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T-11 > Mazunov > Clipper = W7 > P500 > Dunlop > K_SK7 > PG3 > H-WL > YE = Defence Pro > MPM > Defplay > VKM

Notes:
1. P500 (5.9mm) unexpectedly high, almost exactly the same as PG3 (6.2mm), but P500 is a lot sharper.
2. H-WL (6.1mm) is unexpectedly low. Flexes some. It was a powerhouse with H2.
3. Yasaka Extra = Defence Pro in pitch and also dullness. (Def Pro is probably a MPM equivalent if the same weight.)
4. Defplay is a little higher than VKM but much duller.
5. Everything to the right of YE (cpen) is: oversized, "defensive", shakehand cut to penhold, thinner and lighter.
6. Dunlop was my original blade, 30 years ago, five equal plies of probably basswood, 6.4mm 104g.
7. That Clipper was a 6.8mm 94g shakehand. My 6.8mm cpen is 82g and very easy to play with.

I'm curious what conclusion you would draw from the tone comparison?

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I suspect you're dropping the ball from a low-ish height, thus getting some surface effect.

The P500 is not a fast blade but probably has hard surface woods, or you just got that one wrong. But overall the pitch correspond to general elasticity (ie speed).

To haggisv: There's a relationship to speed. You've heard that, right? It isn't always accurate but you can see that the blades go (Edit: roughly) from fast to slow, high pitched to low pitched.

Anyone interested could think of corrections. For example, one reason the P500 is placed so high is probably that it is so light (81g) compared to many of the others around it: something equally stiff or springy but lighter would vibrate faster. The YE is 88g, and that is probably one reason why its tone is so low. But still - I'll know later but I'm pretty sure now - the YE will probably fit my game beautifully.

My previous #1 the cutoff-handled MPM was hurting my thumb and I had to either modify it or switch to a real cpen, one not different enough to upset my game. It isn't the best for twiddling (cpen) either. It looks like the YE is what I asked for.

This YE is 5.8mm thick. It's anigre over limba and ayous. So I'll think of it as being somewhere near an Allround Evolution + a very thin harder outer. My MPM at 5.5mm also has this top veneer, so the YE is looking promising.

Edit: I bought a digital caliper. It made me want to reexamine some of these out of curiosity. Want to hear something else I observed? The thickness of this particular PG3 (very low cost blade but supposedly built from the same materials as much more expensive ones, with similar dimensions too) varies between 6.05 and 6.25. Not a huge deal but fits the theory that maybe it just didn't make the QC cut to wear the crown.

Both right.

> one reason the P500 is placed so high is probably that it is so light (81g) compared to many of the others around it: something equally stiff or springy but lighter would vibrate faster

Lighter would also imply less dense wood which implies less elastic/slower (ie lower pitch).

Did you compare freq by ear? Humans have pretty good pitch detection and the result should be correct if done carefully, but I've seen this done by audio sampling which is somewhat more objective.

By ear. Former guitar player. Probably good enough.

Edit: I thought about recording these but it wouldn't prove anything. I'm not presuming to prove anything, just sharing some interesting observations.

I've always liked the play of the dullish sounding rackets, meaning I think that vibrations are very quickly suppressed. A few rackets ring like a bell and are annoying to play with.
You can think of a blade as a tuning fork, but it can have more than just one mode of vibration. The end to end is easiest to hear, but there is a mode of vibration across the blade too which can confuse the issue.
Violin makers figured out all this vibrating wooden stuff long ago. Chladni plates show the complicated patterns created in sprinkled sand when a wooden surface is bowed with a violin bow.

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Yasaka Extra Offensive! Like a metal gong, as some have said. Mazunov too, for the same reason. It doesn't bother me as long as there's a rubber on the back. But I let a friend hit with my MPM and he exclaimed "wow, it sounds like a musical instrument" (he meant a pleasant sounding one). Just a wooden "tok".
Yes, it probably has something to do with dampening in general, and I like that too.

I guess spruce is less dampening than most but this is not always decisive, maybe because of the cut or orientation of the grain or seasoning, etc. The PG3, for example, has a hard top ply and spruce second, but is muffled compared to some of these others which are said to have the same woods, like the P500.

I don't think it'd be too difficult to attach a small microphone to the blade, record the sound then run it through spectrum analyzing software to actually put numbers on these.. The sound's probably more complex than a simple tone.

Iskandar

I think you would need to hit the blade with a ball harder than just dropping it in order to get an accurate number. I will also guess that balls hitting at different speeds will produce different tones on the different blades, and I will guess that part of the reason is that the harder hitting balls are bouncing into the deeper woods, much like how sponges bottom out.

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Yes, there's a freq to correspond to each of fleetwood999's photos (ie vibration mode). However, each "spike" in the freq domain will still be higher for faster blades.



The freq's generally speak don't change (in the normal elastic range of impact), only their amplitude. However it's possible there's some sort of surface effect which is dwarfed on most hits but become significant in comparison on very light ones. For example thick balsa blades are quite fast (high pitch) on normal hits, but pretty slow (dull pitch) on a tap.

Yes of course, I wasn't questioning your logic, I just wanted to know how you judge the performance of the blade by the sound.
I often bounce a ball on a bare blade too, to get a feel of the speed and hardness. It won't tell you everything, but it gives you a guide.

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Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

Well, for the test to be consistent you'd have to drop the ball from a certain height. Or better yet, project the ball onto the blade at several controlled speeds. Perhaps a table tennis ball wouldn't be the best choice - a ball bearing might be (being careful, of course, not to use a velocity that would leave a divot in the blade). Or maybe a squash ball - remember that, in actual use, you have rubber between the ball and the blade.

Iskandar

I'm sorry I thought that what I was talking about was self-evident. Further, I saw no need to cite or to seek exact numbers because the results will remain arguable regardless.