any experience of DVO diamond?

Finger is hovering over these but reviews seem a bit mixed (generally good from magazines and less excited from users), any experience here on STW?

There is a big thread over on MTBR about them. Not fully read it to be honest. I was in the market for a new set of forks recently and it was between these and the MRP Stages. Eventually bought the stages and so far i am loving them.

I was tempted a few months ago. Instead I bought some Marzocchi 350NCR (big mistake).

From what I’ve read, they are really good, once they are set up perfect. Suggestion seems to be that you need to be spot on with your suspension tuning knowledge though.

Waiting for my refund for the 350NCR and going for a Yari.

Seen quite a few less than complimentary reviews about the reliability side of things, and setup struggles. Also questionable finishing (photos look like they were painted with a masonry brush!). One of my ‘Strava friends’ fork is shedding paint like it’s a snake losing its skin 🙂

So, heavy, questionable finish & reliability – why would you consider one over a Pike/Lyrik/36/Deville?

Partly cos they are green. Also like the integrated mudguard and feel like there needs to be a bit more competition in the market. Fox I dislike due to their overpricing and ridiculous service intervals.

Fox don’t have ridiculous service intervals though?

You’re right they are more reasonable than I thought. Still don’t want them though

Because they are green doesn’t sound like a particulary compelling reason for me to buy, nor does a tiny little mudguard, just because it’s integrated. It’s smaller than a Marsh Guard & from experience, will as a result be next to useless.

Looked at the Diamond’s a while ago. Considered them for all of 5 mins, then read that the tyre clearance isn’t the best with bigger tyres, they can be a PITA to setup well, and there’s a fair few reports of niggles with them. In the end decided on MRP Stage instead, and haven’t looked back. The Stage really is a fantastic fork, outperforms a Pike IMO and more adjustable to boot, and the service intervals are longer than anyone else’s too.

Owned a set of diamonds since April
They have been back 3 times with reacuring faults, silverfish don’t seem to be able to fix the fault
They are now back there waiting for a refund. I was going to go for the 350ncr but a comment up top is making me re think that too
My advice don’t buy dvo!!!

I have nothing to add for the OP, but rcr1303 dont be put off by 350ncr comment. Mine have been great and faultless. Mine have always made a clicking noise on first 4/5 squashes, but then are fine. Had them for 18months, 2 winters. I’ve serviced the lowers once.

Great fork I’ve had mine for about 5 months with no problems, much better build quality compared to the pike. They do take a while to get set up but when done they are very plush.

Xfusion forks are the best option imo. The Roughcut damper is as good as RS charger or Fox factory damping but with the bonus of bombproof reliability, metal adjusters and better value.

The older RL2 damper is still very good and CRC are knocking out those forks for silly prices atm

I’d like to get the 350s based on my current 44 ti being amazing, are fox dealing with warranty? If so I’ll probably get some of those…

My experience of them is not good…
Had a minor problem, received poor customer service from DVO, when offered money back from the shop I bought them from jumped at the chance and bought 36’s
Put simply the foxes are better, and the cs you’ll get from mojo in my experience is excellent.

If DVO put the same effort into making a good product and cs as they do marketing then they would be great, unfortunately imho it’s all bluster and no substance

Sounds quite similar to BOS doesn’t it

Hey Guys,

I am jumping on here to help out with tech questions and also to clear up any doubts that any Diamond owners might be having in regards to Silverfish being able to correct the clicking or clunking sound that your fork might have developed after some use. We do have a 100% repair for this issue and have been working hand in hand with SF to get this corrected in the market.If you guys have any questions please feel free to beat me up for information.

The sound that you are hearing from your Diamond is because of a very smooth piston on the midvalve. it is so smooth that the shim will actually stick to it cause it to clack or slap everytime the fork goes into travel. We have a process to rough up the face a bit and cause a bit of surface to hold lubrication and act as a cushion.

Ronnie Dilan

Love my diamonds

Very plush, no clack sound.

Sold my perfectly good Pikes to fund the DVO’s. Have since ridden on my old Pikes (mate got them) and although Pikes are a great fork, the diamonds are just better. You feel when a Pike is working, you don’t feel the diamond working, it’s that plush.

For set up, I just put in the recommended settings for my weight, added a bit more air pressure, job done. Hardly complex.

To be honest, I wasn’t trying to put anyone off the 350 NCR. I bought it on the back of loads of people saying they were the second coming, but then had a horrible experience.

You have to factor in that any fork you buy could just be a “bad one”, but it’s how the problems get sorted. I had to send my Marz back twice and the second time I was told that there was no date for spare parts stock.

That’s the thing I’d consider. If anything does go wrong with it, make sure that the parts are there to have it fixed. That’s why I’d probably stick to more popular forks now.

Hi Ronnie

Great that you have come on here, and trying to back up the product you distribute.

What you describe sounds exactly like the issue that I experienced, and in fairness I never contacted silverfish, only DVO directly.

DVO never responded, and when I discussed it with the shop, they only told me its not right, and offered me a refund, given that experience, perceived, if not genuine lack of product back up, I chose to go another way.

Sorry about that @fitnessischeating. We really do try to get back to all of our customers when it comes to supporting product or just a general inquiry. The SF boys are a great compliment to our customer service approach and are pretty quick to contact me with technical matters.

To be very honest with you this click beat us up for a little while and had us believing that the sound was coming from the OTT side of the fork. we never really thought to check the surface finish roughness after the first couple batches of forks were produced. It changed pretty dramatically over the course of a few months and resulted in this.

Ronnie

Hey Coolhandluke,

good to hear that your experience with the Diamond has been a positive one. The Performance of the Diamond is pretty crazy when you compare it to your old fork. I weight 140lbs/65kg/10stone so it is pretty hard to dial in a Pike for myself. if was either really stiff and had no sensitivity or it was so soft that it offered very little support in the midstroke and left me feeling front end heavy into the corners or into very steep sections. I do run my Diamond with a detuned shim stack on the compression loader and I have some other tunes that I do for a few other riders that they seem to enjoy. The setup for the Diamond is relatively simple with the factory suggested settings but we can always make things even better once you are familiar with how the fork performs.

Hi ronniedilan
It’s great to hear back from someone that knows what’s going on with these forks. To be fair when this fork works they feel amazing! Better than any other fork I have ridden!! But when they cost the same as the major players eg. Fox and rockshox but they only work for a month or so at a time you start to loose faith in the product.
Silverfish have been very good considering they were doing everything they could, but like you say the fault wasn’t where it was first expected. I don’t want to put them guys down at all!
I have just received mine back hopefully fully working for a bit longer this time

I weight 140lbs/65kg/10stone so it is pretty hard to dial in a Pike for myself. if was either really stiff and had no sensitivity or it was so soft that it offered very little support in the midstroke and left me feeling front end heavy into the corners or into very steep sections.

So what ‘tuning’ did you do on your Pikes then?

I take it you work for DVO then, by your comments on working with Silverfish, good that you’re on here reassuring punters that you’ve fixed the problems though.

Hey rcr1303,

If you end up having any other problems just let me know. We have corrected quite a few forks that have suffered from this and have received great feed back from all that have been corrected. I only wish we were able to catch this a little bit earlier.

Nice to see some DVO support here!

I have a problem with Diamond. The difficulty is that it was bought outside of UK (Russia, Saint-Petersburgh, Alienbike shop) but I live in the UK.

ronniedilan, do you think I could try to get some help in the UK or should I go through the Russian shop?

Hi Ronnie,

i also have the problem with the knocking sound. I already tried to grease the negative spring, but i could not get the airspring apart. But now i’m reading there might be a different problem? How can the fork get fixed? Because i’m in the Netherlands, must i send it to cosmic sports or silverfish?

I bought mine when they first came out. Think I may even have been the first in the UK and were about £540 (exchange rate was brilliant back then with the €)…so £400 less than Fox 36 (RRP anyway) and roughly the same as Pikes.

I bought them for a HT with the intention of running them between 140-160. Having owned Pikes I knew I would need to buy new airshafts to run at 140/150, so another £40-£60.

Also owning xfusion previously, I wasn’t convinced by their finish. Lowers scratched up really easily and were always really wheezy. It was a toss up between the new roughcut and diamonds at the same price (Bos were too expensive and heard horror stories from my YT capra fellow riders). All black Matt finish did it in the end (don’t think MRP stage was available back then).

The masonry finish was in fact just some residual coating after the fork was treated. A dab of IPA and a rub and the finish was actually perfect. My bad for jumping the gun saying the finish was poor!

In fact while building my HT, I proper knocked my stand and the bike nose dived forks first into the concrete…barely a mark on them (still hasn’t stopped me invisiframing them tho!).

Minor niggles – too much grease in the compression dial, so you couldn’t really hear or feel the clicks – Ronnie talked me through sorting this via email – and quickly.

The first batch didn’t come with o-rings so I got annoyed that couldn’t see how much travel I was using. Again emailed Ronnie – o-ring in the post from Silverfish asap. Latest ones have o-rings.

The mudguard isn’t long enough for UK weather conditions – but fair play for thinking of this feature.

Yes, they take a bit of fettling to get set up, they are a bit heavier than pikes (and that’s subjective depending on how many tokens you’re using too remember) – but once you have done this and they’ve bedded in they are the smoothest forks I’ve used (and not prepared to pay stupid money for Fox 36 to test against). I’ve had no clunking sounds or wheezing at all either.

Running Maxxis HR2 2.4 front and no clearance issues at all, but that could be due to 30mm internal width rims flattening the tyre out.

There are tons of videos for set up and maintenance on their website with a bit of a forum like cane creek do.

In my opinion for the price I paid, the performance I’m getting from them on my Stanton Switchback at 140mm, they’re the best fork I could have purchased.

If you’re looking at continuous 160mm use then it gets a bit harder with the new Lyric performing exceptionally well.

Ronnie – if you’re listening, I know your brand colour is black and green, but if you could make the dial caps and axle in various colours (or even just black) it would really help fit in with frame and component colour choice. Stupid I know but having that extra dimension/choice would really appeal to some potential customers.

Sorry for the long winded post! Lol

I’ve not read all of this, but my x fusions are very good, and a good price. I’ve used pikes and the new 36s and I thought they felt the best of the lit. I’ve not ridden any other modern forks. They’ve been very reliable over this last 6 months. I wouldn’t spend double on a pair of forks, as I doubt they would be twice as good.

I bought manitou mattoc after a thread on here

Most underrated fork on the market, had nae bother with them and all the nobs actually do something reliable.

Also like the integrated mudguard and feel like there needs to be a bit more competition in the market.

I asked about this on another thread. The mudguard is said not to be very much use (for UK clag) which is disappointing as I don’t like cable tying stuff to my fork lowers.