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Thanks!

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Probably ones that are closest to what you would be using in tournaments.

Ordered some 1 star XSF on ebay last May/June and they were OK. Earlier ones were supposed to have been rubbish.

I briefly tried Tibhar and Donic training balls and didn't think much of them. If I was going to order a seamed training ball I would be tempted to get Nittaku. TT-Japan are sold out of the boxes of 50 balls priced at €29 whilst condra.de are €79. Have not used them so can't vouch for them.

Not too sure if 2 star count as training balls but Nittaku have their Superior ball at €4.18 for a box of 3. Have only had a brief hit with them but will know next week if they are any good.

Go with XSF three star balls (or other seamless ITTF approved), they are cheap enough to use as training balls. There are no good plastic training balls. (add edit here, I haven't experienced any, which may not be the same thing)

You could try the Nittaku Japan 40+ 2-star but they actually cost more than 3-star seamless balls.

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Butterfly Viscaria Black tag
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The best plastic training balls are the Kinson 1-* balls. You can buy 75 for $25 at ttnpp.com. They play fairly well for multiball and rallies. And given the price and performance, durability issues are more forgivable.

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Zeropong had a recent sale on their seamless balls as well that brought prices down to 50 cents per ball. You can look into this as well. Their balls are USATT approved not ittf approved. Not sure what shippping sill entail though if you are outside the USA.

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Our perception of 'cheap enough' has changed quite a bit though...2 years ago you'd not pay this sort of money for training balls. I think most people are still comparing to celluloid training balls.

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If you contact the Minkow company, you'll find that there are also Kingnik 1 star seamless balls in stock now, too - and the price is very good. I haven't ordered any yet because, frankly, I'm drowning in balls (250+ Double Fish 1 stars, a gross of the Double Circles, a bunch of those Butterfly 3 star celluloids Igor was posting about..), and the dollar has appreciated so much recently, but I think I will just to see what they're like.

Iskandar

We train with 3* XSF. We tried 1* XSF, but they were all eggs. Buying plastic one star balls is buying a lottery ticket: you can get lucky, but most of the times you lost your money on balls you can only use against your grandma.

Think about it: they hardly have good 3* plastic balls. Why would they have good 1* balls?

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donic

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Got a new 3 star and a one star Donic seamed ball from a Donic distributor (he runs the club) and the one star played inferior to the 3 star. The Donic 3 star didn't play as well as the Chinese Butterfly poly ball so that is not saying much about the one star Donic. Probably OK for multi-ball or a robot.

Thanks for your replies... but it's maybe better to reframe my question:

"What plastic ball has the best price/quality ratio"? We're looking to cheaper training balls to use during coaching/multiball sessions. Of course we'll use the XSF *** ball in competition...

I hear from my coach that the newer versions of Tibhar *-star have improved a lot and that it is actually very playable... Similar experiences?

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Problem with wanting to train with a 1* ball of brand X and play competition with 3* ball of brand Y is that they behave totally different and require adjusting, at least when the balls are made in different factories. If there was a solution, I'd apply it in my own club, but I'm afraid decent training is only possible with 3* balls. At least this year. The difference is huge and I tested it (1* XSF vs. 3* XSF).

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I agree that 1* and 3* XSF (seamless) balls are very different things. I found the 1* balls I have seen un-useable, even for multiball. (I haven't tried the Kinson ones NL mentioned).

I have not tried a Donic plastic ball made in 2015, so maybe they have changed, but the ones I tried (3*) made in 2014 were the usual Chinese seamed garbage.

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Saw this in "related threads" and thought it was worth revisiting. Has anything changed?

At the WTTC I saw the following:

1) Double Fish has (seamed) plastic balls - both 3 star and 100-pack boxes of 1 star balls (and also 2 star balls). Didn't ask them the price of the 1 star balls. They also had a few boxes of the old celluloid 1 stars for RM100 a box (of 100) which translates to about USD23 or so. Problem is a year ago USD23 would've been RM80 - which is what a box cost from Tenryu last year - so there's been a 25% price increase! Their posters also claim that they've "updated the material", and the balls are now more durable (don't know if this applies only to the three star balls or if it applies to the one stars as well). Got a box of three 3 stars to try out.

2) Yinhe now sells TWO one star training balls - a seamed and a seamless. Seamed is RM127.36, seamless RM150. They were giving out free samples of these, I got myself one of each. The seamless balls are almost certainly the same as Xushaofa/Kingnik/Palio etc.

3) Similarly - Sanwei has three star and one star seamless balls (same comment applies to these). At the WTTC a box of 72 one stars was RM100. The three stars were a bargain - a box of six for RM25 (or about USD1 each - current price of XSF 3 star balls is over $2, IIRC).

4) IPong (they make nice products but the name is unfortunate.. ) were also selling seamless balls (see comments above). The 3 star balls, I got 2 boxes of six for RM40 so that was a good deal. The one star balls were a little expensive - came in a nice egg crate box, I think there were 30 or 36 balls in there, for something like RM40.

Tibhar, DHS et al. were also selling balls but I didn't pay any attention to these... I did get a box of Nittaku premium 3 stars (made in Japan) - these were expensive (RM8 for 3).

So... are the XSF and other seamless 1 star balls still junk? Anyone try them recently?

Iskandar

Colestt sells yinhe 3* poly balls at decent prices in bulk. They last pretty much forever in a robot.

And just today I used a new bitterfly training ball that a club got 144/$80. I liked it better than the Bty made in China 3*. Can't say if it's durable though.