If your other issue is the return to neutral you can get a stiffer spring from Paradise Arcade. The stock spring is 2 pounds. JLF is .9 pounds. So, the 56 is already twice as stiff as the JLF. I use a 3 lb spring in mine and I think it’s about perfect. If only I could quiet the switches >.<
Several people have said that the FK is not the best example of a Korean lever.
In my own experience, I found that the awkward diagonals meant that I was failing to crouch block correctly, and I have hardly used it since as a result.
I can’t speak to experience using these parts as I HAVEN’T but I do keep up with the threads and the consensus of the Korean parts users – those that used K-sticks well before Crown modded one of its existing designs to fit into Hori and Mad Catz joystick cases – is that the Crown -FK is not the best Korean lever, period.
The K-stick users generally rate the Myoungshin Fanta stick as a far better-built K-stick.
Again, their opinion. I have no personal experience…
The problem is that there is no other convenient way to mount most Korean parts into a Japanese joystick case. They just weren’t designed for compatibility with each other. You can argue that’s both a mindset and nationalist issue at any rate but that’s how it just is. American/European parts don’t fit into the same Hori and Mad Catz joystick cases, either…
The Japanese are most likely not going to change their molds to fit everybody’s parts. It’s unrealistic, expensive, and frankly works against their own arcade part manufacturers’ interests. Well, Sanwa’s interests at any rate!
Well over half of us are going to stick with Japanese parts because a) they’re in vogue and b) it’s tons easier to buy those parts and refit many older joystick cases for Japanese parts at any rate.
As far as I am concerned anything is better than the JLF. The inconsistency the reviewer talks about was a problem I had with the JLF. Hell, I had issues with simple dashes in SF4 not being consistent because the return to neutral on the JLF, or at least my JLF, is really quite bad. Once I switched over to the LS-56 it was like I could finally play the way I wanted to play and I finally felt like it was me who was at fault for screwing up rather than the stick I was using.
I really like the idea of the circle gate since I have an octagon on my LF-56 (I’ve thought of dremeling it to remove the bumps and be a true circle) but I figured I’d give the 303-FK a shot and see how it compares to the LS-56 in both return to neutral and throw consistency and distance.
Oy, about the neutral return position on the JLF!
The slow snap-back of that joystick made it unuseable for dash moves in older games IMHO!
The fast snap-back on the LS-joysticks and Hayabusa is something I appreciate very much…!
Unless you get off playing with SF IV and MvC2, you don’t appreciate a lot of those things that just bite you with the JLF. It’s perfectly fine for slower-paced games that don’t have dash moves. It’s amazing how the same piece of hardware (JLF) gave me fits with the SF Alpha and Darkstalkers games, though.