Random I-Tunes Song of The Moment: Straight From The Heart by Bryan Adams

. . . and that's exactly where this not-so-hot review is comin' from . . .

If you read the ad copy and watch the trailer, you are told that you are buying a small item that can detect magnets basically. The device is about half the size of a Sharpie Lid. It's a vibrator that is battery operated and vibrates when a magnet is nearby . . . and I do mean nearby. I've tested this thing dozens of times, and I'd say 90% of the time, I felt nothing when the device was near the magnetic object (coin, PK Ring, whatever). I had do try again, 'Once More' to get any 'Feeling.' And even then, I often did not feel it.

When I tested having a spectator hold the object in his hand, I had to get so close to his hand that I had to touch his hands before the device started to vibrate. That's not so bad until you realize that the spectator can feel the vibration . . . kind of a dead give away.

Another issue with this device . . . it's black with a bright red tip. You're supposed to finger clip it. There are so many problems with this. First, in order to clip it so that it's not seen poking through between your fingers on the back of your hand, you have to get a relatively loose grip on it. Additionally, it sticks out underneath your hand at about a 45 degree angle. In order to get close enough (when the spectator is holding the coin/ring/etc, you will likely accidentally touch the spectator with the device . . . not good. Secondly, if you do get lucky enough that you don't touch the spectator, the vibration is sometimes powerful enough to vibrate the device right out of your hand.

It is suggested in the DVD that you put the device in a thumb tip or under your watch band. Nope . . . putting it in the thumb tip the device wouldn't vibrate even when I placed the thumb tip directly on the spectator's hand. Under the watch band gave me similar results. Additionally, you have to place your wrist over the spectator's hands which is a little bit awkward looking and feeling. Plus you have the added thickness of the watchband that the detector has to penetrate.

Finally, there is a suggestion to place the device directly on your tongue. If you bring a coin right up to your lips or nose (as if smelling the coin) the detector will work. Of course that's with the bare coin showing and not being concealed in a spectator's hand. The problem here is that the only effect you can do is have a few coins . . . one is magnetic . . . you have an X marked on the back of the magnet coin. You then turn your back while the spectator shuffles the coins around. You turn around and pick up each coin and sniff it. The magnet coin will set off the detector. However, due to the fact that you are picking up the coin, they may just suggest that you looked at the coin and saw the x . . . or they may just assume that you know what the X coin looks like because they're your coins.

I really wanted this to work, and I even had another magician friend of mine test it as well . . . we both had the same results . . . you either have to touch the spectator (and they feel the vibration) or you have to get lucky and hope that you don't accidentally bump them with the device. Then if you get lucky and you feel the vibration without bumping the spectator, you've got to hope the device doesn't fall out of finger clip.

Having said all that, the effects that don't have the spectator holding the object in their hand will work. Coin under card for example, will work, and it's a really good effect (just don't drop the device when it vibrates over the coin). I've also tested having my 'wedding band' (PK Ring) placed in a match box . . . mixed with two other empty boxes, and I can detect which box has my ring. The problem is that I wanted this effect to be something where I could just take off my ring and place it in someone's hand and do the effect . . . the matchboxes take away from the way I wanted to do the effect.

For $99 bucks, I would expect a lot more. The DVD was crap too . . . no spoken words - all pantomime with music in the background. A lot of the finer points on handling might have been clarified with the spoken word. Additionally, it would have been nice to supply a magnetic coin or some object to be used in the effect. But all you get is a bad DVD and a bad detector and, bizarrely enough, a small weird leather pouch to hold the device or something . . . I'm not sure what it is. The DVD makes no mention of it . . . well the DVD makes no 'mention' of anything . . . but you know what I mean.

And my final thoughts on this: I've been very fortunate in my recent years as a magic reviewer. Very rarely do I have to pay for magic these days. I get free review DVDs from My Lovely Assistant along with creators directly sending them to me, so rarely do I buy anything. The only time I do is if I think it's so good that I don't want to wait to see if becomes available from one of my free resources. This is one that I actually bought. I knew exactly what it was, and it was something that I would perform. I just expected it to work. So folks, my overall recommendation is to pass on this.

The fact that there are some effects (not necessarily on the DVD) that you can do with this device, it does get some points for that. However, even those effects are a little iffy due to the limitations I've mentioned above.

Final Verdict:
1.5 Stars with a Stone Status of Rubble.