OOAK Table Tennis Forum

How does the tone of a blade relate to its speed. In my experience, when doing a simple ball bounce test, the higher the tone the faster the blade. An Allround blade makes sort of a 'dock, dock, dock' sound but an Offensive is more like a 'plink, plink, plink'.

A few weeks ago I had several blades at home, a few of my own and a couple I'd ordered for the club. I put them in order of lowest tone to highest tone and they ended up in the order which you would expect. Note that these blades were all in the ALL/ ALL+ range and included Applegren Allplay, Appelgen Allplay Senso V1, Galaxy 896, Galaxy N11, Yasaka Extra and a couple of refurbished sports store type blades. I didn't need to test these blades against any OFF type blades as I have done plenty of these bounce tests with them and the difference is quite obvious.

During the week I had my first apparent contradiction of this rule. A lower ranked player was using a Joola Falcon Medium which is apparently made for control. I'm assuming its rated ALL+ since on the Joola chart it sits between two other ALL+ blades for speed. When hearing this blade in a match I thought it sounded more of a plink than a donk so afterwards I did the bounce test. Its was a fair bit higher than the Appelgen Allplay Senso V1 of mine and much to my surprise was clearly higher than an Avalox AVX J-Power blade that is rated Offensive.

So is my simple bounce test flawed or is perhaps the Joola Falcon Medium faster than its advertised ALL+ or maybe the Avalox is more All than OFF.

One other thing I've noticed is that when I had 2 identical blades in my hand, the tones they made differed a little. Is this also likely to affect speed? Perhaps when ordering a blade, as well as asking for something that is light or heavy, should we also be asking for something that makes more of a donk or a plink?

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

I can't tell you what to look for (but I'm sure there is a relationship between the sound and speed/stiffness of the blade, just from physics principles). However I was browsing Russian TT forum few months ago and realized that it seems to be a standard recommendation there to 'sound out' a blade before buying it, by bouncing a ball or just using your knuckle, I guess.

So, you might be on to something. I'm looking forward to discussing degree of 'plink/donk' in addition to dwell, vibration, stiffness, control, speed and sweet spot in future blade reviews

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

how did you manage to convince him to let you peel of both rubbers on his blade to do the test?

if you're basing of the sound of the blade during play, it's not a good idea at all because the sound would be effected by a lot of factors.

in theory it should be able to factor in the tone toward the character/speed of the blade...

i'm just not too sure about the real world application for it. certainly not on online/mail order, unless you buy several of the same, pick one and sell the rest.

perhaps if your brick and mortar stores happen to have a few stocks of the blade you want then you can compare them and pick one that you think is best.

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You don't need to peel rubbers off, the sound is about the same whether bare or not.

You would need to have the bat with you to test but perhaps if testing other players bats at the club to decide which to buy, it could be a help. I don't necessarily think that all ALL bats are the same speed, some may be ALL+ or maybe even OFF-. The N11 is an example. Despite its label, I'm not sure it's ALL.

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

Agree with Cobalt, there should be some relation between blade accoustic property and blade face cor. I havent seen anyone mapping it though.

But, the test used pragmatically for long in golf, to test golf clubface.

Blade with small sweet area with have small "tink" are, and the area around it shall more "tonk". Same principal apply to table tennis blade.

Normally, the highest "dink" should be on the sweet spot. For blade, should be parallel to its center of gravity. The further from it, the lowest the sound shall be.

So, in same principal in golf, accoustic test can be used to estimate 5 parameters:
- position of sweet spot
- size of sweet area
- consistency of blade across blade face
- presence of anomalies behind face, e.g., internal cavity
- the blade dampening ability (remember, cor always smaller than 1.0)





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Did a few 'plink/donk' tests last night and my Appelgren Senso V1 was lower pitched than a standard Appelgren Allplay. Someone there had a pre-made Waldner 500 and that was higher tone than both. Not sure what this all suggests, just interesting.

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

Isn't the tone (blade without rubbers) especially related to wood hardness?

Harder outer wood plies say 'plink'
Softer outer wood plies say 'dock'

Usually, harder wood plies tend to make a blade faster

Flex increases the docksound. Donic Defplay says 'doinngggck'

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The higher the speed the higher tone.
The length of the tone refers to blade's flex- the longer the tone the more flex it has.

So:
fast stiff blade says "plink"
fast flexy blade- "pliiink"
slow stiff blade- "dock"
slow flexy blade- "doiiinnck"

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Setup 1: custom 7ply blade FH: 729 Legend 105 BH: 729 563
Setup 2: custom 7ply blade FH: 729 Dr Evil BH: 729 Dr Evil

IMO sound has little to do with speed, unless the blades are made from the same wood. from the blades I've made, I can change the sound a great deal even with the same wood by changing the glue and the clamping pressure. The sound will also change with the handle wood that has nothing to do with the speed. I recently made a blade for a customer in France with a Sitka Spruce core and white ash outers. Based on a "sound test" this blade would be Off +++ squared but in play with soft sponge it more like Off-. The customer is delighted with it because it has a loud crack that he describes as being like the crack of a baseball bat but speed wise he sz he has 2 or 3 blades that are faster . On top of that, unless you have perfect pitch, I very much doubt most people can really tell that much of a difference in pitch between two blades with similar wood. That said, if you are at a store and they have 5 of the same model blade, if you can hear a difference between them, go with the highest sounding one.

Now if someone wants do some instrumented tests and show me some scope traces and tie those to real world speed, I'll believe it, but until then I'll stick to my story.

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I was told that the stiffer and harder blades had a more crisp tone, something to do with the vibration. Also to test with your knuckle (tapping it on the surface) to make sure it has a consistent "note" so there is not any inconsistent spots in the blade.

I dont know how much of this is true and how much is superstition but Ive seen a lot of people use it and it seems to be an accepted method of testing, even though its as non standadised as it gets

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CORNILLEAU Hugo Calderano FOCO OFF+
FH: ANDRO Hexer Powergrip 2.1
BH: ANDRO Hexer Powergrip 2.1

Doesn't the Defplay really sound more like "boi-yo-yo-yoing?"

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[After 1 minute burst of laughter. Japsican sure pull my leg until rolling on the floor]

Jokes aside,

I may dont have a good ear, but,

My own Defplay not sound like "slinky head effect in Tom and Jerry cartoon show".

And, Defplay, while do slow, is around medium hardness, and definitely sound "in the middle tone" to me.

Def Alpha gave much lower tone, and not long sound either.

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I don't think it'd be too difficult to measure tone - an appropriate microphone attached to the appropriate port on the back of a PC can be used to record the sound, and then it can be mailed off to anyone with the appropriate software (maybe even just plain old Audacity) to analyze. There are probably PC-connectible stethoscopes available fairly cheap. Now, the other problem. How exactly DOES one measure "speed" of a blade??

Iskandar

Bounce test to measure COR for the naked blade?

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

lower tone = slower blade