OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I've had my current forehand rubber for nearly a year which means time to start looking for a new one. I'm currently using Victas V01 Limber.

My next choice was probably going to be Donic Barracuda but one rubber I've been wanting to try is Hurricane 3 and thinking perhaps if i don't do it now, i might not allow myself to go back to non -tensor in the future.

I know its a generalization but what would i gain or lose by going with Hurricane 3. If you want to see how i play, you can see vids in the blog section.

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

I've used both DHS tacky FH rubbers (Skyline 3, Hurricane 3), and European Tensors (Andro Hexer), and recently Tenergy 05. My observations tend to be that in practical terms Skyline/Hurricane is slower, because the rubber isn't in any way tensioned or springy, and the sponge is quite hard. This has the effect of allowing you to swing at the ball faster without worrying about whether the ball is going to land in the next room. The second observation concerns the way the rubber spins. Hurricane/Skyline are sticky/tacky rather than grippy. It feels to me as if I get more spin on a serve with a DHS rubber than a Tensor, but I find spin generation on FH topspins more effortless on the Tensors.

Personally, I really like using Hurricane and/or Skyline. It's solid, predictable, offers good control, and plenty of speed, and seems to be linear in terms of you getting out of the shot what you put in.

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Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

It may actually do your game some good to drop back to a rubber like ths for a while Cobalt.It would give you a chance to develop your loop technique and make it more consistent and focussed on spin and placement without the speed factor in there so much. There are some who prefer to loop with Hurricane as their fulltime rubber, but most of those I know have a power loop game that doesn't need a faster rubber. Most would step up from H3 to a tensor once they've honed their loop...which would always be an option for you again of course.

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Just repeating what I've read here on the forum - Hurricane 3 is quite slow, and that slowness helps in the short game. The slowness comes from the tack of the topsheet. But if you put some muscle into the drive you'll get plenty of speed out of it. To me is sounds much like the "exponential" (as opposed to "linear") control mapping that model fliers use - move the sticks a little, the flying surfaces move a little and so you've got a fine degree of control over the middle of the range. However, bang the stick to the full extent of travel and you get full travel, so you're still capable of doing violent maneuvers or have the use of full control surface movement if you need it.

It's also interesting that the top Chinese players use it on the forehand and use something like Tenergy on the backhand. And they flip the racket around if they're hitting lobs.

I just bought a sheet of it myself (got it for quite a bit less than the Eacheng price from the DHS booth at the WTTC), I plan to put it on one of my N11s and find out for myself. I also do plan to Seamoon it to see what the effect is, after I've tried it in the natural state. I don't expect much - I've seen mention that a lot of Chinese tacky rubbers behave in the same way, except they're not as tacky as H3 - and to be honest, I often can't tell one rubber from the next. Of course, this isn't the same rubber the top players use - the sponge isn't the same color!

Iskandar

I think it's going to feel very dead compared the Victas...it's a completely different rubber. H3 also varies a LOT from sheet to sheet, H3 Neo as well but not to the same extent. Not sure if you were referring to H3 or H3 Neo?

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I recently switched one of my rubbers to Xiom Sigma. I thought I'd be using it on my forehand to loop with as my FH is my dominant stroke considering that it was a tensor. I thought it would be better for looping and tried it on for a few games.
Now I'm back to using H3neo on my FH. It felt like I could give my stroke a lot of effort on H3 and still be able to land it while I couldn't say the same for Xiom Sigma.

I guess it would still really depend on what kind of tensor you intend to get.

As with most cases, the best way to determine the answer to your question would be to try it for yourself hehe.

It's just great that we got a lot of good people in the forum to help guide you with your decision.

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Current set-up
Stiga Offensive Classic
FH DHS Sanwei T88-I max
BH XIOM Sigma I Europe 2mm

Today I tested Hurricane 3-50 mid 2.1 mm and Victas VS 401 2.0 mm on the same blade (DMS Destroyer, all+ carbon blade with low throw). They were both well used and I had just tuned the 401 while H3-50 was tuned like 6 months ago (still soft though). I wanted to see if the throw was similar, and they were, perhaps a little higher on 401. Speed on loop against loop (against the robot) were a little more on 401. But the difference was not very clear. But the feeling is different. And even though it has a hard sponge it still feels softer than the H3-50. And looping technique had to be a little different. I was not able to test loop against backspin, maybe later.

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Will dead be a bad thing though? I'm thinking of heading this way for the next 6 months to a year, can't see it hurting. If in that time I've not taken a step forward then after that it probably doesn't matter as I've given it a good shot.

Next question could be H3, H3 NEO or some other variant. Perhaps a better way to ask is which one is most like Haifu Whale II which I like (apart from the weight).

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

I've asked this same question - what's the difference between all those H2/H3 and TG3 variants, and it's hard to get an answer without lots of hedging! And I think the reason is that, although there are differences, the differences are subtle rather than huge. You'd have to mount them on identical blades, then test them back to back while really concentrating before being to write a few lines about how they differ, and a lot (most?) people would probably fail when asked to identify which is which, blind. So I'd just buy whatever's cheapest at the time!

Iskandar

I've spent a lot of time with DHS rubbers, and my old coach used to import and sell DHS rubbers all over Europe, and we've discussed it at length, so I can speak with some experience. I'm confining this to the 8 variants of Hurricane and Skyline, before the newest generation came out.

The Neo rubbers (H2N and H3N, and Skyline Neo TG2/TG3) simply refer to the next generation of the rubber of equivalent name. So Skyline 2 Neo is just the next generation of Skyline 2. All these rubbers are designed for a post-speed glue world, and are a little faster, as they are tuned. They come in a vacuum-sealed pack, and have a somewhat softer and more porous sponge. However after a month or two the tuning wears off, and they slow down, and need to be reglued. I've never boosted, so I can't speak to that.

Hurricane 2 is the oldest of the family, and dates from the time of the 38mm ball and speedglue. Hurricane 3 is basically a Hurricane 2 designed for the 40mm ball. The Skyline family weren't designed as 'mass market' allround rubbers, and are much newer, coming out in 2007, and designed for the short game (Skyline 2) and continuous looping (Skyline 3) that was characteristic of two of the top chinese players at the time (Ma Lin and Wang Hao). I had a chance to speak to my old coach this morning, and he said that Skyline 2 is best for playing close to the table, and Hurricane 2 is good away from the table if you have a big and powerful loop.

In today's game the only people I know using non-NEO Hurricane or Skyline are either people who haven't changed their rubbers in ages, people who still glue, or defenders, as the characteristic of, especially, H2 is that it works excellently as a chopping rubber.

If you want to go this way, I would look at Hurricane 3 Neo, or, maybe one of the latest generations such as Hurricane 8 or Skyline 3-60. Personally I think Skyline 3 Neo is a stunner of a rubber, and much underrated.

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Yasaka Sweden Classic | 802 OX | C8 OX
Check out my blog - LordCope's Latest Learning Log - 10+ years of accumulate mistakes!

H3-50 mighy be worth a try. I have read several people that love the h3 or h3 neo don't really care for the h3-50, but I have found that it suites my game and it's a little more forgiving. It's seems one step towards a euro rubber while remaining closer to what dhs Chinese rubber does best. It's great in the short game, it's spinny, counter looping with this rubber feels great. Mho

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This was at the DHS booth at the WTTC:



I got the "ordinary" H3 for RM60 (about USD13.50), which was a really good deal. But I'm wondering now if the Neo (right next to it) was the same price. They wanted RM100 for H8, and RM75 for 3-50, Skyline 3-60 was also RM75. These were all good prices (especially when you see what H8 goes for online... Eacheng wants a whopping $79!) but I wasn't in the mood to spend large amounts of money just to compare Hurricanes, based on the tiny differences I've been seeing between rubbers in general.

They had "National" for RM270, but they sold out by Friday! Also a variety of other rubbers - Tin Arc for instance (anyone know what it's really for?).

Iskandar

I haven't used Hurricane 3.

I just recently switched from Donic Coppa X1Turbo to Hurricane 8. H8 is much better with control and has many gears. I would suggest it. Some of Chinese National Team are using it now. Their version top sheet is the same as everyone can buy.

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The hurricane rubber line works better when you pair it with a blade that has harder outer plies in combination with the hard sponge DHS uses on their hurricane line. Presently speaking more people are interested in hurricane than they are in tenergy. I prefer hurricane 3 because of the better you control you get over tenergy even though I really like tenergy I feel on service and defence hurricane gives you more options on how you want to use the rubber tenergy always will spin the ball in one trajectory mid - high every single time and if you are not playing 5 days a week you cannot change that.

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Victas Dynawood Power
Tibhar MX-P
Victas V15 Limber

DHS have successfully made hurricane 3 a commercial rubber at different price ranges as well as a professional rubber at different sponge hardness and boosted or not boosted. DHS is probably the most talked about rubber at my club if we discuss equipment because there are a lot of types and sometimes hurricane 3 types have no differences between them and the price of DHS can go through the roof. One problem with DHS equipment is their quality control. You can get two sheets of hurricane 3 commercial and they will play completely different. Butterfly do not have this issue and all their equipment they produce feels identical to one another. No real winner here, though personally I think Hurricane 3 is the best rubber on the market.

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Victas Dynawood Power
Tibhar MX-P
Victas V15 Limber