OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Description of the rubber (Manufacturer's description).

“G555 is a highly elastic rubber designed for backhand. It combines the network molecule structure forged by processing new cementing agent with chemical technology and the highly elastic sponge. Such combination can guarantee high strength and elasticity of the rubber, satisfying the backhand demands on high speed and strength on the medium- and long- range table and fully making up for the shortages of the backhand drive.”

1. Player background
I am a club level player. I do not have a USATT rating. I do have a deeper understanding of Chinese-style rubbers, as opposed to Japanese and Euro-style. I have enough experience to perform each stroke with consistency. Except for Chopping XD

2. First impressions
I ordered G555 in red, I'm not sure if there's a difference with the black sheet. The red topsheet is pretty translucent, and reveals the pimpled structure. The pips are large and are spaced evenly. It is VERY tacky, even for a Chinese-Style rubber, when first out of the package, even more than that of the Hurricane series. The sponge is soft, however, it is not mushy. I found that it wasn't very heavy, but I did not weigh it. It's a bit lighter than Hurricane 3.

3. Speed on strokes.
-It's not "very" fast on slow strokes, requires quite a lot of wrist action to create good spin. Very controllable. G555 was mentioned as a soft elastic sponge, so I was expecting it to be a slow spinny rubber. The ball rebounds quickly off the rubber, in my opinion. Great for the short game. Easy to place the ball, too. The ball also does not slip off, as it does with some other rubbers while looping or driving.
-Forehand loops were quite fast, and quite spinny, it feels great counterlooping, from a shorter distance. A bit difficult to impart topspin on my loops after a distance of 7-8 feet away from the table though, as you have to somewhat slap the ball to achieve speed.
-Driving was good near the table. Again, it was harder to impart topspin from farther distances. NOTE: Annoying to drive or loop beyond 7-8 feet away from the table. Easy to place the ball where you want it.

4. Spin on strokes.
It all depends on wrist action. As I said before, hard to impart spin from far distances. Quite easy when playing close to the table.
Serves were VERY spinny, as the rubber is VERY tacky.

5. Control
Overall, very easy to control. Blocking was great, pushes were almost effortless, in my opinion. Receiving service is like a dream with this rubber, even though it's extremely tacky. Placement of the ball was easy, overall. The short game was great. One should only use this rubber for the short game.

6. Some other characteristics
The throw was med-low. It's a very subtle sound when playing slowly, but gets loud as you go up a few notches in speed. It is not an SGE or Tensor.

7. Comparing it to H3 Provincial #20 Sponge. G555 Serves were easier, as was receiving serves. And I found the G555 a bit easier for placing the ball. This only goes for the short game. In the long game (farther away from the table play), the H3 Pro dominates.

8. I'd recommend putting this on your bh, if you do choose to use this rubber. Remember to only play short game with this!
Don't try the long game! You'll end up frustrated.

I'd give the rubber an overall rating of 8.0/10.0:
Not the best rubber, but still pretty good.

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Stiga Offensive CR WRB ST/ BH: Renanos Bright Hard 2.0mm/ FH-???
Butterfly Korbel SK7 FL/ BH DHS Hurricane 3 Commercial/FH Gambler Outlaw 2.2mm
DHS CW-C/ BH: DHS G555 2.0mm/ FH: DHS Hurricane 3 Provincial 2.2mm
Nittaku Violin/ BH: Tenergy 64 / FH: Hurricane 3 National 38deg
Experimenting with weird combinations... And I may find a permanent setup.

Nice review rubixmaster85! It's the first review I've seen on this rubber... Although I have not played with it, I've glued it onto a few bats for people, and it seems high quality, and feel more Euro like than your typical Chinese rubber. As with G666, I think it's fairly unknown and untried, but they are quite good rubbers.

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OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

Thanks. It does have a euro feel. Just a really, really tacky topsheet. I'm probably going to speed glue it over the weekends. If I can find my Killerspin Propel...

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Stiga Offensive CR WRB ST/ BH: Renanos Bright Hard 2.0mm/ FH-???
Butterfly Korbel SK7 FL/ BH DHS Hurricane 3 Commercial/FH Gambler Outlaw 2.2mm
DHS CW-C/ BH: DHS G555 2.0mm/ FH: DHS Hurricane 3 Provincial 2.2mm
Nittaku Violin/ BH: Tenergy 64 / FH: Hurricane 3 National 38deg
Experimenting with weird combinations... And I may find a permanent setup.

tacky? The ones I've seen were only mildly tacky... perhaps you're seeing the initial tack that you get just after you remove the plastic, which wears off very quickly.

_________________
OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

It's been about 2 weeks I've actually had the G555 I just write down notes and initial impressions of every rubber, when I first take it out of the cover and first glue it on. It still is unbelievably tacky. Although the elastic sponge gives it that extra little zip, so it's not slow.

_________________
Stiga Offensive CR WRB ST/ BH: Renanos Bright Hard 2.0mm/ FH-???
Butterfly Korbel SK7 FL/ BH DHS Hurricane 3 Commercial/FH Gambler Outlaw 2.2mm
DHS CW-C/ BH: DHS G555 2.0mm/ FH: DHS Hurricane 3 Provincial 2.2mm
Nittaku Violin/ BH: Tenergy 64 / FH: Hurricane 3 National 38deg
Experimenting with weird combinations... And I may find a permanent setup.

I gave the G555 a run.

I didn't find it that tacky, more grippy, with quite good spin as the sponge is quite soft.

For me the sponge was too soft and with a simple drop of the ball onto the bat rebound was only about 1/4, where as the harder sponge rubber I was used to using give close to 1/2.

Therefore playing you have to give a lot of effort for any sort of decent speed, I didn't like that.

It did have good control blocking, pushing and chopping but for looping or driving on the bh the faster rubbers offered much more reward.
But for US$14 rubber I'd say you get what you pay for with this.

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SU1 : Blade: Stiga Carbonado 45 FH: DHS H3 max blk| BH: Donic Barracuda max red
SU2 : Blade: Joola Rossi Emotion FH: DHS H3 max blk | BH:Donic Barracuda max red