As far as wood goes smelling at room temp, I like some of Dr I sticks purely for that reason. Ground up into sticks I feel like they often give off an unheated aroma that the wood it came from, maybe wouldn't give off being in whole piece form. The kalimantan sticks smell great - heated and unheated. I will say though that when lighting sticks I often will spark one end for a split second so as not to light the stick cimpletely - just to smell those initial whiffs that I think smell incredible. Lighting them, this subtle and clean first hit goes away.
The fun of lighting sticks tho is that compared to wood on coal where wood goes through stages of aroma, with sticks you get a more even aroma all the way through. With my subitism even - I find myself constantly flipping larger chips to make sure the entire piece is heated and not wasted. With those larger pieces I'll also often take it off the burner after some time and cut it up into smaller pieces so as to ensure better surface area coverage and center of the wood is exposed to heat better whereas there is a limit to how much the subitism can penetrate a thick or larger chip. Surely it can penetrate but the heat required to do so would also potentially give off bad aromas.
My general mentality has been to start low and slow on the subitism and gradually increase using the method many do - go up to 15 or 16 then down to 10. Up to 16, down to 11, etc. Until arriving at a mostly burned chip where I will then increase to 18 if I feel there is more oil or resin left. Sometimes my fear of wasting material is actually bad - as I'll find myself thinking there is more left to burn when there isn't and then my nicely fragrances room goes smokey in an instant lol. So lately I've been starting with smaller pieces and just rocking them at 16 from the start.
Coming full circle to the stick topic - I think this strategy of starting at 16 (just for example I know everyone's heater is different - on mine 16 is where I start seeing the coils go red even with daylight) requires less attention which is nice but it also gives a more complete and total representation of the wood rather than just pretty top notes in the beginning and oudy base notes towards the end. Using this method also helps bc when chips have a lot of oil and resin - when you start high that oil and resin helps to coat the inside of the chip. Since we aren't always burning sinking grade chips, I think this coating helps to soak into parts of the chip that might be less resinated with "whiter" wood. I think this helps to protect those inner layers that would otherwise while using the other method maybe give off a stale or burned white wood smell when the higher heat arrived at those sections.
This is one man's terrible ocd, overthinking, and work procrastination coming to life in this post. But curious what others thoughts are on sticks - I know some have trouble getting past the smoke, and I feel like I'm sometimes in that camp for sure.... Other times I enjoy the robustness.
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