I started testing plastic balls about one year ago(tibhar as they are used in most if not all tournaments around here) and immediately noticed the lack of speed. Nowadays things have improved a bit but there is still a big difference between brands and even between batched of the same brand.
Back then I tested lots of equipment but I settled for my then current equipment, VKM with dornenglanz and genius+optimum sound. Testing with the platic ball for months messed up my game with the celluloid ball. After that season I played with plastic exclusively with TSP balsa 3.5 with D-tecs ox and genius+ optimum sound and this is the setup I used when we started our first league season using the plastic ball. The season started terribly bad, easily our worst season ever. On top of that I got a minor should injury and I missed 2 matches. After 3 matches I decided to completely change my setup as i felt I was performing way below my level. With the DHS ball I could play well and close to my regular level as that ball has decent speed and spin. Other balls caused problems.
Why change the equipment? Well nowhere near all teams play with the DHS and while eventually the difference between balls will level out I want to at least enjoy playing. I definitely wasn't enjoying playing so it was time for a change. Most pips players will have experienced the same problems with the plastic ball: less spin, less speed, less reversal, timing is more difficult.
So i got about 20 different blades and started testing. Some slow, some fast, some stiff some soft, a bit of everything. I also got a wide variety of pips and inverted. The slower blades were too slow even with sponged pips, I needed to use too much force to get a decent speed and even then I felt opponents had too much time to react.
I also tried my old and trusted T-10 with palio ck531 A and while I enjoyed playing with this it was missing that special something it has with celluloid. With celluloid every active ball with pips was a winner, with plastic not so.
An early favorite was the stratus power defence, enough speed, great feel and good reversal even with plastic. Another early favorite was the win-tec power defence, the blade I chose after testing around 10 blades 2 years ago. As I have 6 win-tec blades and just 1 stratus I tested a bit more with the win-tec. To cut a long story short: once again this blade is a clear winner to me. I stopped using it when I started playing in a league just a bit above my level because I felt I needed a little more control. With plastic however speed is just about perfect for my style.
So the blade was set, now the rubbers. because of the sensitivity to humidity and temperature I don't really want to use d-tecs so I tested with other pips. Well that was the plan anyway. Dornenglanz is great on this blade but dornenglanz loses pips so easily I don't want to use it. About the second pip I tried was agenda and I didn't really test many more after that. While agenda was designed for chopping away from the table it is absolutely fantastic close to the table and very good away from the table using this blade and plastic balls. For the first time in months I was enjoying playing with pips again. Chop-block, chopping half distance, chopping long distance, active shots, receiving serves, passive block, active block, sidewipe,all was great.
I'm not really set on the inverted rubber yet, for now I am using a sheet of tibhar 5q sound power update as it was one of the few sheets I have that fits the blade well(the win-tec is quite large). It's light but spin is below average I think. Speed and spinwise a skyline 3 plays well on the win-tec but weight could be a bit of a problem(the same goes for victas 401). More testing to be done this coming week: genius+ optimum sound, cornilleau pilot power(i got several sheets very cheap), acuda blue and some other sheets I have lying around.
So why does this combination work so well for me? The win-tec pd has a 3.5 mm kiri core, then a relative thick( i am guessing 1.5mm) hard layer of something and a thin ayous or maybe hinoki outer layer. The feel is fantastic and I highly reccommend anyone to try a similar setup. Why similar and not the same? Well apparently win-tec stopped making the power defence blade. I found some leftover stock in England and ordered those so I am set for years to come. There seems to be an alternative though, the imperial energy def as seen here
https://www.schuett-sport.de/tischtenni ... energy-def It also has a kiri core, optically it looks similar to the win-tec and it is being sold seemingly exclusively at the same shop that was selling the win-tec power defence.
I already asked peter freundlieb(tt-piet) about making custom blades with a kiri core but apparently it is quite difficult to buy kiri wood in europe.
So after a lot of suffering with the various plastic balls it seems I have found the right equipment to enjoy table tennis again.
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Competition bats:Win-tec power def
Tibhar 5Q sound Power Update 1.8 *
Spinlord Agenda oxTSP Balsa 3.5
Tibhar Genius+Optimium sound 1.8 *
Grass D-tecs oxPut to rest:Galaxy T10
Bluefire M2 2.0 Palio Ck531a ox
Victas Koji Matsushita
Tibhar Genius+Optimium sound MAX * Spinlord Dornenglanz ox
Donic Defplay Senso
Tibhar Aurus Sound Black max * Grass D-tecs ox
Check out my quest for my new blade here:
http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=23241Current standings:
Butterfly Matshushita powerdefence *
Joola Chen Weixing *
Nittaku KVU *
Nittaku Shake defense*
Tibhar stratus power defense *
Victas Koji Matsushita *
Yasaka Sweeper *
Win-Tec power defence