AKRacing Office Series Obsidian Chair Review

A Closer Look – Components

If you have never assembled a gaming chair before, then the good news is that AKRacing makes it as simple and straightforward as possible. Inside the box, you will find absolutely everything you need to get this assembled. The Obsidian Chair, as you may have guessed in the images so far, is pretty big. As such, make sure you have a fair amount of room to put this together.

The manual provided with the chair is really excellent with nice and clear diagrams making this exceptionally straightforward. You may, initially, be put off by the fact that the chair in the picture doesn’t match up to the Obsidian (at least in aesthetics). If you follow the simple step-by-step guide though, you’ll have no problems at all.

What could be the trickiest part (in getting the seat mount on the right way around) is helped hugely by the fact that is a nice a ‘front’ nicely engraved into the metal. As this is the most likely thing you could get wrong, it’s a nice feature to include!

The Base

The base of the chair is provided in a steel 5-star design. This is fully made of steel with the exception of the tips which have a plastic coating. The stainless steel finish looks absolutely fantastic and the black trim to the ends of the ‘star points’ really make this stand out even more.

The castanets themselves have this fantastic ‘spoked’ wheel effect. This is definitely very different in terms of most designs and is, perhaps, the most ‘tricked-out’ aspect of this year. The wheels are fantastically large which should allow for excellent movement across any flooring.

The Back Rest

The AKRacing Obsidian Chair definitely has a lot of understated quality. At a glance, it may look like just a black chair. On closer inspection though, you begin to understand just how much quality has gone into the design.

The stitching to the pleather material on the backrest is simply faultless. It’s near invisible and anyone who knows anything about quality design knows that this is exactly what you want to see. Why? Well, it takes a lot more effort to make the stitching near invisible

At the top of the chair, you’ll notice the AKRacing logo. This is really nicely embossed into the pleather and the quality is, again, absolutely faultless.

A closer look really highlights the attention to detail that has gone into making this really crisp.

While looking at the backrest, you may note a small rip in the pleather to the sides of the chair. Do not, however, be panicked into thinking that this is damage. Although not immediately obvious, this is deliberately and does serve a purpose.

You attach the seat via 2 bolt attachments to the side of the backrest. To do this, you simply remove the screws, line up the parts and re-fit them using the Allen key provided. You note the small hole to the centre of the bracket, this lines up with the prior hole in the pleather which will all, very shortly, start to make sense.

Once you have done this, a plastic cover can be attached to cover the exposed metal. Now, if you remember that small ‘tear’ in the pleather earlier, this is where the bold goes through to attach the plastic cover to the frame. It’s not exactly a unique design, but it is certainly a nice thing to have.

The Seat

The sear has a fantastic combination of slightly different colourings and patterns to make it really stand out nicely. The material is, again, a nice and soft pleather type that feels great to the touch. We haven’t sat on it yet, but this already looks really comfortable.

A close look gives you a better idea of the patterning to the design. As you can see, it provides an almost metallic ‘shine’ and against the plain black really stands out boldly. In addition, the quality of the design and stitchwork is again beyond any criticism.

The underside of the chair is supported by 4 elastic straps. Although you can only see 3 in the image below, the 4th is hidden behind the support strap. The bolts, to attack the base are already pre-installed so all you need to do to fit it is to undo them, attach the part and screw them back in again. Simplicity itself!

You will also note that despite this being the underside, care and attention has again been put into ensuring the pleather edging is nice and tidy.

So far, the Obsidian Chair is really speaking volumes. It’s a very professional looking chair that also has an exceptionally high-quality in design. In all honesty, we have found absolutely nothing to criticise or fault. So far, this is looking to be a very prestige design.

Cushions

As with many modern gaming or office chair designs, AKRacing provides the Obsidian with 2 cushions. One for your head and one for your lower back (lumbar). It’s no surprise to say again that the quality is exceptionally good. AKRacing has spared no expense in any part of this Obsidian Chair.

The headrest is certainly one of the more notable features. With the logo, the upper area and, again, the patterning providing nice visuals, what is perhaps the nicest feature is that this differs from many standard headrest designs. This has been shaped to not only hold your head, but also to provide a little support to your neck area. It’s different and when we tried it out, it felt fantastic.

The lumbar support is very similar in design. When compared to others we have seen in the past though, while this is nice and firm, it’s not overly so. It has some excellent cushioning that does support your lower back, but also has more than a little give to make this comfortable during long-term sits.