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Transcript:

Hey everybody, in this video I’m going to be looking at the Aria disc which has recently hit the scene, and comparing it against the classic Discraft Ultrastar, with the brand new felixultimate design. The Eurodisc which has been around for a few years also makes an appearance. Let’s start by having a look at what people thought about the Aria.

Joe Butler: Feels a bit firmer around the rim
James Wortherspoon: A little tougher, actually
Anastastia Riordan-Eva: The rim feels slightly thicker
Joe: Very slight, but definitely not a negative difference
Starzy: Almost like there’s a dip here and then a dip here
Dan Cozens: I can safely say that after 20 years of playing, it feels no different whatsoever
Spoon: Pretty similar. The Aria flew nicer – might’ve been the wind because it’s quite gusty
Starzy: Feels good, feels like something you could use
Joe: Feels nice
Dan: Feels fine, I quite like this, it’s nice

People tended to like the feel of the Aria – there’s a slight difference in the rim. If I put them up like this you can see there’s slightly more angle on the Aria. You can barely tell when you’re holding it. You can see that the Aria is more see-through than the Ultrastar, which means that maybe the plastic in the middle is a bit thinner, but you can’t really feel that.
After throwing around a lot with the Aria, the Ultrastar feels a tiny bit more like a plate… it’s hard to explain… the weight is distributed more towards the edge in the Aria.
The Aria has some bend to it, it’s smooth, has a deep sound – the Ultrastar has a similar bend and deep sound. The Eurodisc has less bend, the plastic isn’t as shiny – it’s a bit matted, and the sound is a little bit higher pitch. The plastic is noticably different in the Eurodisc compared to the Aria & Ultrastar. I haven’t tried the Aria in extreme weather conditions so it’s hard to say how it behaves in those conditions – maybe that’s for a future video.
In the wind it was behaving very similar – maybe slightly more stable.

Let’s have a look at some throws.
The first throw I try out is an outside-in sidearm, mid-range, quite high and loopy so it drifts down. The flight paths are very similar but the Aria flattens out a bit more – which could just be the throw.
Next I try some hammers – quite often upsidedown throws can reveal the dynamics of a disc very well, in this instance all the throws look very similar, especially the shortest two, so no distinguishable difference whatsoever.
Next onto a flick which S-curves, to see how stable the disc is. If a disc is overstable, it’ll turn to the right here a lot quicker and dramatically than the Ultrastar, but the flight patterns are pretty much identical between all three discs.
Short/mid-range flat backhands going into a goal: the Aria, Eurodisc and Ultrastar were all very similar in this test.
Then long backhands – these are the throws where the Eurodisc would go slightly more inside-out towards the end. I thought the Aria might be overstable, and it may be by a fraction, but I wouldn’t say for certain – high level throwers would not notice that in a game.
Try some hammers… You can see the Aria has a bit more swing to it, but that could just be the throw.
Then long backhands downwind, as far as possible – I throw the Aria a bit higher and it ends up going further. Over all my testing, my throws were around 5% longer with the Aria, if I had to put a number on it – they definitely weren’t shorter.

So in summary: there’s a barely noticable difference in the shape – it’s not like when you catch a disc in a game and go to fake and realise what you’re holding is not an Ultrastar – with the Aria you can’t tell. I’ve introduced it in throwarounds where people haven’t noticed we’re not throwing with an Ultrastar. The flight path is practically identical to the Ultrastar, possibly slightly more overstable.
An Ultrastar can feel different when old & muddy & scratched up, although I’ve used the Aria a lot I haven’t got it to that point yet so it’s hard to say how it’d behave in those conditions.

Naturally I’m a bit hesitant about new discs because there’s nothing “wrong” with the Discraft Ultrastar – a new disc might mean I just need to relearn my throws a little bit, but there weren’t any problems with the Aria because the disc flies very similarly to the Ultrastar.
A little history lesson: Wham-O used to be the #1 disc supplier and the only official disc, right up until 1991 when there was a vote in America and it swayed to Discraft to be the official manufacturer, 7-6 in the vote. The deciding factor in that was: in 1988 there was a tournament where WhamO shipped a load of discs which were domed – they had been warped by the temperatures in their new manufacturing plant in Mexico, so they were unplayable and the tournament took a big loss because they couldn’t sell any discs, and people had to play games with the discs they had in their bags. After that, the TD was on the voting board when they voted between Discraft / Wham-O, and he told everybody what had happened at that tournament and swayed a couple of the voters – it’s only been since 1991 that Discraft has been the official disc for Ultimate.

I know that story because I have the book – “Ultimate: The First Four Decades” by Tony Leonardo (and Adam Zagoria) – really cool and full of interesting stories about Ultimate which are worth checking out if you love this game as I do!

Nowadays there are a few discs which are officially recognised by WFDF and the Aria is one of them, so you might be seeing it in competition soon.

This disc is called the Aria Uno. Aria is a company which is made by one of the Five Ultimate siblings (each of them have their own company in Ultimate now I think). Aria think that Ultimate is good for the world. They have a bunch of social partners, so every time you buy a disc they donate a disc to one of their social partners. You can read more about them on their website.

I hope you liked this review – if you want to buy one of the Aria discs you can head over to their website, or if you prefer the classic Ultrastar and you like the new felixultimate design (which is designed to look cool when it’s spinning) then head over to felixultimate.com where they’re on sale now!

I know it’s long & discordant as I recorded different bits at different times. I hope you enjoyed the different ways I looked at the different discs, if you did like this video then please give it a little like on YouTube, and subscribe if you want to see more!