OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I played with samsonov alpha at the very begining of this blade. The blade had no unpleasant vibration, and was good and compact in block, drive and counter but heavy : 90-95gr on catalogue, mine was 102gr.
Tried another samsonov alpha last month and woohooo, what happened to the original blade? new design is light but central plywood is thinner and yes vibrates more + thin handle. Didn't feel the samsonov alpha strenght on blocks and producing heavy spin was hard. Won't give it another try.

It's the second time I've heard about old blades being better than new blades, this one coming from another manufacturer.

Durn...have to get the first editions, fast.

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Viscaria. H2 Neo 2.15. Tenergy 05 1.9.

Hhhhmmm.. the alpha reviews i read mentioned it being light. So they might have used the newer version and the reviews were mostly good...

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Oops, my one is 81g. 21g difference is quite alot.

@Hedgehog
dear Hedgehog, do i understand you right, on Samsonov Alpha you would recommend Rapid D.Tecs, and on Samsonov Premium Nimbus?

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Reviving another old thread.

Had a hit with a new Tibhar Samsonov Alpha. Being 2017 this is obviously the new version.

The weight of this one was 80g as requested which is a little lighter than the 85g advertised. Shows the variance between blades of the same model.

Forgot to measure the head and there is conflicting information around the net. What I can say though is that when transferring the rubbers from Donic Burn I had to trim about 2-3mm from the top. Given we'd measured the Burn at 156 x 153, I'd put the Alpha at 154 x 152. This may sneak it into the compact range but not like the Andro blades.

The handle felt very woody and the shoulders quite sharp but not as sharp as some others. If it were mine I'd give the shoulders a quick sand.

The FL handle was a little thin, not too thin but if a thick handle is important to you then you might need grip tape it consider the AN version. Donic Burn handle which it was replacing is a lot thicker.

Using the naked ear plink/donk test it actually was hard to pick up the tone and in fact almost sounds dual toned. At times it sounded down in the Appelgren range and other times sounded more in the Off range. Hall was noisy though so it was difficult to pick it up.

The blade has Evolution El-p 1.9mm and Geospin Tacky and played really well. Has a nice feel to it. I'm not a fan of the really hard and stiff feel of an Off or Off+ and this was nothing like that in fact going back to our plink/ donk test I think it has the feel of an All blade with the speed of an OFF-.

I've read that it's a bit stiff and there are better blade for looping which may be true but all 3 of us that tried it, one who is a much better looper than me, all found it really good to use, in fact I really liked it and if my blade broke would have no hesitation in issuing the Alpha if offered. My team mate better not leave it lying around..





Sent from my SM-T210 using Tapatalk

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Donic Waldner Senso V1,FH Baracuda Big Slam 2.0mm ,BH Victas Triple Regular 2.0mm

I've also tested this blade with EL-P on both sides, and I agree it is a dream for looping. It's a little stiffer than something like the Appelgren Allplay, but it's still not stiff at all compared to most 7-ply or composite blades.
The EL-P seems to work particularly well on all-wooden blades, whereas many of the new generation rubbers tend to work better on stiff and/or composite blades.

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The old grey compact version was surprisingly good for ox lp or inverted defence rubbers,I wonder how the new one is?
Is the head thickness still 5.5mm?

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Tsp Black Balsa 3.0 Tenergy 05 1.9 388d ox black

This is off the Nexy site.

Head Size 156 * 149mm
Thickness 5.5mm
Layers 5 Wood

Note sure about it though but could be right.

TTgear says this

The head size of E.Lebesson is 154mm (length) x 149mm (width). It is a bit longer and narrower than the head of Samsonov Alpha whose size is 153mm x 150mm.. I think that is probably right despite what I said above.

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Donic Waldner Senso V1,FH Baracuda Big Slam 2.0mm ,BH Victas Triple Regular 2.0mm

Ta Cobalt,I was hoping that they`d thickened it slightly,I recall high spin/speed counterlooping against a strong player and the light 77g copy I had was flexing too much and at the top end the sudden extra flex/dwell made it unpredictable,suspect the blade is fussy to match the right rubbers,I may try the thicker sgs version instead .I think the Lebesson blade plays similar to the Alpha but is a touch thinner.

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Tsp Black Balsa 3.0 Tenergy 05 1.9 388d ox black