CBI vs ACA threads

[Dancing Fire]

@Dancing Fire How do you like that stone's performance compared to other H&As you've had on your hands?

A 80% LGF with skinner arrows will have smaller "faster" flashes compared to a stone with fatter arrows (76-77% LGF) will have "slower" but bigger flashes. Performance wise?

depends on what you prefer, both are beautiful in a different way.

 

[Dancing Fire]

My friend's CBI

My wife's ACA

 

[Johnbt]

She said she wanted a ring that would flash colors. Okay, I researched and then we watched a lot of videos.

I'm 67 with medium cataracts and have an old iPhone 6s with a dirty lens. The pic on the bottom has the late afternoon sun coming in through the window to her right and the ring is on her left hand of course. I should have gotten more of the dots on the upper half of her face and on her slacks, but we were just messing around with the new ring before doing some yard work.

Lower Girdle % 78.0

www.whiteflash.com/loose-diamonds/round-cut-loose-diamond-3955177.htm

 

[doberman]

This thread is the very definition of splitting hairs.

 

[bmfang]

Ultimately the choice between CBI vs ACA vs BGD vs GOG vs VC comes down to what is available at that precise moment in time and the price one pays for it. Stones may be more expensive at one vendor (even though the clarity/colour/carat combos are the same and specs wise they are similar) purely on the basis of how much the rough cost.

Also, it will depend on other factors like where one lives. For those of y'all living in the States, purchasing from any of these vendors is almost risk-free whereas for the rest of us international buyers, we've got to factor in import duties, VAT/GST on importation plus the ever important FX rate conversion into our local currency.

A pertinent very recent example to my memory is that of a Swedish poster who was looking at purchasing a stone and setting. Yes, there were the usual posts with suggestions of WF stones, and some of them to my memory were more optically symmetrical than the CBI stones in his price range.

But ultimately, what mattered most was meeting the budget after allowance for import duties and VAT. So he ended up with a CBI stone purchased from one of CBI's European dealers along with a setting there as he would not have to pay an additional 4% of VAT on importation (21% VAT vs 25% VAT).

Will he still have a beautiful ring for his proposal? Yes.
Will that CBI stone be far better than other stones that he and his future fiancee will see walking around Sweden (and most of Europe)? Most definitely.
If he had bought an ACA (and paid additional VAT), would that ACA have "outperformed" the CBI stone IRL? Maybe, maybe not. IRL, both likely to be utterly captivating to a viewer.

I can split hairs on the alignment of hearts, clefts, arrows, etc until death arrives, but in the land of super-ideals, it's really splitting a hair strand in half. And then splitting that half of a strand again in half.