OOAK Table Tennis Forum

I spent an hour earlier today playing with a borrowed Yasaka Sweden Extra with Rakza 7 soft on both sides, and then another hour using a Sanwei M8 with 729 rubber on it that I bought from Aliaexpress based On the advice of this forum.

Surprisingly, I clearly felt that I had more control with a Sanwei, and my overall game was better and more consistent (granted, less speed).

Now I'm trying to make sense of it.
Is YSE too advanced of a blade for me at this point and I should stick with All / All+ for now?
Or should I still go for YSE but consider softer rubber? And, if so, which one?

Alex


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Both are middle-of-the-road five ply all-wood allround blades. I've not used the Yasaka so I can't tell you what it's like but I really like the M8 (I play with it exclusively now). Rakza 7 belongs to the "soft sponge Tensor" class (along with Baracuda) and shouldn't be overly fast. Batwings (729) is a typical $5 Chinese rubber, these are tacky and hard, and not overly fast, either. 729 and Rakza 7 should feel quite different. Overall, both setups should be solidly medium-speed and controllable. They may FEEL different, though. How pronounced are the differences, in your opinion? Do you have to pause and think about it (like I do when trying to figure out the difference between rubbers) or is it very plainly obvious?

One thing I can tell you though - the Yasaka costs about 4-5X the price of the M8!

Iskandar

What he said.

ignore the blade.
You're comparing a bouncy softer grip rubber (razka) to a less bouncy, harder sticky rubber (729).

Pick whether you want the soft bouncy rubber or the harder sticky rubber.

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Chasse Patate

If the Sanwei is good why are you willing to change to YSE anyway? The 729 is no tensor, relatively hard and unspringy and the Sanwei would do well with Rakza 7 also. You may prefer a non-tensor rubber somewhere in between - more lively than the 729 and with medium sponge.

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Red is blogging here >> http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=30522

The YSE is not that fast, in fact I'd argue the M8 is faster. Its likely that the Rakza 7 though is faster and definitely with a different feel. Rakza 7 is likely to be more springy and you might be sending the ball long. My guess is that if you put the Rakza on the M8 you would have the same problem and maybe even worse. The YSE is a great blade and I'd stick to that, unless you really prefer the feel of the M8 in which case it doesn't really matter, just use the one you like. You could try swapping the rubbers to experiment however tensor rubbers sometimes shrink when taking them off so might be hard to get back on without boosting or stretching but it would be an interesting exercise to test.

Its really hard to compare the speed of blades when different rubbers are in use and its also hard when swapping them over as there is time between using one or the other. There is a non-scientific test you could use to get an idea of the speed of each blade you have which you can refer this thread. Take it with a pinch of salt though as there are valid arguments against this method to test speed.

viewtopic.php?f=43&t=31831

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

+1, but I would even go further and say that play with Sanwei combo 'as is', don't go down EJ route. It sounds as if you are struggling with the fact that you liked the 'lesser brand' setup better, even though you might have expected Yasaka combo to be superior (marketing worked!). That's why blind tests are preferred, by the way.

Brand names should not matter, the only important thing is how you play with it.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

You are in luck as the set up you preferred was your own and not the other one! Now just enjoy playing with what clearly suits your current playing style better and saved you a lot of money. Soft early generation tensor rubbers are definitely not for everyone.

+100

It's rhe rubber. If you had the 729 rubber on the YSE and the R7 on the sanwei you would feel more control with the yse.

The rakza is going to make more spin, and also react much more to incoming spin. So you will feel.less control with the rakza. But if you want to play a game with spin, you may need to learn to use it (or one of the million rubbers like it) anyway.

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Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.

Yoko Ono

Red,
What would a good example of such " in between" blade?
Mark 5? Something else?

Alex


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I agree with Silver. Adding to that I would go with your own setup. It is very good, and don't fall for big brand name hype. I use the 729 Super FX myself and I love it.

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1-ply Hinoki Club
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Local Press Club (Journalists) Champion

The speed of a Rhino and the power of a Gazelle!!!!
http://xtrariter.blogspot.com

729 is "slow", but it's actually plenty fast for most people, especially if you don't plan to stand 10 feet back from the table and attack. Something a little faster? Lots of choices. Sure, Mark V, Sriver, Mendo, but why spend so much money? Yinhe Mars II and Mercury II, 729 Faster/Higher/Focus/Snipe/Whatever, Sanwei T88-I/II/III/IV/etc., Kokutaku 868, etc. can be had for under $10 a sheet. You could also try Yinhe Big Dipper or 729 Battle I/II or Palio AK47 or 61 Second Kangaroo for around $20 a sheet. (If you want "faster than 729 Batwings" KTL XT/XP Pro/Dragon etc. are slower, as is DHS Hurricane 3 and all forms of 999.)

To be honest, you'll probably find all of the above about the same - I can't tell the difference a lot of the time. Do stay away from Reactor Ckylin.

Iskandar

To me it's not about brand name for sure, but EJ is part of the appeal of me coming back to the TT, that's true.
I enjoy doing the research on all of the equipment and see how it helps tto improve my game.(understanding the its very much secondary to actual the training/practicing).
I think I'm trying to do a little bit of both, be smart about getting the equipment that serves my improving (hopefully) game, but also feed EJ just a little bit.
So I'm thinking of going two routes in parallel: stay with the M8 with 729, but also getting my own YSE with probably Mark 5 on both sides to start out with. And continue to play and experiment with both.

What do you guys think?

On the new blade perhaps put 729 on one side as a benchmark and another rubber such as Mark V on the other. It should also allow you to properly evaluate a new blade versus your existing M8 blade. A slightly faster and good value upgrade on MarkV would be Xiom Intro in say 2.0mm which is medium hard and apparently plays a bit like like a speed glued Classic. I have used it in 1.8mm and it does not have the low impact spin or high catapult (bounce) of the softer tensors and is good for all-round play and high control in the short game.

https://www.tt-spin.de/xiom-vega-intro/

Just put one rubber from each blade to test. Put a rakza on the M8 and a 729 on the YSE, have a play around and see what you think.

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

I'm not sure how you can do these experiments continuously - at some point you need to pick one and try to master it. I guess you can devote ~10% of your time to messing around with different setups just to see what else is out there, but if it gets to 50-50, I wonder if it will mostly hurt your play.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887