OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Thanks for your additions, Baal.

My dealer is a high level player himself and he didn't really want to favour the SHA balls over the others. In his opinion, they just felt slightly different. I will probably also be able to play the Tibhar balls in our club next week, so I can compare them myself. Your explanation that they're all made in the same factory and just got a different label could be true, as this is how things go.

One thing I know is that I'm not going to spend (negative) energy to the plastic balls as long as there is no standard (if there will be one) and as long as our league still plays celluloid.

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Exclusive OOAK-Interview with Joo Saehyuk | Masato Shiono | Panagiotis Gionis

I think that ITTF has made it very clear that celluloid balls are not going to become illegal, and there has been no indication from anyone as yet that they will stop being made. I think it is far better to use a celluloid ball than a really bad plastic ball, and most of the plastic balls marketed with labels of European companies are terrible. Very few European players have had the option to play with anything else as yet, so it doesn't surprise me at all that many leagues have made the decision to stick with celluloid. It would be the rational decision given the experience that the vast majority of European players will have had with plastic balls. I applaud it.

But, there are other choices in plastic balls, which come from two different factories. For some reason these have been more widely available in North America since this summer, although I think that is starting to change. (I think it is because we really have no native table tennis equipment company except maybe for Killerspin, and in the US Nittaku has probably been the most popular ball, and also North American vendors have always sold a really wide product range). In contrast to any seamed ball made in China, these two types of balls, Chinese seamless and NP40+, do represent a viable alternative--purely from a playing quality perspective. As I noted on other threads, the ITTF approced XSF is round, bounces high and clean, very easy to see, and amazingly durable. You can now buy it from Megaspin in bulk, 72 balls for 99 USD. That is less than the cost of Nittaku Premium Celluloid balls also sold in bulk, and the XSF is far more durable. The NP40+ is very expensive and much less durable by comparison to XSF or celluloid.

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Butterfly Viscaria Black tag
2.2 mm Nexy Karis M on FH and BH

For the record, those Nittaku SHA balls have code XHAD, meaning they're from August 2014... This could explain why they might play differently...?

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Exclusive OOAK-Interview with Joo Saehyuk | Masato Shiono | Panagiotis Gionis

No, not based on some we have had here. Same old same old. I very much wish it was otherwise.

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Butterfly Viscaria Black tag
2.2 mm Nexy Karis M on FH and BH