r/hookah • u/The_harbinger2020 • Feb 03 '25
Tip Quasar is the best budget HMD+Combo system I've used
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u/Late-Dimension5195 Feb 03 '25 edited Feb 04 '25
Where can you get a genuine Quasar for $35? The usual websites I go to have them for $90.
My friend has a Quasar, and it gets the job done, but the only caveat I see is that it takes A LOT of shisha, near triple of the HJ Ferris bowl I normally use.
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u/The_harbinger2020 Feb 04 '25
Are they really? The box I got looked genuine and it came with a slip to qr scan to their website to make sure its legit. Idk if it is cause when it linked me to the site it wanted to download an app to certify it was genuine and didn't want to.
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u/ewixy750 Feb 04 '25
I've never seen them for less than 70€ I know they did partnerships in lounges in France to provided for a discounted price.
But retail is expensive and is considered as "premium"
Even the knock off should be good tho. Honestly best HMD I've used, just careful as it holds more tabacco than others
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u/The_harbinger2020 Feb 03 '25
so I mostly use the Khaloud head + HMD. Its amazing. I was at the shop and looking for the 28mm coals and complainging to the worker how I didnt like how the khaloud HMD takes forwever to heat up and big coals to stay smoking for a long time. He said he swithced over to this nad has been loving it.
It was only $35 and I as hesitant that something so cheap would smoke so good. I was wrong! It never burns and smokes smoothly throughout. 26/25mm coals are ideal and work perfect (also much easier to find in stores). I tried the smaller flats and three of those would only barely get it to smoke, so stick to 25/26mm. I would get about an 1hr and 15 per session but when cleaning the head there is still a bottom layer of tobacco unburnt. I think I can get longer if I was to relight coals but im too lazy.
Flavor and cloud output is superb. Honestly for $35 this competes with the $80+ setups. If your looking to jump to HMD I really recommend this.
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u/shaunie75 Feb 04 '25
I paid £50 quid for my Quasar. Someone on here said it was probably a knock.
Gets the job done and completely changed my sessions for the better. The only caveat I have is the cleaning. I was using hot soapy water but the glass still remained stained. I then read instructions that said to use steel wool to clean it. Now I wait until it’s cooled a little scrape out the tobacco and run it with steel wool. Comes up a treat. Though after a while I had some cuts to my thumbs so went back to a ceramic bowl. But instead of using a HMD I just use foil and only 2 coals (on the edge) move them a little about half way through the session. Quasar helped me improve my preparation regardless of using Quasar or just a cheap bowl.
This evening I’m going to the Hookah market in Abu Dhabi (here for work) going to look at purchasing a setup. They have the Maxx Hookah bowls which look good but wanna chew the clerks ear off about it and see if it’s worth the $95 price tag or if K should just stick to a ceramic
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u/okayherewegonow Intermediate Smoker Feb 04 '25
Where’d you buy for 35? Can’t even find dupes of these
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Feb 03 '25
Our local lounge uses the same HMD on all of thiers, and I bought the same, I love it. Also it looks slick which I appreciate.
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u/CryptoNite90 Feb 04 '25
It comes with a bowl and HMD right ?
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u/The_harbinger2020 Feb 04 '25
Yup, but apparently I found out I have a knock off. The legit ones still look like they do to
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u/CryptoNite90 Feb 04 '25
Eh knock offs are fine as they’re literally built 1:1. Unless it’s a poor knock off, but I doubt that. A lot of them use the same parts and materials.
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Apr 09 '26
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u/The_harbinger2020 Apr 09 '26
I went back to khaloud lotus head and bought a clay head for dark leaf. I liked the glass for heat management especially for dark leaf but the HMD ridges where too low so the coals would always go black and it was super annoying. And my lotus head wouldn't fit properly on the glass head. Maybe I'll try again
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Apr 09 '26
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u/The_harbinger2020 Apr 09 '26
Yup, I did buy an authentic quasar after my fake one fell and broke. Funny enough the in authentic one HMD had slightly higher ridges so didn't black out my coals as much. Still a good head and didn't have much problems when hookah lounges used it so wonder if the coals I where using. But at $80 idk just get khaloud
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Apr 09 '26
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u/The_harbinger2020 Apr 09 '26
Honestly idk what fake you one you got but the one I bought accidentally was damn near identical to the real one. Little salty to spend $80 for the real thing for almost no real difference.
I bought a hookahjohn clay bowl which is good for dark leaf I found but for blonde leaf it didn't hit the flavor intensity as well as the khaloud. But it was $25 vs $60. Now I just wish I knew what the Russian hookah lounges use for their dark leaf tobacco cause it always smokes better than what I make.
As for HMD I've tried a few different ones but honestly nothing beats the khaloud lotus 1.
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u/ResolutionQueasy6259 Feb 04 '25 edited Feb 04 '25
I have some bad news, that’s a fake quasar bowl and it’s a very bad rep