OOAK Table Tennis Forum

For anyone who's interested, there's a new announcement on the Dr. Neubauer website today with more details on the forthcoming A-B-S anti, including its characteristics and its availability. I can summarize it, but it pretty much speaks for itself; start getting your wallets ready. Here's the announcement:

UPDATE AVAILABILITY A-B-S ! (13 mai 2009)
Our new Anti-Spin rubber 'A-B-S' will be on stock as from end of May with the following sponge thickness choice:
1.2mm
1.5mm
1.8mm

'A-B-S' offers a good control and produces a very good spin reversal while blocking on topspin with a lot of rotation. The new rubber is yet again a bit slower than 'ANTI SPECIAL'.
At the same time it enables aggressive pushing and lifting, especially on chopped balls.
'A-B-S' comes with a new rubber mixture for the topsheet and a new type of sponge. Thus the rubber is a good alternative to our old frictionless long pimples.

The 1.2mm version is the slowest and hence the most effective for short blocking close to the table.
The version with 1.5mm sponge is slightly faster and thus a bit more effective for attacking.
The 1.8mm version enables both good blocking and most of all attacking.

http://www.drneubauer.com/news.php?lang=us&id=79

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I. Re-Impact Tachi Plus 2019; FH: Nittaku FastArc G-1 1.4mm; BH: Saviga 77 Monster OX
II. Re-Impact Turbo; FH: Spinlord Sandwind 1.5mm; BH: DMS Kamikaze OX
III. Re-Impact Smart; FH: TSP Spinpips RED 2.1mm; BH: Dr. Neubauer Gangster OX
IV. Sauer & Troger Firestarter; FH: Spinlord Waran 1.8mm; BH: Giant Dragon Snowflake OX

Thanks TraditionalTradesman!

Will be interesting to hear how it compares to the Anti Special... if it's better in all respects they won't be selling any of them...

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Needs to be a substancial improvement on AS.

Not that AS was bad it was pretty good. Its just it wasn't good enough to stand out considering there are some extraordinary pips out right now and the anti movement didn't adopt it en masse.

I'm pretty settled on D.techs but I'd certainly be interested in a review in comparison to AS.

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Tibhar Grass D.techs OX | Donic BigSlam 2.0mm .
Re-Impact Medusa (balsa / 1-ply cherry wood)
Frictionless strokes | Attacking pip strokes | Greggy's advice | Bollsbrother | Sebastian Sauer . . . . . .

It's an interesting predicament the Dr. has gotten himself into: because antis are generally more one-dimensional than pips, and especially because people are looking to Dr. Neubauer to produce a very specific type of anti -- i.e., one that functions as a replacement for frictionless -- each new anti product he rolls out winds up having to be, more or less, an upgrade or replacement for the previous product, and I would suspect that sales of the previous one collapse soon after the new one's release. Each time he has to say "even slower" or "even more reversal" or "even more like Super Block." Perhaps this is why the releases of the AS Special and A-B-S, which were originally scheduled to be happen simultaneously, got staggered. While -- as someone observed in a post on here some time ago -- the friction ban has probably increased Dr. Neubauer's sales, as people continue to experiment with one product after another and buy each new rubber he comes out with, eventually, one would suspect, he's going to lose brand loyalty this way (even more than he already has), since many of us have adapted by learning to play with tricky friction pips that allow for possibilities impossible with frictionless.

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I. Re-Impact Tachi Plus 2019; FH: Nittaku FastArc G-1 1.4mm; BH: Saviga 77 Monster OX
II. Re-Impact Turbo; FH: Spinlord Sandwind 1.5mm; BH: DMS Kamikaze OX
III. Re-Impact Smart; FH: TSP Spinpips RED 2.1mm; BH: Dr. Neubauer Gangster OX
IV. Sauer & Troger Firestarter; FH: Spinlord Waran 1.8mm; BH: Giant Dragon Snowflake OX

I'm sure the A-B-S will be slightly better than Anti Special. They say the rubber "is a good alternative to our old frictionless long pimples," however I don't think any of these antis will allow you to play "Super Block" style where you hit 80% of the shots with your backhand. They're just too fast and not enough spin reversal.

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My whole set-up costs less than a sheet of Butterfly Dignics

The problem I think is that they are great blocking against moderate speed shots but IMO poor against really fast strokes.

The central issue is that the 1.2mm sponge gives against a hard stroke reducing the spin reversal against the very strokes that you want high speed reversal against. The only way to stop this is to chop - thats fine and the control is fantastic. Two problems then arise:
1) To chop you need to be away from the table - you don't have enough time close to the table.
2) At this point there just isn't enough variation in the rubber. If you are going to chop away from the table then why not use a pip in OX - it gives just as much reversal and better variation.

Thus the Neubauer antis are great in practice but don't perform that great outside practice against the very strokes where you need them. I don't really understand why they use so much sponge. Why not go down to 0.5mm? As I understand things there isn't a legal limit on sponge thickness for inverted. If they did that then blocking a really hard stroke using 0.5mm would bottom out providing a roof on the lower limit of reverse spin. Really I suspect that the Neubauer camp will be in for a surprise with the lower uptake of A-B-S because the competition has really got its act together in pips.

I think the sponge issue is why the ITTF are not too alarmed by anti. It is difficult to legislate that pips will need sponge with the background that hardbat is the original tt bat.

Its also interesting that those that moved to antis from frictionless are not using AS. I don't understand anti but there has to be a reason for this.

Anyway things are verging towards conflagration at work so I need to don my 'firefighting kit' and get stuck in. Alas for the tranquility of a spouse (first) and the tt club (second). Be back with a bang when all is clear.

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Tibhar Grass D.techs OX | Donic BigSlam 2.0mm .
Re-Impact Medusa (balsa / 1-ply cherry wood)
Frictionless strokes | Attacking pip strokes | Greggy's advice | Bollsbrother | Sebastian Sauer . . . . . .

http://www.rttf.ru/node/14160
USE TRANSLATE

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igorponger wrote:

Day -by-day inhalation of the speed glues is not any good for health..

Hmm, Google Translate improved a lot... Still loses a bit of charm of the original writing style.

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