Right, I now have a couple of sessions with this rubber, and figure I can give you guys at least a rudimentary sense of how it plays. Bear in mind this is my first review ever and I'm not the most experienced EJ (yet
) so take everything with a grain of salt. I'll structure the review by first telling you a bit about me and what I want out of this rubber, followed by the setup I'm using it with, then try and explain the physical properties of it, and finally try to describe how it performs on the different shots I use. To wrap it up I'll try and compare it with Dornenglanz OX, since the copy writing says it uses the "Dornenglanz concept".
Me: I'm a hobby player, used to play in a club with double inverted when I was a kid, then as an adult I picked the sport up again and tried LPs. I absolutely loved it, and my main setup for a while was the Dornenglanz OX in backhand and LKT Pro XT in forehand, on a Japsko All+ blade. (I live really close to where Japsko has their base of operations, so I try to buy all my stuff there if I can)
This setup worked great for me, but I kinda wanted a more dangerous weapon on my BH, since the attacks I produced with Dornenglanz had a very small margin of error.
As for how good I am, I haven't competed in a long while now, but if I were to hazard a guess I would say somewhere in the worse divisions of Swedish TT. Nowadays I mainly play for fun, and the club I'm at has plenty of people about my level.
I ordered it glued onto a 0.6 Goldway sponge, as per Lars Borg's recommendation, since it only comes in OX, 1.5 and 2.0. OX isn't what I wanted, and 1.5 might have been a too big step from LPs he felt. Then I put it onto my Japsko All+ instead of the Dornenglanz.
Physical properties: In texture the rubber is very similar to Dornenglanz, just like the marketing says. The pips are initially a little tacky, and the only real difference is that they are a bit shorter. The sponge I don't know much about, really. I'm not very experienced with sponges, and with such a thin one I can't really judge if it's soft or hard. Sorry about that, hopefully someone else can provide insight on the Goldway sponge.
Shots: Passively blocking and chop-blocking/punch-blocking generally produces no spin at all. Without actively striking the ball, lots of speed can be absorbed. While not as insensitive to spin as LPs, still very insensitive.
On attacking backspin it is quite easy to generate a little topspin. Here it feels like the reversal works better, but no massive amounts of spin will be made. Still quite easy to actually attack balls that have backspin or no spin.
Regular drives and pushes have the same effect as blocking of removing spin.
Chopping can generate tons of backspin, if enough force is used in the stroke. Very easy to vary the amount of spin. A vicious chop will seemingly stop the ball in midair (you know how it feels guys
).
Usually on serve returns I do a push of some sort with a litte side-swiping motion. I can feel the pips kinda doing work, but it's quite difficult to gauge the amount of spin on the ball for the server.
Serves aren't very good for me so far. I can feint someone who isn't paying attention by pretending to do a backspin serve, but a typical fast, no-spin LP serve that can sink lots of balls into the net is much more difficult to produce. Some spin gets added to the serve, but not much.
I would say that coming from Dornenglanz, there was very few adjustments I needed to make on my strokes to make them work. However, while the strokes might be the same/similar, the outcome is certainly not. Dornenglanz is a very nasty rubber for blocking over the table, since it has a lot of reversal/disruption. As I mentioned, the Rebirth merely removes spin when using the same strokes. On the other hand, its attacking capabilities are clearly superior, and I would also say it chops better, since it's easier to vary the spin. With the DG you can "let the pips do the work" for many shots, with the Rebirth you'll have to do the work yourself. That might not be the most clear explanation, but that's how it feels. The copy writing says that it's difficult to control, but coming from LPs I don't think that's the case at all.
All in all I really like this rubber, it feels like it gives me the opportunity to do practically anything. It is my first MP rubber, though, so for all I know this is generally how MPs play and feel.
Hope this helps, if there are any questions don't hesitate to ask. I might be able to take a picture of my bat if you want to see a close up.
Cheers!