8" PLASMA Nebula BALL Lightning Party Light TOUCH & SOUND Activated

My previous plasma ball was the Lite F/X Electrostorm 8" which met an untimely demise when someone decided to carelessly stick it in the closet and it ended up a billion shards of glass. The F/X globe was quite sturdy, but comments about the EDMBG ball and being "fragile" and "thin" had concerned me that this one had some unusually thin glass for the globe. It doesn't. It is the typical bulb you will find on any plasma ball. Hey, it is glass. It will break just like a big light bulb if given the opportunity - but it is not abnormally fragile.I was pleasantly surprised to see that this is an even better ball all around. It has a very high quality appearance and I see no flaws or distractions anywhere. The base is adequately sized to make it stable wtihout concern of falling over. The feet are just nubs molded into the base, which makes some sense. If you push against it, it will slide rather than grab and tip. I use this as a gauge for the kids; if you're moving it you are touching it too hard. The 12V 1000mA A/C adapter is a switching supply, so it is much lighter than the old transformer type. It has a standard plug to the base so if that fails a replacement should be inexpensive and easy to find.For the full-ON setting it has the maximum amount of activity and intensity that you can get without overdriving. There is no extraneous tracking down in the cavity at the base, so it is just the right level. The sound activated mode varies the intensity of the electricity with the volume level, which is pretty cool. It does not require a lot of sound, although the sound level from min to max is fairly narrow. It appears to be tuned to a normal speaking level. People may just look at you funny when you're humming, talking and making noises at your plasma ball.I have 3 five year olds who really think it is neat, and they can touch it with some supervision. I am fairly certain if I left it out unmonitored that it would be in a zillion pieces on the floor.I have no idea about longevity, but being an Engineer I figure if something fails in the electronics, I'll just fix it.

If you shopped around for a while like I did, you'll have noticed that the reviews for these types of plasma ball products vary wildly. Except for this one. With this one, there was only one negative review, by a person who gave it 1 star. They gave it 1 star because it stopped working the first week. To me, that's not the end of the world, and although it's a slight hassle, it's still returnable at that point and you can have a replacement sent to you. And a quick look at the 4 star reviews includes phrases like "wowed by this product", "great Christmas surprise", "thoroughly entertaining", "it is spectacular" and "my teenage son loves it". I'm always confused by reviews like those. If it truly is 'amazing', as you've stated... why not give it 5 stars?So, as far as I'm concerned, this is a product that deserves 5 out of 5. Of course, that's just the way I see it.I actually had a special request in terms of the shipping (I needed it by his birthday), and when I contacted the seller, EDM, they were quick to reply, they were professional and they took care of my issue.So, in summary, I had one of these in the 80s as a kid, and wanted my son to have one too. He was super excited when he got this for his birthday and uses it nearly every day. It works great, and the way the electricity arcs inside the ball is probably 98% identical to the way my old one from the 80's behaves, which I still have. Time will tell if these new ones last as long, but to me and my 10 year old, this ball is pretty great, and we recommend it.

I don't know why we're all so surprised at the size of this thing, but I too expected this to be smaller. The larger size is fun, and this unit does not disappoint. It's not very bright in daylight, but that's to be expected. In the dark, it lights up and entertains just fine.A word of caution: Do not let kids play with this unsupervised. The glass feels very thin and fragile, and this was not meant to be dropped, knocked or otherwise mishandled. It's not a kid's toy, to be sure (says so on the box too, btw). It's also not very fancy. The base is a simple plastic, the kind you might find on the bottom of any novelty item. Not really appropriate as a client gift. The base features a switch that allows you to toggle between a mode that reacts to variations in sound, and one of just simply being "on". Our kids enjoyed yelling at it to make the lights fluctuate. (Frankly I was surprised that the audio feature actually works).It's fun, and will probably sit on your desk or shelf for quite awhile once people get over it. Maybe a series of these set up strategically around a room could liven up a party. Just keep in mind the glass is fragile.

This is an acceptable product; so far everything is as advertised. It has a 2X price tag over the other plasma orbs out there and the thing that sets it apart from about 150 other similar products is you'll notice this one is made a little differently. More notably the base is completely different in design and this one has a glass dome instead of plastic. I'm no expert but it arrived on a moderately cold day and when I unboxed it the orb felt cold to the touch like glass would, unlike plastic. It is too thin/fragile though for me to try any "ringing" tests. IF you are going to get a plasma orb this is a good one to get but it is very thin and light weight. I wish it were thicker and more substantial like the ones my neighbors had when I was a kid. I would strongly caution against letting a child under.. 12 I guess, play with this. Definitely put it way if you have some friends over for drinks. It is super fragile, but very cool. This is made in China. I think in the future if I ever buy one again I'll go off amazon and find one made outside of China.