OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Tibhar have just released a hard version of MX-P: the same topsheet but the sponge hardness of 50 degrees instead of 47.5.
They also say that the new sponge is fine-pored as opposed to the large-pored old one, and the new rubber is more "forward and direct".

What do you think? Will MX-P Hard play like Chinese rubbers but for the price twice as high?

Are you sure they haven't been selling it all this while as this?

https://www.tenryu.com.my/store/Tibhar- ... =907&in=11



It makes you wonder, actually, since it's the "National version", WHICH National team this was for. Kiribati? (I've heard China. That IS a German flag on the front, of course, but we all know Boll and Ovtcharov use the Japanese stuff..)

So who among the top 50 players in the world uses it? Samsonov?

Iskandar

I remember reading somewhere that those German flag packages were not genuine.

If it's sold by Tenryu, it's genuine.

I did some digging. Yeah, apparently there are some people who say it's fake but there will always be people who will say something is fake.. It's apparently listed on Tibhar's China web site:

http://www.tibhar-cf.com/html/cpzs/tj/580.html

And yes, it comes in both 47.5 and 50 degrees. So the Hard stuff been around for a while. At least since 2014.

Iskandar

The original MXP is fast as it is... and it says that MXP 50 is even faster. While it will be like a rocket on say a Viscaria or TBS, it should work quite nicely on a defensive blade. Of course forget about chopping, this is for the folks who play an aggressive defensive style.

_________________
Attackers: "All pips players are cheaters who can't loop, move, or read spin"
Me: I beg your pardon?

Hopefully, the harder sponge will reduce the bounciness in the short play while maintaining the speed on hard strokes and perhaps even improving it on very hard ones.
I'd also hope they were able to fix that rather annoying feature of the MX-P when the ball would sometimes be catapulted by the sponge in an uncontrolled fashion.

I would be very eager to try out MX-P Hard if I was still using the original version and wasn't so much into Chinese rubbers which are about twice as cheap while having a great short game and more than enough power when bigger strokes are applied.

I'm not so sure an even harder version will be popular, because most people feel it's quite hard already.

There's been other products only released in China by Tibhar, the Hybrid K1 is another. The Chinese Tibhar distributor buys the sole rights to these rubbers (perhaps for a fixed number of years only), so people can only buy it from the Chinese distributor. I guess if there is demand, and the exclusivity expires, they can release to thr rest of the market.
Or perhaps it's just in response to the release of Tenergy 05 Hard.

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I wonder about why it's necessary for Tibhar to restrict certain products to the Chinese market. It's not going to improve the market share or sales of said product on the Chinese market after all, why would the Chinese care if people outside China could or could not buy it? One reason I can think of (which SHOULDN'T apply to the special German-flag MX-P) is that (some) China-only products are of relatively low quality or Made In China and might damage the brand if sold outside China - Yasaka ZAP and New Era come to mind (they're OK Chinese rubbers but might be an embarrassment to Yasaka if it's sold in, say, Japan). It would be true that the German-flag MX-P would sell much better in China than it would overseas, if the Chinese are as obsessed with special "National" and "Pro" versions of rubbers as we've been told they are - something that costs a lot more than regular MX-P just because it's labeled "National" probably wouldn't sell all that well overseas, but I still don't see a reason to keep it exclusively to the Chinese market.

Iskandar

There were several lengthy posts about this topic by a German shopowner/coach with a lot of insight into Tibhar:
https://forum.tt-news.de/showthread.php?t=323629&page=7
If you use deepl.com to translate it will be readable (better than google translate).

The gist of it is that there are many, many variants of the evolution rubbers, and the sponsored players can select them all (sponge hardness between 37.5° and 55° in steps of 2.5 and three different pore sizes). This would be too much for dealers to handle and also wouldn't be profitable for Tibhar, so they selected a few versions that were most popular with their test players.
The Chinese distributor orders a huge bulk of his special versions, and they are shipped to China directly. I guess Tibhar thinks they wouldn't be popular enough elsewhere for them to risk the cost of storage/distribution, because once they sell them officially, they need to ensure their availability, or else players will start to complain.

When someone asks him if he can get one of the Chinese versions, the dealer says that they are all in China and he could get some when a new batch is produced at some point in the future, but this will only be a fixed amount, because then the entire production is shipped to China, and new ones will not be produced until the Chinese distributor orders new ones.

I guess that makes sense. It's definitely true that adding options adds stocking and other headaches. And if people actually want some they can order from Chinese distributors. These special versions are designed to sell for very high prices in China by claiming to be "pro" versions" so they're not much of a bargain anyhow.

One wonders if what applies to MX-P for pros also applies to Tenergy 05 - there are supposed "pro sheets" that are only available through Chinese purveyors of "National" H3 rubbers. Supposedly ordered by the Chinese National Team for their players - but one wonders if the likes of Boll and Ovtcharov use the same retail packaged stuff the rest of us have to do with.

Iskandar

If anyone here speaks Korean, there is a new video out.
Can someone translate this please?

_________________
Attackers: "All pips players are cheaters who can't loop, move, or read spin"
Me: I beg your pardon?

Looks like he says "No good" at 2:07.

Here is the same video, translated with english subtitles.. the person reviewing the rubber knows a thing or two about table tennis

_________________
Attackers: "All pips players are cheaters who can't loop, move, or read spin"
Me: I beg your pardon?

Can you trust people in Nexy T-shirts reviewing a rival brand of rubber?

Oh wait.. that's Yoo Nam Kyu. Yeah, he surely does know a thing or two...

Iskandar

What's to translate?

Iskandar