OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Has anyone tried and compared both blades before?

I currently use the Darker Esteem and I'm curious about the 7p-2a version as it is an all-wood all-hinoki=ply as compared to the Esteem where it is just the top ply that is hinoki.

Is the 7p-2a faster than the Esteem? Is it "softer"? By softer i'm interested in the "flexibility" of the blade. Is it more stiff?

Before I used the Esteem I was using a Viscaria. The viscaria is a good blade but it has a feeling of great "flex" like the wood itself is soft or bends. It's good for looping and top spins but I find it very hard when I do passive blocks. I feel the blade "flexes" when the ball hits and I'm not that skilled to control the ball direction when the racket affects it a bit.

The Esteem compared to the Viscaria is more stiff but it doesn't lose the good feeling for top spins and loops. However the bouncy-ness of the Esteem is a bit weird imho. Not a bad-kind of weird. It's a carbon blade but it's not too bouncy. The services that I previously do that normally goes long and high on the net is now low on the net and very very short when I use the Esteem.

The reason I'm eye-ing the 7p-2a is i'm looking for a bit of an in-betweener. I still like the softness of the esteem for top spins. But I'd like it just a tiny bit more powerful.

I can't answer your questions, but I do own a 7p-2a. It's a thinnish 7 ply hinoki blade which is rather light. A bit slow compared to other blades I've tried, which is good. Last time I played with it was years ago so I don't remember much. Maybe I should bring it out and try it again. QUITE expensive.

I doubt the Viscaria is actually "flexing", it's got carbon-arylate layers in it that would prevent that from happening. It's probably a feel thing, like many things are in table tennis.

Iskandar