In a Nutshell:
The Pisces Dolphin II Portable Massage Chair is best in class. If you’re looking for top-of-the-line equipment for your business, this is the chair you want. Recommended for Pricey but recommended for anyone who can afford it.
Value for the Money
Durability
Usability
Performance
Overall Rating
4.7/5
Benefits
Drawbacks
Recommended For: Anyone who can afford it.
Are you just starting out in the massage business? Have you been in the game for a while, gotten yourself established, and are you now looking to upgrade your equipment?
In either case, you’ll love our Pisces Dolphin II portable massage chair review. In our view, it’s the best portable massage chair sold today, beating out nine other contenders in our recent roundup review.
It’s a great chair, although it would be overselling it to call it perfect. In the sections that follow, we’ll outline everything this equipment masterpiece can do and fill you in on its (very few) shortcomings so you’ll have all the information you need to decide if it’s the right portable massage chair for you.
Ready to take a closer look? Let’s get right to it!
An Overview of the Pisces Dolphin II Portable Massage Chair
The first thing you’ll notice about the Pisces Dolphin II portable massage hair is that it’s a departure from conventional design. Its stylish U-shaped frame is a fun, great-looking innovation that makes it easier than ever to configure the chair in a variety of positions, depending on the type of massage you’re giving or what areas of your client’s body you’re working on.
Even better, the designers have increased the chair’s utility without sacrificing the ergonomic design elements that enhance client comfort, and that’s no small feat.
Size and Portability
Dimensionally, the chair measures 33” x 26” x 44” and weighs 20.5 pounds. This is a win on two fronts. If your business model involves staying in one place and having your clients come to you, the Dolphin II’s modest footprint means you won’t struggle to find a permanent home for it.
If your business model is more mobile and involves moving from one location to another and visiting various client sites, its relatively light weight makes it easy and convenient to bring your equipment with you.
Features of the Pisces Massage Chair
Let’s start with point-of-sale options here in our Pisces Dolphin II Massage Chair review. When you buy the chair, the first choice you’ll be presented with is your upholstery options, and this, in our view, is one of the major reasons to consider this chair for purchase.
Upholstery Options
Almost every portable massage chair on the market today is upholstered with PU. Imitation leather of varying quality, some of which stands up relatively well to daily use, and some of which will start showing its age fairly quickly.
The default upholstery option for the Pisces Dolphin II massage chair is soft touch vinyl, which is high-quality PU, but at the end of the day, still PU. The company does have an upgrade option, however, and you can order your chair upholstered in top-grain leather, which we love.
Soft Touch Vinyl Colors
If you opt for the soft touch vinyl upholstery, you’ve got an array of colors to choose from. These are:
Leather Colors
If you opt for the leather upholstery upgrade option, you can choose from the following colors:
Note that ordering the Pisces Massage Chair with leather upholstery will add $75 to the price of the chair.
Durability & Portability
The frame is made of powder-coated aluminum and designed to resist scratches, which makes it durable and transportable. However, we were slightly underwhelmed by the fact that it can only support a maximum of 300 pounds of user weight. There are chairs on the market today that can support more than twice this, and we were honestly expecting a bit more from a top-of-the-line model.
Even so, it’s durable enough to support the weight of most of the clients you’re likely to be working with, and if you run across someone who’s too big for the chair, it’s not too big an issue to make other arrangements, even on the fly.
Adjustability
We mentioned earlier that its design made the chair highly customizable, and that’s certainly true. You can quickly and easily tweak the chair to accommodate just about any client’s height or body type, and its design gives you convenient 360-degree access to every part of your client’s body during the massage.
Every aspect of this chair can be height adjusted and slid at least part way along the U-shaped frame for optimal positioning. The face pillow is fully articulated, allowing you to fine-tune its position.
Comfortability
Where comfort is concerned, the chair’s ergonomic design is paired with generous foam padding in the cushions, which will keep your clients relaxed and comfortable while you do your work.
While we have no issue with the padding as is, we have seen other models that use soft cells or other advanced padding options that mimic memory foam. We would love to have seen something similar on the Dolphin II, but the designers opted for conventional foam padding.
It’s not a big deal, and certainly not a deal breaker, but also not quite as comfortable as it could be.
Extras
And now, to extras. Oh boy. We regard this as a bit of a mixed bag.
On the one hand, when you buy the chair, you do get two small but important extras in the form of a memory foam face pillow for added comfort (again, we find ourselves wishing there was an option to upgrade to memory foam padding for the whole chair), and a cushioned shoulder strap.
Here’s the thing, though: Although the cushioned shoulder strap makes carrying the chair more comfortable, the Pisces Pro II doesn’t actually come with a carrying case.
The designers think that since the frame is durable and scratch-resistant, you won’t need one, but in our view, a carrying case makes lugging it about a whole lot more convenient.
Even more mystifying is that the chair’s user manual includes instructions on how to properly load the chair into a storage bag for transport! Given the price of the chair, we believe this should have been included in the package at no additional charge. Sadly, that’s not the case. If you want one, you’ll have to pick it up separately.
Pros and Cons of the Pisces Dolphin II Massage Chair Soft Touch Vinyl
Although we didn’t mention this earlier in our review, Pisces is an American company, and the Dolphin II is proudly manufactured in the United States. If you want to “buy American,” then this chair is the only game in town.
That fact may give the Pisces Pro Dolphin II massage chair a bit of an advantage where some users are concerned, and even if it doesn’t, as you can see based on our review to this point, the chair has a lot going for it.
In our view, here are the things you’ll like best about this model:
And here are the things you’ll like least:
Of the negatives we mentioned, the one that is the most upsetting to us is the fact that the company forces you to buy the carrying case separately.
Given the chair’s portable nature, most people who buy it will transport it, at least some of the time and probably a significant percentage of the time. In our view, this should have been included in the package at no charge, plain and simple.
None of the negatives are deal breakers, though. As long as you don’t mind paying extra for the carrying case, there’s nothing on the negative side that will turn potential buyers off completely.
Pisces Dolphin II Massage Chair Review Conclusion
We love the Pisces Dolphin II portable massage chair, and we think you will, too. The thing that will stop most people from selecting this model over others is, in our view, the price. If you’re starting out in the business and money is tight, you just may not be able to afford it, pay for the extras you want, and then buy everything else you’ll need to get started.
If you have the money though, you won’t be disappointed in this chair. We highly recommend it.
Recommended Reading
Oakworks Portal Pro 3 Portable Massage Chair Review
Providing exceptional value for therapists, we assessed the Oakworks Portal Pro 3 massage chair to learn about its features.
References & Resources
- Pisces Productions, Official Brand Website.
- Pisces Pro Dolphin II User Manual.
- Why We Need Massage Therapy Regulations, American Massage Therapy Association.
- Can Massage Increase Blood Circulation?, Joe Muscolino.
