Reviews by qvoliszz

First of all the blade is 3+2 layered, not 5+2 as mentioned in the product description. A very thin 5,6 mm blade with a hollowed handle (Senso handle). Despite it is a carbon blade, it has a very nice feel. It is an agressive allround looping blade with outstanding control. I have tried 3 of the m and the production of the blades are quite similar, only minor differences in speed. It has a softer touch and a spin-elastic construction. Ideal for nearly all european rubbers, I have tried it with tenergy 05, bluefire M3, JP3, JP1, and even MAXXX 500. When the FH and the BH rubbers are the same, the blade vibrates very pleasingly. But if you play a hard FH rubber with soft BH rubber, the blade begins to resonate disturbingly. With nearly every rubber, this blade is very spinny.

Recommended for every shot type with spin, but note that the blade lacks the power for smash hits. So this is a problem when flicking over the table, not stiff enough to generate the required speed. Also the counterspins from mid distance are weak, many of them will fall into the net. Close to the table this is a looping monster with very good control. Dropshots are very nice, this blade has a very good feedback vibration, absolutely not disturbing, when the blade is symmetrical. If the blade is asymetric I found that the JP01 is the hardest rubber, which can be played if you have a softer rubber on the other side. If you use a harder rubber it will feel dead, you have to hit really hard to engage the sponge of the rubber, and the blade will vibrate very disturbingly.

Because of the hollowed handle many users complain about the head heavyness. For me The best setup was JP1 FH and M3 BH and the weight was 180g and moderately head heavy which helped me to do most of my BH loops and flicks with huge spin. This way the vibration was a bit higher than normal, but playable.

So I really loved this blade, I had to narrow the blade's neck because it was wide for me and I could not grab the handle well. Quality product, very good for old style european looping, agressive allroundish game with nice blocks and clever play.

This year (2015) the manufacturer came out with straight handle version too, which is a bit bigger then the original flared version. Similar like the innerforce series straight handle. So the straight handle version has a bit wider connection between the handle and the blade which results in less vibration and just a bit stiffer feel and comfortable to male / bigger handed players.


I tested the flared version. The blade is a quality product, nice finish and design. Small chinese style handle, even small for my girlfriend. I tested the blade with Donic Bluefire JP01 on FH and JP03 on BH.


The blade has a sorft touch and a nice woody feel, but not much vibrations. Speed is around ALL+/OFF-, but because of the soft touch and the bit tacky JP sheets feels ALL+. The blade is very linear in terms of speed, with high dwelltime gives inormous control. This blade is a looping blade smashes are only good close to the table, midrange strokes are very weak. Looping is very efficient even in midrange, because of the high dwelltime every type of topspin play can be achieved. Spinning up heavily chopped balls are piece of cake. Counterloops are fine. The other big thing is dropshots and drop pounches. These defensive elements can be preformed with very good control and nice speed.


My girlfriend is using this blade at the moment and I recognised, that her loops became stable, with this blade she plays more consistent.
Overall: very good blade for looping and close to the table. Ideal for girls who play counterhit game but want to loop, strategy ALL/OFF-, quality product.
Bit small handle, costs a bit much.

I ordered two pairs of this rubber. The black one was 36 degrees hard and the red was 38. So this meant the red will go for forhand and the black for backhand.

Actually the rubber plays very good for this price, quite linear, there are some occasional variations. Spin is very nice, with good technique it is enormous. Speed is slow. I recommend this rubber for beginners, because this rubber needs to be swinged to actually work. But on higher level this rubber is no option.

Actually I boosted my rubbers, with a lot of oil. So when boosted speed was a bit slower than T05Fx, control was still decent, and spin was better, but still required good technique.
I tried many chinese euro style rubbers and they do have one thing in common, their sponge is not so springy as the modern ESN rubbers, so you have to alter your looping stroke a bit. Use a bit more opened angle and a bit more pushing when looping to engage the sponge harder with the ball and you wil get your fine loops.

When boosted this rubber preformes quite well and it definetly worth the price and very suitable for amateur competition level or even a for intermediate competitions.

The previous reviews are very detailed, but I would like to add some missing things.

The rubber is not or should not be labeled heavy. Actually modern attacking rubbers are nearly at the same weight, which is 0.24 grams per square milimeter in max thickness. This is totally true to Evolution MX-P, Tenergy 05, Xiom Omega IV Pro, Bluefire M1, Acuda S1 Turbo ... (actual values may vary between 0.238-0.250 g/mm2)

This rubber is a mixture of the Bluefire M2 sponge with a semi chinese topsheet like TinArc 3 (a bit softer than that). This properties give this sheet a very controlled and very linear behaviour. Tolerance for mistakes and incoming spin read is outstanding.

Boosting the rubber with oil or other stuff makes it even faster and spinnier without negative effect. The original sheet smells from some sort of belgian booster, so after a mounth I reapplied booster to restore the original size.

Durability is outstanding, no abrasions. I clean my sheet after every training and it still preformes well (90-95%) after 3 mounths (120 hours overall).

Great blade for precision play. Loops, smashes and drives are good and blocking is great. I play it with JOOLA Maxxx 500 on both sides. Very good. I can only recommend it to advanced players.


Joola MAXXX 500 was too hard for this blade and I switched to Bluefire JP1 and M3, then changed the M3 to Tibhar MX-P. Then changed to JP01 and MX-P.
This is a modern type loopng blade, quite stiff and the koto outer wood ply is a bit hard for me, but I can get used to it. This blade needs fast and short moves to generate agressive and fast loops, and the loops become quite effective. Old style big arm swing loops are possible too but this blade does not like that, there isn't that much dwell time for that type of stroke. If you love the tempo and the characteristics but want a little softer touch try Tibhar RedCypress.

My problem with this blade was, that I bought in with flared handle. The neck of the handle was very narrow so the blade vibrated much, annoyingly. I also tried the blade with straight handle with T05 on both sides and the vibration was gone mostly, only a nice faint of woody vibration was present. As far as I know and I experienced, the Tenergy rubbers absorb many vibrations, and numben the blade. Actually I don't teally like this, but in this particular case it was a good and a sad thing, this blade only feels good with Tenergy or a similar resonation swelling rubber.

My second problem was weight distribution. T05 in max thickness has an average weight of 0,24g/sq mm. Both Bluefire JP01 and Tibhar MX-P has the same average weight. So besides the resonation there should not be any disturbing in the weight distribution of the blade. The blade was 85,7g and the cut rubbers were around 47g each. When glued togerther the blade had the weight center near my index finger, so nearly at the top of the handle. The blade was a bit more than 190g assembled. Heavy blades are good when they are a bit head heavy, to help the player utilise the weight of the blade in a swing. Well this blade was nearly centered so it would not rotate with my wrist, making backhand swings requre an effort and time consuming. Latter nearly resulted in an injury, when you want to snap and twist your wrist to get a fast counterloop and the blade won't turn with your hand, and you twist your hand in unusual and painful way.

So buy it with Tenergy and straight handle. A very nice OFF blade, with woody feel.

This blade from butterfly is a bullet hitter if you have a strong wrist. First of all the packaging is the usual blue paper box from butterfly. The handle on my model is straight, quite small in diameter, so girls can have a good grip on it too.

Without rubbers the resonation of the blade is quite high, but fine, no harsh vibrations. Sound is quite pitched, so it is definetly an OFF+ blade.
Testing rubbers were chosen to be Bluefire M2 on both sides, to compensate for the low throw of the blade, but I also tried it with T80.

Because of the inner fibre Tamca5000 composite layer, this blade is a speed hitter when hitting directly. The blade is quite stiff and hard, but retains a nice woody feel. Looping is nice, controllable, because the composite layer is on the core veener and does not interfere much with the brush. So I may say, that this blade is fast when hitting (OFF+), but slower when looping (OFF).

Hits and counterhits are very direct and kind of flat, but nicely controlled without effort. Actually I found it hard to hit the ball long, but I only play soft OFF/OFF- blades usually.
Looping is great, but the stiffness bothers me a bit, I like spin elastic blades. The arc of the ball is agressive, but quite high to give you safety. Counterlooping is very consistent, you have more than enough power to counter any attack even from the dressing room.
Dropshots are a bit hard, because the blade is fast and you must develope a fine touch for this stroke or your shots will fly away.

Pair this blade with higher throw rubbers to acieve a nice setup.
I see this blade as a counterhit-smash blade, whith a bit of a fine touch to loop. So you can do opening loops, then wipe your opponent from the table with powerful smashes. Mostly for fact paced women or recreational bullet hitter/bragger type of play.

Chinese rubber from Three Sword comes in a nice packaging. Rubber has a tipical chinese smell/odour of vulcanised rubber.
Sponge is similar to open pored, but the bigger bubbles are not so frequent and uniform. So it is like the Bluefire M series sponge with less bubbles, colour is faint red. Rubber surface is slightly tacky just like Tenergy, not like Bluefire JP series.

Just tested it for the third time. I found it very slow, so I boosted it with oil. The rubber was light, uncut (166x171) black was 56g and the red was 60g. I boosted it with oil to give it more speed, boosted the sponge (4 layers) and the rubber sheet (2 layers) too.

In several techniques I find this rubber similar to ESN type rubbers, that have great spin and control: dropshot, loop, counterhit, counterloop, chops. Opening loops are a bit wierd, often too low, when trying to lift heavy underspin balls. Overall attacking performance is quite reliable, counterattacking is very easy.

Handling weakly chopped balls and spinless balls is a bit harder than ESN rubbers, this rubber does not tolerate mistakes at these shots: drive, opening loop, service recieve. I found out, that in the lower range of speed, the incoming balls tend to climb the rubber if weak force is applied to get the ball back. In the same situation, when more force is applied and the touch is not soft, the hit becomes direct and consistent.

The pore size is a bit uneven as said before, this leads to a non-linear bite effect, when looping or hitting. Similar to Bluefire M series, but less pronounced.

If we look at the price tag it is a cheap rubber. Compared to entry level or hobby rubbers from different manufacturers, this rubber is far-far better. Boosted rubber is even comparable with high-end rubbers. I did not haves to adjust much on my game, because this rubber works.
Since it is no ITTF rubber, I would recommend it for training purposes. It can be considered an alternative to Tenergy 64 when boosted. I train with this rubber, and I will go to camp with this rubber to hit the hell out of it in multiball or 1 on 1 excerscises.

Some pictures:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1l927dwwEKqfkNYTkM2Z0dRRFhsM2EwSU4tRU5mcUo0cUs0YXZaQmpkbTZqelU0SHpqT0k&authuser=0

I got my 3 ball pack from the official retailer in my country. Well 2 from the three balls broke after two edge hit, not cracked, but exploded. So, less then two hour for a single ball. The third one was less round and 'lived' 5 hours. The surface remained grippy and the playing characteristics did not change. Overall they remade the Butterfly 3star cell ball from poly, with a bit less speed. Well as far as durability is concenrned I would not buy this ball.

Update!
A new series of poly balls came out called Easyball and they improved a lot. Well it definetly plays like a poly ball, but it is very durable and round, not perfectly round. Butterfly dismissed the feeling to gain durability.

I was suprized, why is there no review on this blade, so I ordered one. As from a chinese manufacturer I set my standards for a wider range, as I expect a bit bigger variety in the production of a blade type. This particular V-16 blade tries to be a substitute of the famous Michael Maze blade from Butterfly. Let's see. Weight should be around 85 mine is 92,4. Thickness should be 5,9 mm, mine is 5,94 mm. I measured the veeners under a microscope and they are quite uniform thick at the head of the blade, there is a bigger variety at the handle. The surface veener was lacques and repolished in the factory, nice. The whole composition of the blade and the materials used seems a quality work. No trimming of carbon and kevlar fibers on the edges. So manufacturing seems nice, even in weight department Butterfly can vary 4g from the given value. Tempo and general sound of the blade seems an OFF+ blade, when hitting a ball with a naked blade, or resonating it on your skull.

Testing the blade with rubbers, I paired it with a boosted pair of Three Sword Red Dragon non ITTF rubbers. This setup resulted in an OFF racket with fine touch. The blade has a nice feeling. Ball feedback is really good and scales well with power. The soft touch is similar like the real Maze blade. The speed I think is a bit more, but it is very linear and adjustable. Dropping is piece of cake no matter if it is passive or punch drop. Looping is very dinamic with a fine touch. When smashing you can feel the ball and you can achieve very good kill shots. Ball placement is quite easy, the blade is a bit bouncy, but the rubber slows it to minimum. I believe both hard sponge rubbers and soft sponge rubbers are good for this blade. [/FONT]
Many people say that they bought different pieces of the same model, well I believe mine is a bit heavier and a bit faster, then the average ideal model. Handle is very nice similar to the Timo Boll series.

Overall all I can say this blade is a very nice clone of Michael Maze, around 80-90%. The wood is the same as in MM, but the arylate-carbon is switched to kevlar-carbon, which resonates a bit more, which overall compensates the general numb feel of the yinhe blades. Buy this blade and you won't regret it. Mid distance looper/attacker blade that has a fine touch.

I was very happy to buy this blade. I have also tested it with an official butterfly importer and sportsman and he admitted, that this blade is a good Boll Spirit clone. Maybe there is a bigger variation in production or some reviewers are too fanatic butterfly lovers, to negatively describe this blade. I believe this is a clone with 85-90% identity. It does vibrate only a bit more, because it contains karbon+kevlar instead of arylate carbon. Arylate absorbs much of the vibrations. This blade has a soft touch works well with medium to hard rubbers. Looping is easy, speed is a bit more than Timo Boll W5. Very precise blade with little vibration. Lifting is very nice, pushes drives smashes are powerful, but very controlled. I use it with Tibhar MX-P and Bluefire M2 on BH. The assembly of the blade is good. I can only recommend and hope that all buyers and owners recieve the same quality that I have.

But to be honest I tried Donic, and three Butterfly blades. Each blade was an expensive competition blade and found out that the Donic and Butterfly manufacturing can easily vary at least a tempo in speed, 7-8 gr in total weight. I tried a spirit with 88g and one with 81g, and a Maze passion with ALL+ and OFF speed, a Zhang Jike with OFF and OFF- characteristics and a Donic Waldner Senso Carbon blade with ALL speed and OFF- speed. So don't say if you buy two Yinhe blades that there is no continuity or identity in a product line, but there are variations, just as in other world famous brands.

Updat! 2017. I had to revert back to this blade from Waldner WC '89, because I switched to Donic Bluestorm Z2, which was lightning fast for me. Official Donic catalogue claims Z2 is slower than M1, but that is a lie, they have the exact same sponge... Since Z2 is more bouncier and faster I went back to my old Yinhe Venus 14. I have tried this blade with MX-S, MX-P, TinArc, EL-P, M1, M2 and now with Z2 on both sides. It does work well with these rubbers and till this day noone said that my blade is cr@p. In Europe players and customers believe, that quality has a price. That is why Butterfly can sell it's equipment with beefy price tags. When they noticed my new blade, because of the yellow handle, they immediately asked, what is that, it looks fancy. I showed them and seen their disgust, ohh its not Butterfly... But when they played with it, some of them admitted that this blade is good. Even a well respected coach tried my blade and only said two thngs: "This blade has a good feeling, don't sell it.".
Reverting back to the blade took 2-3 weeks, but now I can say, that this is a fine OFF-/OFF blade with that limba feel. Since Z2 and the karbokev do not absorb as much vibrations as T05 and ALC, I have much better feedback of my shots. My blade is 87,53 gramms.
Only one downside is the handle. It is a bit bulky, so I had to sandaper it to get it a bit flatter. Also it does not absorb sweat, instead of Waldner WC '89, so I have to dry my hands more often. But I had once a Venus 16 and it had a perfect flat Flared handle, variations in the product line.

I upgraded from M3 to M2, I have used it on both sides, I also boosted one of them, and used one unboosted too.
There where some comparisons on other sites with T05. Well I only can confirm that the speed is similar, and the spin in loops (counter, openig, normal) are similar too. But I don't personally think that this rubber is a Tenergy substitute.
M2 has a bit lower throw than M3 but still high. It seems to be less springy. Smashes and hits are way better then T05, the rubber feels more controlled because the longer dwell time. This rubber is a very good rubber for attacking game from ALL+-to OFF characteristics. The sheet works well on spin elastic to hard blades. On harder blades it feels a bit more mushy. Boosting this rubber can give more speed, springiness and spin, but out of the package it contains a factory tuning. Also there is a slight loss in control if you boost. The red topsheet is chemically a bit less stable, so after 200 hours the rubber topsheet degrades and dissolves/melts. This process is speeded up by booostering, hand swet and hard repetivite pressures on the same spot of the rubber. The black topsheets last longer. So note that if you boost this rubber and you are a swetty person this rubber will last only 6 months in red colour. Unboosted black rubbers can be with you for 300 hours of play.
On spin elastic blades better for BH, on hard blades both sides.

I used this rubber on a Yinhe Venus 16 (BH), Yinhe Venus 14 (BH), Maze Passion (FH-BH), Timo Boll ALL (FH), Donic Waldner Senso Carbon (FH-BH), Donic Waldner World Champion 89' OFF (FH-BH), the last ony is my currect setup. Also tried it on Butterfly Zhang Yike, Donic Ovtcharov Senso Soft Carbon, Yinhe Venus 13 and Butterfly Schlager precision. After so many blades I can state that this rubber requires a stiff ALL+ or faster blade, or esle it feels hard. The sponge hardness is aroun 44 degrees european, the average weight in max thickness is 0,22 g/mm2 so it is considered medium-heavy like all attacking rubbers, but lighter then Tenergy, Evolution, Rakza (0,24 g/mm2). On spin elastic blades the rubber works fine.

This rubber is an attacking rubber. Donic says it is a bit more direct and smash oriented, (the JP series is more spin oriented), but I found, that the spin capabilities of this rubber is very good. This is my favourite backhand rubber. Anyone who feels this rubber is uncontrollable or too fast, try the slower M3 version, and sharpen stroke techniques.

The Bluefire series from Donic tries to be an alternative to the famous (and expensive) BF Tenergy. Well more or less Donic did the job.
My experience was the following.
M3 has a really good looping arc, huge. Most of my loops are neglected, because they will fly long, but at the final few seconds they fall to the table in an incredible arc. Smashing is quite nice. It is easy to control the spin amount of the ball and hit "empty" balls with loop like hits. Chopping and passive chopping, lifting is easy. Had to adjust dropping but it is easy now. Passive play is really good and the rubber is quite forgiving for little mistakes. The M series form bluefire has a sponge with uneven pore size. This results in a very speed glue like feeling. The rubber bites into the ball fast and creates a heavy spin. The JP series have uniform pore size sponges that produce a more linear bite effect. But I personally favour this M type sponge, because this little unlinear property of the sponge does not matter if you are looping all the lime and smashing, it only adds to the feeling of your game.
So to summerise pros: you can loop every ball and attack till midrange.


There is difference between the black and the red rubber surface after a year: black topsheet remains softer red is a bit harder. The rubber surface looks grainy when it is new, after some play when this surface comes off some of the soft grip is lost, so you have to hit the ball a bit harder to loop efficiently.
So to summerise hit it hard and everything will be just fine. Or get an OFF- blade and hit just a bit less hard.


Finally I have finished the testing of the rubber. After 300 hours of effective table tennis, including 3 training camps, 30+ competitions and 4 regluing all I can say that this rubber is good. The loss of the grip is quite little, you can easily adjust without noticing. The rubber plays good on OFF- stiff to spin-elastic blades. I Used int on my BH, dropping and opening loops were still awsome. Chiqita and smash hits were a bit harder with the rubber getting older.


The rubber should be still good to play or practice but my hand is really swetty and the topsheet of the rubber finally gave in, it melted at the top of my index finger.


The Rubber is very durable, the edges are intact, no tears on it. The surface is worn by many hits and loops, but the sponge is in quite good shape.

Another great rubber from Donic to address the Tenergy series. This rubber is a nice T05 FX substitute. Sponge hardness looks the same, but the springiness is a bit less, which makes this rubber a more controlled type of 05FX. Works well on flexible and hard blades. The rubber is very linear and the overall feedback and feeling is very good. Blocks are very low and short, but they go over the net. Service and chopping is very spinny, but not bouncy, so you can keep the ball low. Smashes and counterhits are precise and linear. Loops are satisfying, no matter what is your looping style. The spin of the loop can be easily controlled, this rubber has significant dwell time, but not very sensitive to incoming spin. So looping and counter looping is a very consistent. Opening loops are very spinny, no matter what ball you try to attack. Durability is an another question. The overall manufacturing and quality is high, but since the rubber is tacky, the question is, how long does the tacky surface last. I used 5 JP series rubbers and came to the same result. Nearly 30 hours of gameplay and the surface becomes worn and the tackiness is gone from your sweet-spot. After this the rubber is still functional, but your sweet-spot becomes less lethal weapon. But you may use the sheets for training, because they last a long time. But this why I went back to the M series, because their topsheet can handle 60 hours before the first sign of wearing.

I have switched from Bluefire M3 and M2 to JP01 on my FH. I was not dissapointed. In my country the rubber costs around 33-40$, while Tenergy is 67-74$.
I really loved T05 but was not really satisfied with the price and the springiness of the rubber. I wanted some rubber with same spin, a bit less springiness and a bit less speed. One thing that I instantly realized, that the surface of the rubber is slightly tacky, which actually grants you the ability to attack on every ball, just as you did on the tenergy. Throw angle is quite low because of the rubber seems to be a bit less responsive/bouncy, than T05. What this means is that you have to adjust the blocking angle of the racket, then you will realize, that directing the ball is easier when blocking. Brushing the ball when looping is a bit more better, the ball stays on a bit longer. For service recieve this rubber is better, than the T05, because it tolerates some amount of errors. When I was playing with T05 I recognised, that spinless counterhits and chops are hard to do with T05. Chops come of the rubber in a lower arc and you can not "push" a chop passively, because it will go into the net. Counterhits are often inaccurate because of the springyness. With the bluefire series I find counterhits way more easier, and chops and chop pushes easier too. My opening loops and finishing loops are very spinny (just as T05) so most of the blocks actually fly off the table. I did found that M series is more suited to a smasher type and JP series is to a looper type gameplay. The durability is a different question. The tackiness wanishes after 30 hours of play, and the surface of the topsheet looks really worn. I tested this with 4 sheets, I maintain my rubber on a daily basis with Donic rubber care products. Because of the uniform bubbles in the sponge JP series are more linear than M series, which is nice on FH, but I did not found it good for my BH. I used softer version (JP3) for my BH, but I swithched to M2.
So because of the 30 hour tacky surface, I don't personally recommend this rubber. Ofcourse the rubber lasts for 250-300 hours of play, but after 30 hours there is a significant loss in performance. The M series topsheet is better in this department.
The JP01 is suited to play maximum mid distance.

Sriver FX is the softer version of Sriver, which was the most popular Butterfly rubber untill the 90's. FX means, that the sponge is softer, but the topsheet remains the same. Manufacturing looks good quality. The rubber does not have any spring-sponge or tensor technology. Back in the "old days" of speed gluing, people applied 2-3 layers of VOC glue to tense this rubber. With water based glue this sheet feels pretty slow an an ALL+ blade, it plays like a DEF setup. Still, ideal for children or older player, who like the old style loops. Dwell time is enormous and control is very good. Most of the technical elements can be done with this rubber, but it does not excel in any one of them. Maybe it is suitable for backhand on a faster OFF composite blade. Actually there are other Sriver upgrades G2 and G3, that are designet to be glued with water-based glue.

Tinarc 3 is the softer version of Tinarc from DHS. First of all, the TinArc family is the clone of the famous Butterfly Tenergy family, but semi-chinese style. Sponge is quite similar, colour is same like Tenergy and hardness too. The difference is, that in max version you get harder sponge and in 2 mm version you get softer version. Tinarc 3 is a bit faster than 05FX.

Playing characteristics is like euro rubber with a little chinese feeling. Topsheet is a bit harder, really works well keeping the balls short and controllable service recieving. Chops and pushes are easy and fast. Flicks are bit harder, you have to give more forward momentum, to engage the sponge. Looping is very agressive and fast with good spin. The arc os the ball is low like T64, but very consistent. Counterlooping is very controllable.

Durability is notably good. You may play 300 hours with this sheet before it gets old. This rubber really likes to be boosted, to soften it up a bit, this way it really becomes an euro type rubber.

I recommend this rubber if you like ESN large pored rubbers, but you want less spin sensitive setup, try this.

When testing this blade first I looked at the price tag, then the composition and possible clones. This blade is composed of hinoki outer plies with kiri core and arylate carbon middle layers. Well except the composite it looks like a Butterfly Photino Light (it has ZLF). Characteristics are same, but slower, and less vibrating.

Handle is comfortable, blade is around 6,7 mm thick. During play I tested it with an older sheet a of TinArc 3 and a Sriver. For playing style my blade was an ALL+/OFF- blade, with kind of a soft touch like Michael Maze blade. When I needed tempo the blade had it, so smashes and power loops work well. The blade is good with rubbers from soft to hard sponges. Control is excellent in every kind of hit/block/loop. As for the price I can only say, this is a good blade with fine characteristics, but not close to be a substitute/clone of other blades.