be a problem for the majority of people but if you're driving truck Sims or something like that just something to be aware of likewise with reverse as well exactly the same thing you do have to if you're going into reverse from the side really push down hard to get it in there whereas if you're going from the middle it's very very easy to do so so just a couple of things to be aware of but look I really like the design of this overall again nice and easy to mount on aluminum profile if that's where you going to be mounting it and I do like the fact that they've got this faux leather gear boot in here as well I did actually try removing this gated top plate to see if it's still operated but no unfortunately you do need to have that gated pattern on there to make it function correctly but I like the fact that they have that little dust seal there to stop dirt and debris from falling down inside and yeah overall I think for the money considering how much cheaper it is than the fnatic alternative it works really well so then lastly we have the mozzer dashes now these operate in exactly the same manner as the FSR Dash that we talked about on the FSR wheel earlier so you are limited to having to use the moza pit house software and the dash selection that they have integrated in that software you can't use these dashes with third-party apps like Joel real timing Z1 dashboard Sim Hub and such like so just be aware of that as I said before they are expanding the number of dashes they have available all the time so there is quite a good selection there but if you wanted to get in there and design your own layouts and whatnot then this probably isn't going to be the dash for you now the complaint that I had with this one in particular was it is quite cumbersome and tricky to mount on here as you guys would have seen in our R16 review there's four little bolts that go behind these little windows and they're quite awkward to get in place you have to kind of line the little pins up on the assembly on the top of the wheelbase as well once it's installed it's fine uh but yeah it is what it is it was just a little bit of a pain to get installed but it looks quite clean on the rig now obviously your seating Position will stipulate how clearly you can see the screen as well so generally speaking with their larger 330 millimeter Wheels you can kind of see the dash in the gap between the top of the wheel and the top of the rim but obviously if you're sitting higher or lower that may determine whether or not you can see it in my particular seating position here how I like to have things configured with the wheel relatively high and my hand kind of resting like that which is generally a good sort of seating position for GT style driving the bottom of the screen is actually cut off by the wheel relative to my eye position so just be mindful of that but you can adjust your seating position around it of course it's just a shame that you don't have the ability to actually raise and lower the dash on the on the wheelbase yourself so that is the rmhd racing meter as they call it and that is compatible with the R16 and the r21 if you have an R5 or an R9 you're not out of luck though so you also have the what do they call it the CM racing Dash and that is this little guy here and as you can see this guy actually plugs in Via a little RJ connection which just pigtails down and plugs into the back of the wheelbase the same kind of idea here again you do still have to run their own software so not going to be compatible with any third-party apps but unlike the R16 and r21 counterpart you can actually raise and lower this within at least a small adjustment range like so now in terms of the tech specs on those screens let me just grab a box quickly here so I don't get this wrong so we've got it's a five inch display 16.7 million colors with a resolution of 800 by 480 and a refresh rate of 60 hertz and look I've found that the the color reproduction is perfectly adequate it's not the best contrast ratio in the world even with the brightness turned down you do notice that the blacks are quite gray but again it is a dash so I would say you know it's perfect typically adequate for the intended purpose and the dot pitch is quite good as well so if you're displaying finer text on the screen you can read that quite easily as well unfortunately they don't have any leaderboard style dashes in there at the moment so I can't really test whether you can read really small text but for all the dashes that they have within the software at least at this point in time perfectly clear and perfectly legible at the kind of viewing distance that you would expect to be viewing on a simrig like this one foreign guys that is a top level overview of the Mozza ecosystem as it stands in the first half of 2023 and look I'm really happy that mozzer racing exists I think that they're a welcome addition to the Sim racing Hardware family and I think you've got to commend them whether you like their products or not on just the sheer amount of stuff that they've managed to release and good quality stuff for the most part too in such a short amount of time so yeah I think as an overall ecosystem they've done a really good job there are definitely some weaknesses there I think they still have some things they need to improve in terms of the software we haven't talked about software a lot in today's video but I would definitely recommend if you are looking at buying a specific moza product have a look for our dedicated review videos where we've really unpacked that in a lot more detail and shown you exactly what the overall user experience is like owning and driving with one of these products so yeah I think there are still some improvements to be made on the software side of things just from an overall ease of use perspective it is a little bit frustrating that every time you open up the software it seems it's wanting you to do some sort of an update I mean it's great that they are you know servicing the products and keeping the products updated new firmware updates all the time as well but you know it seems like they're being a little bit reactive sometimes that maybe they just need to take their time get a solid build together and then you know roll with that for a little while rather than just constantly updating but it is what it is I'm glad that they're supporting the products pedals are definitely a weakness in the ecosystem too I definitely think that they need to be improved there's nothing fundamentally wrong with them and if they get you up and driving then that's great but particularly with the CRP pedals I think there are cheaper and better options available on the market so definitely check out some of our other pedal reviews from some of the other manufacturers to get a good idea of exactly where the value for money will sit for your particular budget but there definitely are some standout features here as well in particular the quick release that they've used across their entire ecosystem not just the more expensive Wheels is absolutely fantastic and still in my opinion the best quick release that we have on the market although the new acetech quick release does look very promising we just want to wait a little bit longer to see exactly how that fares and stands the test of time before we comment on it too much and that's definitely one to keep an eye on as well but just overall particularly with their wheelbases the the smoothness and the refined driving experience that you get really is very very good for the price point I mentioned earlier that you do tend to have to fiddle with filters a little bit you need a little bit more filtering to really get the most out of these wheelbases compared to some of the other alternatives on the market but overall I think if you're after a reliable and smooth direct drive Sim Racing Experience then moza is definitely one that is worthwhile checking out so I really do hope that today's video has helped you out it has please do leave a thumbs up and remember as well we do have some links down in the description below for all the products that we've discussed in today's video so if you do decide that you want to pick up anything that we've talked about that is an awesome way of helping support our work here at boosted media at no additional cost to you but above all I really hope that today's video has helped kind of point you in the right direction for your particular price point and again if you do have experience with any of these products let us know whether you agree with my observations down in the comments below I always believe that the most value in any review video always comes from people sharing their own real life experiences and having that discussion down in the comments so I really do appreciate your contribution in that way too but thanks very much for watching guys and we will see you again very soon bye

Channel: Boosted Media

Views: 168,905

Keywords: moza, fanatec, fanatec vs moza, moza vs simagic, moza r5 vs csl dd, moza racing, Moza R16, moza r9, moza r5, best sim racing wheelbase, best sim racing rig, sim rig, drivng simulator, best sim racing wheel, best sim racing pedals, review, boosted media, simucube, simagic

Id: Wm3SmKmkL18

Length: 50min 23sec (3023 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 03 2023