OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Donier is a brand of the small manufacturer of table-tennis equipment AS NTT [site is http://www.nttennis.com/]. Located in Estonia, a low-wages state in North-Eastern Europe, NTT’s prices are very low. Although its production methods are fairly modern, its output consists mostly of classic blades, like they were used in Europe (and coveted in China) in the 1970’s and 1980’s: flexible, moderate in speed, high in control, and very durable. The Donier Defensive blade I am about to review here is one of their finest achievements.

The Donier Defensive I tested is the old model [see http://www.ttdd.de/Dornier2.html] which currently is being replaced by a light-weight and modern-styled newer version [see http://www.nttennis.com/new/index.php?p ... 88&lang=en], but the two versions play much the same.
The blade weighs about 80-85 grams (new version 70-75 grams), measures 15.5 x 16.2 mm (regular oversize), has a grip 10.2 cm long which is very well made (the concave grip is rather slender and will suit small hands, the straight grip is a bit more robust with a circumference of 8.8 cm). It is a 5 ply wooden blade with a soft almost 4 mm thick centre ply, two very thin hard plies, and two 1 mm thick soft outer plies (abachi); total thickness 6.5 mm. The outer plies look vulnerable, but I have glued several different rubbers to it and removing them never tore loose any fibres (I used rubber glue, diluted about 2:1 with white spirit, both on the wood and the rubber). NTT rates speed 4, control 10.
In Europe the price for the old model was about 15 euro’s; the new model costs about 20 euro’s; the blade is a steal for that price.
Being extremely flexible, the blade has a soft feel and when contact is made with the ball you really feel the vibrations in your hand; but more importantly the blade has because of its flexibility different gears, in two ways. Firstly, on contact with the ball it acts like a spring – light contact will cause little backswing and harder contact will cause more. So, the rating of 4 is for passive play and light contact, but on hard contact and full swing the blade’s speed is around 6, that is, it then feels like a moderate all-round blade instead of a defensive blade. Secondly, because of its flexibility the blade is capable of producing massive amounts of backspin and topspin; a well-chopped ball will float with moderate speed and then suddenly fall dead out of the air, having lost almost all forward speed; a well-looped ball will curve over the net and then bounce very low, suddenly rushing off at high speed. This makes the blade hard to play against.
The Donier Defensive does very well with long pips. I used Saviga V, 0.5 mm, red, and Friendship 837, OX, black, which I always thought to be pretty ungrippy, rather neutral LPs, but on the Donier the pips gripped the ball as if I were playing with Curl P1R. With passive strokes spin-reversal was moderate, but with active pushes, chop-blocks and blocks, it was tremendous. Because of the low speed, placement is very accurate. Control is extremely high.
Backside rubbers are perhaps best used on thin sponge (1.6 mm or less). I tried 1.8 mm and found I lost too much feeling, so changed to 1.5 mm and liked it. As the blade produces topspin so easily, you don’t need thick sponge for attack, either. However, don’t expect to be able to attack with high speed – spin is your weapon with this blade.
All in all I think the Donier Defensive is suitable for an all-round defence style of play. It would be a cheap alternative for e.g. a Hallmark Strategy, Stiga Tube Defensive, or Donic Defplay Classic, and in my opinion it would outperform them at that.

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Without opponent, no match.

Thanks for the review Kees!

I've heard very little about Donier, they don't seem to promote their stuff very much... perhaps they don't have the money to do this.

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thanks for info kees,only yesterday i was looking at that blade .6.5 thickness may be too much for me though, i like the flex on the donic blade i am using,still might be worth a punt at that price,i like the look of the old one more btw

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Tsp Black Balsa 3.0 Tenergy 05 1.9 388d ox black

Haggisv wrote:
I think they are primarily targeting the Eastern European market: Poland, Baltic states, Russia etc. The concept of their old blades seems to fit the t.t. tradition of those countries. I am not sure there would be a market elsewhere for it, at least not at the moment, because in mainstream thought the highest importance is attached to speed and power, not to technique and tactics. But things seem to change; now there are also 3 fast Donier blades, one with carbon and balsa, one with balsa and other woods, both OFF+, and a wooden OFF blade [see http://www.ttnb.de/index.php?cat=c4_Donier-Donier.html for prices and ratings]. The carbon balsa frame is made of 5 wooden plies and 2 carbon plies: limba ("topspin" outer ply of 0.6 mm), then abachi ("control" ply, 1.5 mm), a carbon layer for rigidity, and a nice thick balsa core of 4.8 mm. It sounds like good stuff to me. There are also other indications that the manufacturer is "updating" the collection. NTT claims their APS system in new blades increases speed and control [http://www.nttennis.com/new/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=78&lang=en]:

Then there is BBS [http://www.nttennis.com/new/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=53&Itemid=79&lang=en ]:

And MCS [http://www.nttennis.com/new/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=54&Itemid=80&lang=en ]:

I guess these innovations are built into the new blades, which might or might not be better than the old ones because of it. Anyhow, Donier equipment is something to consider seriously. Its low prices are caused by the low wages in Estonia (less than a third of, for instance, German or Swedish average wages), but quality is at least as good as those of German or Swedish blades.

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Without opponent, no match.

Dazzler wrote:
As far as I know, Mark Koehler of ttdd.de still has a number of the old frames (straight grip only). You could ask him about it.
Despite the 6.5 mm thickness, the Donier is even a bit more flexible than the Donic, in my opinion. I have never felt a blade with more flex.

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Without opponent, no match.

Hello Kees,

will this blade be suitable for a chopblocking style similiar to Lo? thank you

Not precisely, Yori, since Lo uses a fast blade by all accounts. The Donier is very slow. Chop-blocking would not be the problem, but attacking with speed would; however, if you would glue a max tensor rubber to it, that might give enough speed - I haven't tried that.

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Without opponent, no match.

Hello Kees,

many thanks for your insight, my thought was since i am not as skilled as Lo, this blade may be suitable for a recreational player like me who wish to play a chopblocking style like Lo, the ability to generate lots of reversals with steady chopblocks to stay in a rally and to be able to smash/loop with placement when necessary.

ttdd.de says this is the slowest blade they carry. How does it compare to known slow blades like the TH White Spot?

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Hi Kees

I play the old defplay and was looking for a replacement. Possibly a little slower. I also have the defplay classic (with Balsa) but i don't like it. The donier could be a replacement. Why do you think it's better than the donic defplay classic?

Thanks

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brokkie

MNNB wrote:
With passive strokes it is quite a bit slower (it rates 4; the Joola 6). But as it is much more flexible than the TH WhS, on active strokes it is about as fast or faster. That takes some getting used to with chopping, for instance; when, with an LP, you chop "horizontally" (going mostly under the ball), the forward speed is almost nil (spin very high), but when you chop diagonally downward the forward speed is pretty much near normal for a def blade. It reminded me of the Tibhar Tibor COS-3, which is also very slow and very flexible (although not oversized).

Brokkie wrote:
I don't think it is better as such, but better in regard of the price which is less than half that of the Donic. Actually, I'm not so sure that there are blades which are inherently better than others, because so much depends on personal style; but as regular blades go, the Donier is of good quality and for the money you'd spend it would be a "best buy", I think.

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Without opponent, no match.

well Kees, you convinced me. I ordered the Donier Defense from ttdd together with a talon ox and a topenergy max.

I can't wait for it to arrive. I think my old defplay could b about the same speed. Playing it for more than 15 years somewhat made it slower i think.

Donier defense must be one of the slowest blades arround. If this doesn't work i'll start playing premades. They suppposted to be even slower.

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brokkie

Brokkie, once you get your blade in and use it a little post what you think of it. I am interested to see how it works in combination with the Talon and just to get another view point of this blade. Thanks...

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Donic Defplay Senso | Yasaka Mark V 2.0 | SL Dornenglanz OX

Donic Defplay Senso | Butterfly Sriver | Testing

Hi Dawg15

This week i received the new (version) donier defense blade with straight grip together with a talon black ox and a Topenergy soft red max.

My first impression was : WOW! what a quality. Kees was right. Very nicely made. Handle and feel are nice. Bouncing it a little it was somewhat faster than my old defplay i was playing for about 15-20 years. I tried a lot of combination frames (aurora, JZ speedchanger, donic alligator combi) trying to match the speed of my old frame but they always were to fast for my BH. I also tried the defplay classic senso. I didn't like the balsa springy feel for my backhand.

Yesterday i played with the new frame. And to be honest: i love it!
I have to get used to the lower throw of the blade but this is very nice. Chopping was a dream. Very low balls over the net. I was like it wasn't sensitive to spin. With the old frame sometimes balls popped up but this one keeps them low. It also gave a lot of spin. My opponents netted a lot of balls.

FH was also nice even though i changed blade and rubber at the same time as you can see below.

Attacking and blocking with the pips was something to get used to. Because of the low throw i netted the first 20 balls. I played mostly defense yesterday loving it

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brokkie

Nice! And thanks for the feedback, Brokkie.

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Without opponent, no match.