OOAK Table Tennis Forum

People say blue sponge is better for DHS Hurricane rubber. Is that true? But I seldom see anyone /shop selling it in Australia. The one I find in Oz is with orange sponge. What is the difference?

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The Buddha said: “The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly,...” And to play table tennis.

天下武功 ，無堅不摧 ，唯快不破。

Ah.. HUGE can of worms.

The "blue sponge" comes with the "National Version" of the DHS Hurricane rubbers - this is supposedly made specially for Chinese pro players, the ones on the National Team (though I suspect other elite players can get it as well). The REAL "National Sheets" are tailor made for specific players - each player would want a specific sponge hardness, for instance, and would choose one of the two or three topsheets available (H2, H3, TG3, etc.). They might also (as the scuttlebutt goes) have the sheets drenched with booster (so it's "factory tuned" and therefore not illegal). These sheets come in transparent plastic vacuum packs (like "Neo" versions of Hurricane) marked with the name of the player it was made for. Once in a while these sheets "get loose" - a player might give them away - or sell them - to others. When you DO come across these sheets, the price is astronomical - $200 a sheet, sometimes. There was a French website selling these things a couple years ago. As you can imagine, counterfeiting is rife. Hurricane 3 counterfeits are so common in China you even want to watch out when you buy the retail sheets (with the bog standard orange sponge). Only Tenergy is counterfeited more often (and these are laughingly awful).

Here's an example of something questionable:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DHS-HURRICANE-3 ... 2195634428



(Note the retail packaging... )

OK, if the above description is the "National Version", what is this, then?

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product ... 73485.html



This is from Eacheng, so I doubt it's any sort of fake (at the moment they only have the red with the orange sponge - only the black comes with the blue sponge). The DHS booth at the WTTC was also selling this (over RM200, so I wasn't interested). So what exactly IS this? I think DHS saw that there was money to be made, so they started selling the special "National sponge" version to the general public, at a 150% increase in price! They've also got this:

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product ... 32928.html



(Note the "40+ symbol... )

and this:

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product ... 85824.html



(The latter is VERY expensive - $74 - more than the National Version! AND it specifically says "blue sponge"...)

Supposedly as supplied to regional teams so it's a step down from the National version, though it doesn't seem that way from the price!

Very byzantine. And easy to game - except that DHS cuts four corners off the bog vanilla Hurricane and two corners off the Regional (so people can't pass off the cheaper grades for the more expensive ones, I suppose).

But that's not all - you'll find OTHER "national" rubbers - some even have blue sponge! Never mind that no one on the Chinese national team actually uses them!

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Sanwei-T ... 90571.html



AND this one even has corners cut off!



Iskandar

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

Just wonder if it is really worth that much for a National rubber. Is it really much better than the commercial one?

I have tried those on the public market(Not national) : H2, H3, H3.5, H8.... I think the differences are very little. (Maybe my skill is not sufficient to tell the major differences).

Which one you think is the best in the Hurriance series?

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The Buddha said: “The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly,...” And to play table tennis.

天下武功 ，無堅不摧 ，唯快不破。

I can't say I've tried all the Hurricane variants - in fact, I'm just trying out my first - the plain vanilla H3 - right now. But I HAVE tried a LOT of rubbers, mainly Chinese, and your conclusion doesn't surprise me one bit, because in my opinion there's very little practical difference between pretty much all of it! Yes, there are outliers (999T for instance) but most Chinese rubber plays about the same, even if they do feel subtly different. Note I said "subtly" - in most cases the differences don't stand up and yell at you, they whisper and you have to concentrate really hard when comparing rubbers. In many cases it's beyond my powers of description. And I'll have to say - this includes Tensors as well (OK, I've tried all of two of them!).

Iskandar

I actually have detailed info about this topic as I just spoke to a former national player about it.

The only difference between comm, provincial and national rubbers is the consistency between sheet to sheet. For example. On a provincial sheet one out of every 10 rubbers may bubble and be a dud. Where national rubbers one out of 30. And commercial 1 out of 3. The player I spoke to said that more often then naught he used provincial rubbers when he played in the super league because it didn't matter. They are the same rubber. Provincial rubbers are widely available and not often counterfeited. National rubbers are counterfeited all the time....but you aren't paying for anything better if you get the real thing....just better quality control.

Now. The debate between orange and blue sponge answered.

They are the same. Except the blue sponge accepts booster quickly but the effect wears off just as quick. This is why all the top Chinese use it. Because they change their rubber ever tournament so it doesn't matter if the effect wears off quickly because they are done with the sheet. Orange sponge takes longer for the booster to sink in....but it holds the effect longer. So unless you are boosting your rubber all the time and replacing the sheet every week....there is no point to seek out the blue sponge that so many people crave due to the use amongst the CNT.

The rubbers do not come from DHS boosted. The players boost them themselves. Yes I know it's illegal. But it's done.

Sent from my HTC One M9 using Tapatalk

sorry, i see a lot of good info from you iskandar, but on this matter i think you don't have complete information.

i'm not saying the links you mentioned above are good sellers selling authentic hurricanes rubbers, but i will use them for explaining purposes.

the ones in your first photo the ones in vacuum packing is one they called NEO version of Hurricane. They have provincial neo orange sponge, provincial neo with blue sponge, national neo orange sponge, and national neo with blue sponge.

The second photo of the white packing is the classic hurricane national with orange sponge. they also have classic national with blue sponge but sold not with that white packing.

The third and fourth photo is the newer packing for the classic hurricane for provincial version with blue sponge.

There are several other packing for the older classic hurricane commercial and provincial version.

Yes, confusing with the so many different packings and what not...

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instagram: rokphishtt

So all that stuff I came across online about each Chinese national player getting their own special versions of rubber made was bull? If National rubber is more consistent than Provincial rubber, and bubbles less often, does it follow that retail H3 bubbles all the time?

By the way - do click on that ebay link - the guy claims to be selling "National" rubber (wants 100 British pounds per sheet), but the packaging is the retail packaging. As I said, there's a lot of counterfeits, I don't know if these are counterfeits but they might be. Heck, they even counterfeit the regular retail H3, this is why DHS has those anti-counterfeiting rub-off stickers on their sheets. You apparently even find counterfeit pre-made DHS bats with counterfeit H3 on them.

I guess you begin to wonder - WHY so many types of packaging, and so many grades? I'm skeptical of the whole thing, I think the idea is to make as much money as possible. Everything you hear about this stuff is anecdotal.

Iskandar

yes, the players do get their own rubbers.

i already clicked on it, and already explained earlier on which version the photos are of.
the packaging of the ebay link upon casual look is consistent with the Hurricane 3 Neo National version for sale commercially.

the white packing is for Hurricane 3 National Version for sale commercially.

i even wrote the instruction thread about how to use the authentic dhs products few years back.

i've been using hurricane rubbers since 2008/9 and for me through out the years the different packing doesn't confuse me, the different version of rubbers also understandable for me.

haven't even touch the hurricane versions the dhs make for nittaku... they have their own various packing as well... even some blades dhs make for nittaku, the one coming is Malong Carbon which looks real similar to dhs's hurricane series.

just because we don't understand fully doesn't mean they're bad... just mean we don't understand them fully, either because we don't want to spend enough time to learn about it, don't care about it, don't like it, etc... but still doesn't make them bad.

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instagram: rokphishtt

I don't think it's bad rubber, either - just amusing! And confusing!

Iskandar

I've used DHS rubbers more than any other, since 2012. For several years, the majority of club members also used Hurricane or Skyline in various forms, until the club developed a new sponsorship deal with Stiga. I've not found the quality to be a problem (we're talking rubbers being changed twice or three times a year over 2-3 years, over a dozen or more players), and I don't find the various combinations to be confusing.

I would love to put together a more canonical DHS rubber FAQ, covering sponge numbers / hardnesses, Neo vs non-neo, national/provincial/commercial, and so forth.

Rokphish, if you want to collaborate on this, perhaps we could put something together, and then if it meets with approval, mods could make it sticky?

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i probably could help you a bit here and there. i could also ask peter79, he's even more a dhs nut, exclusively play with national rubbers...

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instagram: rokphishtt

I hope this isn't literally true and is just to make a point. I mean the part about 1 in 3 of the commercial sheets. That's REALLY bad... Even Palio sheets aren't that bad.



Do you happen to know what they use? Dianchi, DingJi, Seamoon, Falco or some super secret product? I plan to do mine this week, I'll probably use Seamoon. I want to see what it does to the rubber.

Iskandar

It will be great if you could put everything together comprehensively, as I am really confused by so many different versions of DHS Hurriance.

Thanks, much appreciated.

_________________
The Buddha said: “The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly,...” And to play table tennis.

天下武功 ，無堅不摧 ，唯快不破。

Incidentally - this from the 729 Battle thread:

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=26431&hilit=729+battle&start=15#p296457

Hurricane 3 retail:


Hurricane 3 National:


Hurricane 2 (retail, I suppose..)


Do you see what I see? VERY VERY interesting....

Iskandar

Hurriance 2 retail = Hurriance 3 national?

_________________
The Buddha said: “The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly,...” And to play table tennis.

天下武功 ，無堅不摧 ，唯快不破。