OOAK Table Tennis Forum

There is such a thing as the MaxTense and Moxa sponge though. The former is significantly better than the latter.

Apollo was always MaxTense. It looks like they misapplied the Jupiter label unless you got an especially shitty one.

Well, I've got the Apollo III mounted, curious about how it plays. Black sponge, too - how cool is that?



A mite on the heavy side - 68.8g uncut, but it is tuned, with the thick glue layer on the back.

Apparently some rubber (newer sheets, perhaps) actually have "Max Tense" molded into the front of the sheet:



There's also the matter of sponge hardness - Max Tense apparently gives you a choice of degrees, in increments of one. MOXA sheets only have "Medium", "Medium Hard", etc. The guy I emailed before I bought the Jupiter said they had "Medium", which was the same as 36-38 degrees.

Iskandar

Played something like 10 games (doubles) with the Apollo III today. I put it on a new N11 blade (my third!), on the backhand I put a sheet of Yinhe 9000 (this is that weird-shaped rubber that comes two to a vacuum pack, and which Yinhe puts on their premade rackets). The Apollo is tacky, but it comes nowhere close to being able to pick the ball up. It's a more tacky than my usual (Seamooned) Emperor Dragon, and is also a fair amount slower (I suppose it's because of the 36 degree sponge). Took about a half game to adjust, and then I was making my usual shots, not really too much change. I think I'm getting a little more backspin out of heavy backspin serves, but not much. It's OK for pushing and the slower speed helps a little with topspin drives against backspin and blocks. All in all, I don't think there's much of an advantage over what I normally use.

The 9000 is quite a bit slower than the Yasaka ZAP I've got on my other blades on the backhand. This could help my pushing game, and my ability to produce backhand drives doesn't seem much effected. I plan to use this configuration for a few weeks, then I'll Seamoon both rubbers and see what it does. The Apollo III is "factory tunned", so it's already had the treatment, which should wear off in a month.

Iskandar

Have you used other Maxtense rubbers?

Not yet. Two sheets of Venus II arrived today, and I have that sheet of Jupiter which may or may not be Max Tense. Might see if I can pick up a sheet of Mars cheap. I'm thinking 36 degree sponge might be a little too soft for my forehand, 38 or 39 would be closer to what I'm used to.

So far, it's OK. Can't say I see any advantage over Emperor/Drunken/Hidden Dragon, though. What really impresses me is 9000, though - my backhand hit's turned quite deadly. I've been able to make these shots before but never with this consistency. Not bad for a rubber that's meant to go on premade paddles. (Come to think of it.. I've got a Yinhe 01B premade coming - inadvertantly won another auction, bid low, thought I'd get outbid...)

Iskandar

Are your sure it's not more elastic? The Maxtense they have under Moon/Mars/Sun are quite potent. Good players switch between those and Tensor/Tenergy without much trouble.

To tell the truth, I'm not very sensitive to differences in rubber like some people seem to be. I can sort of tell the difference between sheets but I find a lot of sheets play more or less the same. Under my "training rubber" thread you'll see I actually tried a tensor (albeit not among the latest ones) and couldn't really tell the difference between it and Emperor Dragon. Whatever Max Tense has, Emperor Dragon has as well (it does have this "Biotech" sponge after all, though the best sheets I have are the "generic" ones with "training sponge", which may or may not be "Biotech"), and whatever it is, it's a SMALL improvement over, say, 729 Super FX.

I suppose I should mention my Emperor Dragon gets Seamooned, which does improve it somewhat (I can feel), while the Apollo III sheet I got was "tunned".

Iskandar

Come to think of it.. if you look on the ITTF Approved Rubber list, you'll see that there's only one Apollo topsheet listed. Apollo III's topsheet is just marked "Apollo" (just like Haifu Whale I and II have the same topsheet). So if Apollo II is non-tacky, and Apollos I and III are tacky, what does that say about topsheets?? What is ITTF certifying?? Is it just the thickness and pips geometry that matter?? How is approval testing done??

Note that Palio CJ8000 packaging says there's three types of CJ8000 topsheet, and they differ according to pips length. Is this legal to do??

Iskandar

Pretty sure that's against the ITTF agreement but as they say it's only illegal if you get caught.

The other factor to consider is that technically a valid ITTF stamp is only necessary in certain competitions, and many of these aren't really pro rubbers.

edit:
ok, nothing much to do on thanksgiving before heading off to the parents so:

From T4 racket coverings.
7. Supplier’s responsibilities
It is the responsibility of the suppliers to keep their brands on the LARC by paying the fees and maintaining the original properties of the racket covering as authorised, without alterations.

Now I guess we'll see if anyone on ooak'll rat them out to the ittf.

I don't think it'd take much to "rat them out", it's clearly stated on the back of the package! Obvious to someone who can read Chinese, of course..

Iskandar

Of course if you mainly compare cheap hard sponged tacky Chinese rubbers, the differences won't be thát big. But I would advise you to go see a doctor if you can't feel the huge difference between a latest generation soft Euro-tensor and a rubber like Apollo III . I tried an Apollo III a year ago and found it extremely dead and heavy. Very tacky.

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So how would you rate Palio Macro Pro? And which of these latest tensors would you recommend I try? (I was going to try Rasant, until I found out about the weight... talk about heavy!)

Iskandar

All the ESN tensors are of a family but they've been gradually evolving in elasticity relative to Tenergy. So generally the newer models are going to be slightly "better". If you haven't played with one recently it's probably worth trying, but as things stand they're not dissimilar to T.

If the new ones are just "slightly better" than Macro Pro, then I think I'm going to be disappointed again, and maybe it won't be worth the money to do the experiment. I honestly could not tell the difference between Macro Pro and Palio Drunken Dragon (tuned). If anything I thought the Dragon was slightly better.

Iskandar

The defining characteristic of high end rubbers is the last bit of elasticity (just as we discussed about asymptotic COR vs blade stiffness/elasticity). The differences to somewhat worst rubber isn't as much as often hyperboled (like maybe 20-30%, significant but minor in the grand scheme of club level TT).

Also I think folks not used to chinese rubber sometimes get confused between tackiness and "dead". The surface tack can serve a useful purpose on slow shots, and tends to diminish as % of total as speeds increase.