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i have been using the stiga performa ball recently, having switched from the Joola flash 3 star ball. It almost felt exactly like the old celluloid balls from the get go.. the bounce, the spin and the speed that i was getting from this ball was better than the flash, and i could effectively play any shot with it.. it almost felt like magic. I think that stiga has made great improvement with this new perform ball, and it should be used in international competitions as well. I have tried DHS D40+ ball also and it didnt quite have the same bite.. perhaps due to the extra weight of the stiga perform ball.
Highly recommended for all levels of play. Well done stiga!

Switching from the Boll ALC the Viscaria is exactly what i had hoped for. A carbon blade with a woody feel. Not too fast and not too slow either.. The viscaria will play passive if you are applying the passive game and if you are going for heavy loops it will facilitate in that too. Overall it is a do-it-all wood. Flex is decent for a carbon blade. You feel that vibration when playing this blade which is excellent if you are looking for ball feel.
Using Yasaka Rakza 7 on the forehand (max) and T80 (2.1) on the backhand. Has served me quite well so far, no complaints whatsoever.

I tested the Fastarc S1 on DHS Hurricane WL on the Forehand side, Red sponge. The rubber has decent spin provided you have adequate technique for looping. I felt i was in control of rallies while opening the loop. 3rd ball and 5th ball attacks were pretty adequate too. This rubber pretty much does everything OK. Away from table the spin/speed is also quite ok. What i did not like about this rubber was the durability. It started to chip away towards the end of 2nd month, which was a bit surprising for me, as Nittaku products are usually quite reliable.
Other than that the rubber is quite adequate. Not the best forehand rubber out there if you ask me, I felt that T05, MX-P are far better in terms of generating spin. This fastarc S-1 rubber isnt quite of that class.

The korbel has long been touted as an offensive classic and it does not disappoint. Tested the setup with Andro's hexer duro on the forehand and the Hexer plus on the backhand. The blade has a decent feel and solid touch on all the shots. I would rate it as medium-fast blade, if you have decent technique for looping this blade is a must-have.
The blade has decent power away from the table too. When i held the blade for the first time it seemed eerily similar to the Butterfly power-7 blade. Perhaps it is the handle.. regardless of the similarity, i find it very easy to play with the korbel almost any shot that i like the blade seems to support that. Short game is quite ok too, blocking is fine.
you cant go wrong with this blade, it is a safe option for any developing offensive minded player. Amazing that even after more than 20 years of the first batch of this blade, it is still going on strong. Well done, butterfly.

I am using the Boll ALC with T05 Red 2.1 for Forehand and T64 2.1 black for backhand. The boll ALC is a versatile blade with which you can play the passive game, short game and the looping game quite easily. The carbon inside kicks in when you start to play aggressive over the table counter loops or loop drives. The Blade has pretty decent flex, so you can equally play the short game effectively. I would rate this blade as Offensive. The speed is quite good but it is definitely not as fast as some of the other blades such as the Boll ZLC, the Sardius, Schlager carbon etc. All in all a great offensive blade which can prove to be very effective in almost all facets of the game. A must have if you want to upgrade from an all-wood blade to a carbon blade. Not recommended for beginner level players though.

I tried the TB ZLC with Donic's Desto F1 on the forehand and Andro Hexer Duro on the backhand side. The blade is genuinely fast, has a fairly linear stroke. One more thing i noticed with the blade was its almost consistent bounce. Due to that counter rallies + blocking is almost effortless. Smashing is quite easy too. The problem is close the the table play and opening loops. I had to be extra careful with the opening loops as due to the speed of the blade the ball sprays away from the table very easily.
All in all this is a good blade if you're looking for smash-block sort of game. If you're an old-school close to the table player then this blade probably isn't meant for you.

I paired this blade with the Yinhe Venus-2 red max on the forehand and the Yinhe Sun max tense (black) on the backhand side. This wood is head heavy, which i prefer. The outer plies are Limba which give it a 'woody feeling' when playing the strokes. Overall i am going to break this down in small segments:

1) Counters - Counters are like a breeze with this rubber. Minimal action gives the ball decent speed on either side. I notice that even the slight mis-hits come on the table so this blade clearly has decent dwell time.
2) loops - Thats where this blade excels. The loops are generated with good spin and control. You can pretty much put the ball anywhere on the table with your opening loops without a great effort. The 5th ball attack is also fairly effective with the slightly tacky venus-2 rubber making each drive more spinny.
3) touch play - Due to the good dwell time the short game is very easy too. You can pretty much put the 'short-chops' anywhere on the table with good control.
4) Counter loops - Even though this blade is ideal for close to the table play, even away from the table it gives the player options. It has many gears which enable easy counter looping. All you have to do is to brush the ball decently and the blade does the rest.

One side note that i would like to add is that i am not a composite blade player. So this was more of an experiment, and it worked out very well for me. Obviously this blade does not give me as much dwell time as a 5-ply all wood or a 7-ply all wood. However as compared with some of the other composite blades out there this one has excellent dwell time. So as such it was not a difficult task to switch to this blade from a regular 5-ply all wood. I have seen reviews in which this blade is rated as an Off+. I disagree, to me this is more of an Off blade. However, i would not recommend this blade to a beginner level player. You need proper technique in order to utilise the maximum potential for this blade.
All in all an excellent buy for the money, i got this blade fitted with both rubbers for a total of 43 dollars from aliexpress.