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PostPosted: 14 Aug 2019, 19:35 
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iskandar taib wrote:
Zverev wrote:
It's just spot on description of how the balls behave.
I concur with the sentiment as well - A SHODDY PRODUCT.
Not suitable for any purpose, training, machine, or what ever.

Complaining or not complaining... neither myself or anyone around here would ever buy Joola balls again... end of story


Uh, if you're using the training ball, well, that's a totally different ball anyway. It's like buying some of those Beer Pong balls you see on Amazon and complaining about them. Get some of the proper balls first, and THEN complain about them if they're no good.

Iskandar

Sorry, I am not sure I follow the logic...
It's like buying a car that doesn't work, and then saying "but it was cheap".
I don't expect it to be a great car, just expect it to work, point A to point B, you know....

I bought balls at Kmart, at Target, at BigW - they were cheap balls, didn't last long, but they were round.
These balls from Joola ARE NOT, so I consider them defective.
What I see happened is instead of throwing out the defective batch, Joola sold them cheap.

I have no doubt that their Prime balls are awesome, they are well known manufacturer....
They just got greedy in this case.

Anyway, it sounds like you dug your heals on the point, so I might as well retire.


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PostPosted: 14 Aug 2019, 19:55 
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At least Joola balls feels hard, imo butterfly balls feel the worst when compared to other balls. Other balls in the 40+ actually feel grainy and hard (think XuShaoFu, Nittaku, DHS) and then butterfly comes with this grand idea to reinvent the whole sport and make balls that feel soft, smooth, and light. This is how they are ruining he sport. Cuz the majority of other brands are at least consistent with each other; NOT BUTTERFLY THO

This is especially hard for me as a chopper because all of a sudden in a tourney, I am getting no forehand chops on the table, I am engaging too much into the sponge and it goes straight into the net.

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PostPosted: 14 Aug 2019, 21:48 
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No, it's like this. Practice balls are practice balls. They're rejects - the balls that don't pass QC are thrown into the practice ball bin to be sold cheap. There may even be entire production runs where the machines were set slightly off that might end up in the practice ball bin. Which is why they wobble and occasionally bounce funny. They're meant to be used by the hundreds, and are sold cheap so that when they get stepped on and otherwise abused no one really cares. And in normal club use they get stepped on by the hundreds. If you pay for practice balls you get practice balls. No point in writing to Joola, they'll shrug their shoulders and tell you that if you want better quality balls then buy better quality balls. No one else here is discussing practice balls, they're all talking about tournament grade ABS balls, and apparently there are some people who don't like them. This is a BIG DEAL. Practice balls are not an issue, but if the tournament grade balls are substandard, then Joola better sit up and take notice, they can't just shrug it off. Practice ball quality? Meh. Not unless big clubs who buy the things by the thousand are having trouble with them getting stuck in their robots, that is... :lol: Casual players on Amazon? Naah.. Most wouldn't care. Some probably even use Beer Pong balls and wouldn't know the difference.

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PostPosted: 15 Aug 2019, 08:20 
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No worries.
Not a problem anymore.
The balls are in the bin, we switched to even cheaper balls of unnamed brand, but they are round and their centre of gravity matches the geometrical one.
No more Joola training balls.

Switching the topic... something about Mr Casual Player buying balls at Amazon.
I think he's fairly important to Joola bottom line.

Where Joola's revenues are coming from?
Competitions? Unlikely. They actually spend money there.
Big players? Nah. They actually spend money to sponsor them.

IMO, their bottom line rests on many thousands casual players and EJs.
I would suggest to take care.


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PostPosted: 15 Aug 2019, 11:17 
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He might be. So is the casual player who buys bats at Wal-Mart. However, he doesn't really care all that much about quality anyway, nor does he know what he's missing, so whether the balls (or bats) are junk or not, he'll still buy them. You see this here, too - you've got shops that sell expensive sports equipment (you know, expensive running shoes, golf clubs, badminton gear) with a small rack of Donic or Schildkrot or Sunflex or Dunlop bats. Or perhaps even Butterfly Addoys. And they're not cheap - sometimes as much as $30 or $40 each, in fancy packaging, "endorsed" by, say, Waldner, with his picture on the package. People who haven't been exposed to Table Tennis Enthusiasm will buy them. No one on this forum would use such bats - they're heavy, terrible rubber with little spin, etc. Not to mention the topsheets come off in a couple of months. But these companies sell container loads of them all the same - the general public probably thinks they're the cat's meow as far as table tennis bats go.

It's weird. Brands like Joola and Stiga and Schildkrot (and Butterfly!!) sell enthusiast-grade stuff, which is the stuff we buy. (I'm not going to say pro-level stuff, pros mainly buy high end Stiga-Butterfly-DHS blades, Tenergy and little else.. :lol: ) They don't make it themselves, they get OEMs to make it for them, a lot comes out of China although a lot is made in Europe. Yet they also sell supermarket-quality stuff. So do Chinese companies, but the supermarket/bookstore stuff is sold under different brand names. (Except for Double Fish..) Why do they do it? Because there's a vast market for the junk.Probably several times what the enthusiast market is. And for some reason they think the general public recognizes the brand name "Joola" as selling high grade equipment (which they do). But junk is junk, improving it costs money, the people who buy it don't know the difference anyway while the people who do don't buy it anyhow, so writing letters to Donic about how bad their practice balls are is.. well, it's a little amusing, actually.

If you haven't already, try some GOOD balls. Get some DHS D40+, since almost everyone agrees these are really good balls:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32917657218.html (I've bought from these guys before. And the price isn't much more than what you'd pay for Joola practice balls.)

And to be honest - if you HAVEN'T tried these already, if all you've been using in the past was cheap balls off Amazon, then you really don't know what you're talking about, what the difference is.

Iskandar


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PostPosted: 15 Aug 2019, 14:46 
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TraditionalTradesman wrote:
I am definitely talking about the plastic balls. I have a box of them, and they're clearly the ABS balls. And they are AWFUL for all the reasons described above! I don't have these issues with the DHS balls or any other ABS balls.


These?

Image

I'm thinking of buying a few, just to see how bad (or how good) they are:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33015981618.html

Unfortunately they only come in white. And they're a mite expensive compared to the DHS D40+. Fortunately the same shop sells the bi-color DHS D40+ and I need some more of them so I can order some at the same time. Might also get a few Double Fish V40+ (there's some with the cool World Cup logo on the back..).

Iskandar


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PostPosted: 15 Aug 2019, 17:56 
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iskandar taib wrote:


If you haven't already, try some GOOD balls. Get some DHS D40+, since almost everyone agrees these are really good balls:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32917657218.html (I've bought from these guys before. And the price isn't much more than what you'd pay for Joola practice balls.)

And to be honest - if you HAVEN'T tried these already, if all you've been using in the past was cheap balls off Amazon, then you really don't know what you're talking about, what the difference is.

Iskandar


Funny, those are exactly balls I have ordered a week or so ago, when we discovered the Joola balls were unplayable.
Also ordered some Double Fish balls for interest sake.

These Joola training balls have center of gravity shifted from geometrical one.
They are wobbling around when spinning.
All time of my my experience of playing with cheap crappy balls I never come across that.
Does anyone has to be an ball expert to state that? Nope.


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PostPosted: 15 Aug 2019, 21:54 
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Actually, a lot of the one and two star balls they sell at table tennis shops (which I expect would be better than the Joola training balls) wobble to some degree. In the past (1970s, 1980s), at major tournaments pros would make a ritual of spinning balls before the game to choose the best ball.. back then the Nittaku and TSP 3 stars were supposed to be the best balls, bar none (even better than today) yet they still insisted on doing this. Maybe it was for show, but maybe even those balls wobbled.

I think you'd really enjoy the D40+ balls. If you've NEVER played with competition grade 3 star balls they're VERY DIFFERENT from cheap grocery store balls, which are usually underweight and don't bounce very well. If you've never played on a tournament grade TABLE, you'd also be amazed at how nice they are to play on compared to most basement/rec room grade tables.

Iskandar


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PostPosted: 16 Aug 2019, 07:54 
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iskandar taib wrote:
Actually, a lot of the one and two star balls they sell at table tennis shops (which I expect would be better than the Joola training balls) wobble to some degree. In the past (1970s, 1980s), at major tournaments pros would make a ritual of spinning balls before the game to choose the best ball.. back then the Nittaku and TSP 3 stars were supposed to be the best balls, bar none (even better than today) yet they still insisted on doing this. Maybe it was for show, but maybe even those balls wobbled.

I think you'd really enjoy the D40+ balls. If you've NEVER played with competition grade 3 star balls they're VERY DIFFERENT from cheap grocery store balls, which are usually underweight and don't bounce very well. If you've never played on a tournament grade TABLE, you'd also be amazed at how nice they are to play on compared to most basement/rec room grade tables.

Iskandar


I missed all the fun with wobbling balls then.
Indeed, in the package some wobbled less than others.
It's just boys refused to play with them anymore after first one out wobbled like crazy.

Never even touched a competition table.
Touched the one they had at Costco, which is way better that the one we play on.
So you see, if you add wobbly balls into the mix, the whole experience can drive you nuts.

It's like our lawn tennis comp organisers sometimes bring flat balls to the Saturday comp.
When I complain they say that the balls would do as we are pro players or something.
To what I say that I do not have enough skills to play with bad equipment.
I need good racket, good strings at the right tension and the fresh balls.
Then there is possibility of fun.

Any of that is missing I might as well go home, pop on my mountain bike and save frustration.


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PostPosted: 13 Sep 2019, 06:31 
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Zverev wrote:
It's like our lawn tennis comp organisers sometimes bring flat balls to the Saturday comp.
When I complain they say that the balls would do as we are pro players or something.
To what I say that I do not have enough skills to play with bad equipment.
I need good racket, good strings at the right tension and the fresh balls.
Then there is possibility of fun.


The thing is, buying and playing with bargain cheap balls from Amazon is like intentionally playing with flat balls in tennis. Only thing is you don't realize it yet. Even if they don't wobble, they're usually too light, and don't bounce high enough. I don't think any of the others here (especially those who are complaining about ABS balls "having less spin") would ever consider playing with cheap balls, because they know the difference. If there is something table tennis players are very sensitive to, it's bad balls. They'll argue about minor differences between brands of 3 star balls, about which work with what playing styles, but the cheap balls? They're in a totally different class when it comes to playing properties.

Incidentally, I got my shipment of balls in earlier this week. Aside from the two color D40+, I got some Double Fish V40+ and a dozen of the Joola Super ABS.

The V40+ is very, very subtly different from the D40+ (we've been playing with some orange ones the last few weeks). Not sure what to say about it - it plays just fine, it's just the sound, perhaps, is very slightly different. The Joola balls? Yes, the same balls that have been getting a lot of hate recently from various posters here. Or maybe they were actually criticizing older Joola balls. Because these are, as far as anyone here can tell, identical to the DHS D40+. Sound the same, bounce the same, the only difference is the logo (and that they're white, and there's no orange version out yet). Yes, they also do cost considerably more, which means I'm not going to buy any more (orange balls or two color balls are better for our venue anyhow).

Iskandar


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PostPosted: 13 Sep 2019, 18:29 
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We purchased so many balls now, of different brands... none of Joola :)
There is just not enough of playing time to get through them all... they will last few years at the rate we break them


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PostPosted: 18 Jan 2020, 04:35 
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I had a further opportunity recently to confirm that glaring awfulness of Joola's 3-star "prime" ABS balls.

During a recent practice session with my regular practice partner, an almost-2300 looper (who also hates the Joola ball because of its unpredictable trajectories), we used both the Joola ABS ball and the Nittaku ABS ball. What happened is this. We were using the Joola ball, and both of us were getting annoyed with it. He'd often mistime loops because of the ball's unpredictable dips and swerve's, while with blocks, I'd run into this issue: if I blocked early, right off the bounce, the ball would go into the net. If I waited to block a bit later, then the unpredictable trajectory of the ball after the bounce would result in frequent errors. So we got fed up and decided to switch to the Nittaku just to see what would happen. It was like magic. Suddenly all his loops were going on the table, and all my blocks were coming back on the table. The length/quality of our rallies increased by a factor of five. Conclusion: Joola should be utterly embarrassed by this ball, and it needs to go back to the drawing board and reissue an ABS ball that doesn't have these problems.

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PostPosted: 04 Mar 2020, 02:56 
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So, for anyone who cares, I'm glad to report that I wasn't imagining how bad the Joola "prime" balls were. Heard from a guy who is a distributor for Joola in the U.S. yesterday, and he said that he and Joola had received a massive number of complaints about their balls, and so they released a new version. I had a chance to practice with that new version yesterday, and it was a world of difference. No weird dips and balls stopping dead in their tracks or shooting off wildly sideways with just a bit of sidespin. The quality of our rallies was worlds better because we weren't whiffing or mishitting balls due to the old Joola ball's bizarre flight path. Anyway, I'm glad they seem to have recognized and solved the problem and that the new balls are being distributed now.

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PostPosted: 04 Mar 2020, 03:03 
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Just curious. Which are the new version? The green-label ABS? How do you tell them apart from the old ones? The ones I bought last August must've been the new version, I can't tell the difference between it and the DHS D40+. We don't use them much because they're white, we need orange balls where I play. I actually like the bi-color ones.

Iskandar


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PostPosted: 04 Mar 2020, 03:17 
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Not sure if there's a difference in appearance. When we were practicing yesterday, we compared the look of the old crazy-bouncing Joola Prime ABS 40+ balls and the look of the new regular-bouncing Joola Prime ABS 40+ balls, and couldn't see a clear difference, but my understanding is that they tweaked the manufacturing process in some way that fixed the issues people were seeing and complaining about. If I get any more intelligence on this, I will pass it along.

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III. Re-Impact Smart; FH: TSP Spinpips RED 2.1mm; BH: Dr. Neubauer Gangster OX
IV. Sauer & Troger Firestarter; FH: Spinlord Waran 1.8mm; BH: Giant Dragon Snowflake OX


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