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I have one of the Headwaters reels and will try to be as objective in my appraisal as possible. At first appearance they seem well worth the money. The problems I had with mine may well have been taken care of by now as mine is over 18 months old. The drag was a little light measuring around one ounce vs. the two to two and one-half I prefer with no real bias. I took it apart and added an extra horseshoe spring that put it closer to the right amount. I played with it for around 15 minutes to see if it would remain consistent and it literally wore the pawl down to a point there was practically no engagement. I contacted the gentleman selling them on eBay and he was very helpful in communicating with the factory to express my problem and get it resolved. I sent it to the factory in China and with reasonable turnaround received it back with several extra side plates in different colors. The drag was still too light as received so I played with it a little more. I discovered that you could tighten up the side plate screws more causing extra drag so after a little tweaking it was just right. I again messed with it some before lining it up to make sure it would continue to hold up which it did. The next thing that happened is beyond cause for concern and should be looked at closely before purchase. After putting on a nice Terenzio 4.5wt silk line, I took it fishing. Not too far into the day the line got caught between the handle and frame and it stripped the silk so badly all I could do was cut off 15' of one end ruining that end. So back to the cob shop in my basement where I removed the handle and filed off some of the mounting post along with bending the serpentine handle enough to close the gap. It has worked great since but was a process I wish I had not had to go through. I have communicated the problems I incurred with the USA seller who has been a pleasure to deal with.

Marshall