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I am revoking my initial review of this rubber which was only a 3 star review.
I recently gave this rubber a second chance and got to appreciate it for its controllability and precision in shots. This rubber gives you a lot of confidence in active strokes because of the long dwell time and its control in general. It plays well close to the table as well as far from it. I found that shots right off the bounce work very well as the ball digs into the rubber and the rubber can wrap around the ball easily. Also, banana flicks are ridiculously easy to execute if you know how its done. The only negative I can think of is that it might seem slow on passive blocks etc. However, all in all a really good rubber. Definitely more of a backhand rubber for me due to its safety.

Playing this blade against Amicus Prime switching "live" between Viscaria and Innerlayer.S with Tenergy 05s you can clearly feel they are in the same family. My two Innerforce blades are both 183g with rubbers and the Viscaria is quite a bit lighter at 171g which makes a big difference. I preferred the lightness of the Viscaria but the way the ball reacted on FH/BH topspins just felt more "correct/expected" to me using the Harimoto blade. A little slower than Viscaria maybe, but noticeably faster than the Innerforce Layer.S which also feels too "muffled" by comparison. Viscaria seems the crispest, Harimoto a fairly close second in terms of sound and response. I prefer the Harimoto handle which is a bit slimmer than Viscaria and very similar to Layer.S.

I always felt the design of the Viscaria betrays its age - the Harimoto blade is just way nicer to look at and feels more precious.

In a game situation I can pretty much rock any of the three blades without much adjustment, but I prefer the feel/control of the Harimoto while I wish it had the weight of my Viscaria. I would also say I prefer the sound of the latter. However, I now use the Harimoto blade and hoping to get more familiar with it (I've used it for a week now).

Previous blades of mine behind these three in the pecking order include Carbonado 45 (w/ Mantra M) and Koki Niwa (w/ V15e - which was just too wild for me).

Rubber: Butterfly Dignics 05
Weight: 68 grams
Blade used:
Dan: Timo Boll ALC
Tom: Stiga Hybrid Wood

Hey guys! Here's our latest review of the new Dignics 05 rubber by Butterfly! This is a new series by Butterfly using the their latest tech, Spring Sponge X. We compare this to the popular Tenergy 05 and more.

I'm joined by Tom in the TableTennisDaily Studio where we give the rubber a full in depth analysis on how it performs!


Written Version:

Initial inspection:

I've been looking forward to reviewing the new Dignics 05 for a long time. Right out the packaging its got that premium feel you get with Tenergy, high tension rubber. The sponge is a reddish colour and using Butterfly’s latest technology the Spring Sponge X which is meant to be more elastic than Spring Sponge, found in the popular Tenergy series.

The Sponge hardness of Dignics 05 is 40 degrees which sits between Tenergy 05 at 37 and Tenergy 05 hard at 43 degrees.

For me the most interesting thing about Dignics is that the topsheet is meant to be grippier which I find exciting. Comparing here to a Tenergy 05 it does feel the surface is more tackier.

The weight of Dignics 05 is 68 grams so sits at the same weight to Tenergy which is 68 grams.

Okay guys so I used the Dignics on my Timo Boll ALC blade to give this a fair test and tom used it on his Stiga Hyrbrid wood blade. Lets get to the action.


Topspins:

So 10 years after the release of Tenergy 05, here we go Butterfly’s latest high end rubber, the Dignics 05. As always we started with topspins and this rubber is something else. The sheer amount of grip you get during topspins is incredible and immediately noticeable.

What's so unique about this rubber is the arc, it’ pretty direct but with tons of spin, usually you only get this amount of spin with rubbers that produce a higher arc like Tenergy 05 or rubbers with lower arc but with less speed like Hurricane 3. This made my shots very effective and hard for Tom to block as they came in sharp and spinny.

Where I particularly loved this rubber was on my backhand side, it really is a joy to use and really stood out to me. I found it to be extremely consistent and the grip gave me the safety in my strokes. I have found for example Tenergy 05 can be hard to control at times on my backhand due to its responsiveness.

Due to the grip the rubber produces it works really well from mid distance to the table, you can take a step off the table and feel very confident in your strokes.


Spin

Okay guys as expected with a rubber with this amount of grip, playing topspins against backspin with Dignics 05 was fantastic, tons of spin and bite on the ball. Interestingly, playing against backspin reminded me of using Tenergy 05 hard as you can really accelerate into the ball as you have a lot of control. At first I found that due to the slightly lower arc the ball sometimes went into the net which meant i had to slightly adjust my stroke and brush the ball more, to get it on the table.

The amount of time Dignics 05 holds the ball onto the rubber was again extremely noticeable and very useful during shots over the table such as the backhand flick, allowing you to produce a lot of rotation on the ball and play hard and fast. This is where the rubber really shone for me and allowed me to pick up the ball even when it was low with a lot backspin.


Passive play:

When you’re on the backfoot in the rally Dignics 05 has superb amounts of control when you need to block. When Tom attacked I was able to literally just put my bat behind the ball without adjusting my angle that much, and the ball went over sharp and effectively. I am very use to Tenergy 05 and when I block on the backhand side I have to make quite a bit of adjustment, with the Dignics 05 it felt quite a bit easier due to the less responsive, and solid impact.

The stability and control that Dignics 05 gives you when playing away from the table is fantastic, in particular this really helped with my backhands away from the table as the ball doesn’t just fly out so easily which is what happens usually when you use fast rubbers.


Short Game:

Here we try some short touches over the net. Dignics 05 allows you to play passive shots like this very easily due to the grip and control. Although it’s great for this area we still had to have soft hands and solid technique to feel the ball well over the net.This rubber is also not only good for touching, serving with this rubber is superb, you can really get a lot of spin keeping it short with ease

Like with backhand flicks, forehand flicking is also very effective with the rubber whether that is guided or aggressive flicks, its very strong here off the short ball. The ball doesn’t just fly off the end of the table and you have a lot of control to play with high quality.


Conclusion:

Alryt guys, there was the review of the Dignics 05. Thanks to Butterfly for sending us this new gear in the post. This new high end rubber by Butterfly to me doesn't knock Tenergy 05 off the top spot however i would say it joins it there, it’s got its own uniqueness.

Dignics is simply different and I feel caters for a broader range of players. Tenergy is for advanced players and so is Dignics but I feel Dignics is better in the passive game and will give people that Tenergy feeling but give you greater control and spin. After using Dignics now for a few weeks me and Tom both feel that Dignics 05 is slightly slower than Tenergy 05 especially during passive shots like serving, blocking and touching short but during max effort, high speed shots like forehand topspin there is less of a difference, whilst there definitely more spin.

The great advantages of Dignics 05 is how easy it is to handle in fast situations. The rubber really holds the ball which gives you a lot of spin and stability in your strokes.

Now will I use this rubber? 100%! For me I will still stick with Tenergy 05 on my forehand side just so I can get more ease of speed when I need it and Dignics 05 on my backhand. The Dignics 05 on my backhand gives me much greater control and feeling and really bites into the ball well.

Compared to the hype of the launch of Dignics 05, it seems pretty quiet over here, though understandable. This blade is pretty much a rebranded Innerforce Layer ALC, minor changes here and there, so if you think you like the idea of getting a inner ALC layered blade, but don't want to spend that much on it, check out Innerforce Layer ALC. But I'd like to point out that you get a noticeable larger sweet spot as a result of having a larger head size. Also, the weight isn't changed much, at least mine was even a few grams lighter than my Innerforce Layer ALC at 86g, and with both sides Dignics 05 it weighs 183g. And the handle designs looks pretty cool, with the darker blue and black combined with the Harimoto tag, it looks much nicer than the handle of Innerforce Layer ALC (totally subjective). Downside of this blade is of course, like all other Butterfly equipments these days, the high price tag. So it is up to you to decide whether the larger sweet spot and cool graphics design are worth it or not.

I have Dignics 05 2.1 on both sides of a Harimoto Innerforce ALC. I have used regular Innerforce ALC in the past. I must say the Harimoto blade feels slightly softer with a little more feedback . On the scale both sheets of Dignics 05 weighed 68 grams each. With a few layers of Rev glue and cut to size the rubber weighs 48.5g each. Just remember Harimoto ALC has a slightly larger head shape so it may weigh a little less on your blade. Dignics is basically the same weight as T05 maybe a gram or 2 lighter. From the first few hits with Dignics you notice it has a slightly lower arc and is more direct than T05. Even though Butterfly claims Dignics has a higher throw I feel it's more like T80 . Maybe the longer trajectory makes it seem lower. You will also notice the softer top sheet. It feels grippier than T05 on service but during game play the spin is similar. Dignics is slightly faster than T05 but still controllable. Now onto my favorite part about Dignics. It is much easier in service and short game control. It doesn't have quite the bounciness of T05 and even with grippy top sheet it doesn't seem as effected by incoming spin. I actually prefer Dignics 05 on my BH currently and will probably stick with T05 on my FH but will give Dignics a month or so before I make that final decision. The main issue with Dignics is going to be price. Honestly the only way the price can be justified is if the rubber is as durable as Butterly claims and we won't find that out for months so the jury is out on that.

Played a couple of matches with the rubber. It is, in my opinion, an improvement over tenergy 05. How much of an improvement is certainly subjective. The spin is definitely more, I found there was better 'put away' power and rotation when you engage with spin/speed. The downside for me personally was blocking, but that may be simply because I did not have enough time to really adjust and tell if it is definitely worse. Serves, opening topspins and put away loops felt great, the grip was first class, and in all, I dont regret the money spent on it. I for one will be using this over Tenergy 05 going forward. One small tip - if you used to boost 05 - go easy on boosting Dignics 05 - as it is just feels softer imo.

Finally got my Harimoto blade today. Put on Dignics 05 (FH) and Tenergy 80 (BH), and just finished my training an hour ago.


Some specifications first, blade weighs only 86g despite the larger head size (my Innerforce Layer ALC weighs 89g) and with the rubber on it weighs 183g (2 layers of Butterfly Free Chack II on blade and rubbers, one layer weighs roughly 0.5g).


Now the impression of the rubber, I'm comparing the entire paddle against my Innerforce Layer ALC with T05 (FH) and T80 (BH) since the construction of the blade is basically the same. Spin is definitely much easier to generate, this is observed through my short backspin serves since this way I can minimize push and maximize brush on the ball. What I observed is the ball bounces backwards with more speed after hitting the other side of the table. I also tested with a top side spin serve, with the same motion the ball ended up on the side of the table instead at the corner where I can consistently serve to with T05, and I had to add a bit more push to get it go to the corner. As for the loops, it felt like when I tried out T05 Hard after using T05 for quite a while, the trajectory is a bit higher because of the easiness to generate spin, so I ended up closing my paddle a bit to make it hit the same position as T05, but the adjustment is not as much as needed for T05 Hard. The change in speed of the ball isn't noticeable by naked eye (it might be different but with the force I'm using I can't say for sure it's faster or slower), but I liked how the ball goes flatter after hitting the table since it has more spin.


All in all, I like the rubber, and I'd get it over T05 any day even with the higher price. Reason being I used to play tacky rubber such as Hurricane 3 on my forehand, but tacky rubbers wears me out too fast, since I had to use a lot more force to make the ball go at the speed I wanted, that's why I switched to Tenergy rubbers in the first place. Though the bounciness of tenergy rubbers always bugged me a little, since I'm used to brushing the ball to generate spin and dwell time of tenergy rubbers makes it a bit tricky. With D05 I think I finally found a rubber that fits me, I like how it has the bounciness of tenergy rubbers and also increased the dwell time which makes brushing the ball a lot easier. Is it a game changer? I can't say it is for sure, I need more time with it to get a better feel, but I do like the characteristics it improves over tenergy. Also tbh I don't think the price is that high, if you don't like it because of the price, you are missing out a lot of fun.

I only had a couple of sessions with it at this moment and my first impressions are : It has higher arc then tenergy 05, It grips the ball a bit better so its easier to attack half long balls for example or lift underspin. The overall feeling is similar to boosted tenergy 05 ( I enjoyed it more then 05) and it feels a notch softer than tenergy 05 but very similar hardness overall. It provides a loud noise and it is abit lighter then tenergy 05 (67 uncut comparing to 70). Although it has alot of control I wouldnt recommend it for a backhand rubber unless you are a pro because it has high arc and long catapult effect. It is rumoured to have a very good durability so maybe the price comparing to tenergy 05 is barely acceptable but still very overpriced. I can say at the moment for my game and the feeling it provides its a nice upgrade and I am using a blade with low through so it paired nicely.

ciao TIM, con quale spessore delle gomma tu hai provato?

The T25 is a rubber not made for the average player. It is a rubber for those who play a quick off the bounce and rely on spin placement. The spin on T25 is equal to the amount of T05 depending, when you contact the ball. It is a hard rubber to play if you do not have quick reaction or good consistency on spin. Just know it is a specialist rubber. Not made for everyone. It's like Koki Niwa play style rubber.

I bought this blade because I was looking for something that was easier to master than for example a viscaria, timo boll alc of TBS blade.
I first tried an Innerforce ALC but didn't like it because I felt like the loss in speed was too big for me.
So then I tried the Freitas and it was a very good compromise.
Since this is still a pretty fast blade, I paired it with the forgiving Rozena, and indeed I felt like I had that extra bit of control, without giving up too much power.
From an offensive point of view, everything works very well from all distances.
It packs a punch, but you don't accidently go over the edge, as with a harder/faster blade.

I also like it if a blade isn't too hard, so the limba outer ply is a good fit there as well.
I would have hoped that the softer touch would also help me during short play, but that's where I am truly disappointed.
For some reason, the gained control doesn't shine through when playing over the table, or doing service returns or blocking heavy rotation close to the table.
Recently, I got curious and paired the blade with a Hexer Grip, which also isn't the most aggressive rubber out there, and the result was even worse :-(

I know things like block and service return are my weakness, and that it is even worse when playing with a TBS or something.
I'm just trying to say, after 6 months of trying, I still couldn't fix these issues and I must admit that the blade is still too lively for me, even though it has a softer touch than a Boll ALC or something.
So, although a bit more forgiving, this blade is still up there in the same league as TBS, Boll ALC, Viscaria, ...

My conclusion:
For me, this is the best overall Butterfly blade I've tried so far (amongst TBS, Boll ALC, Liu Shiwen, Innerforce ALC, Innerforce ZLC).
If a Boll ALC is too hard to master, but you think an Innerforce is not lively enough, this may be what you're looking for.
But remember this is still a pretty fast blade and subtle strokes will cost a lot of training, especially if you pair it with faster rubbers.

Because of this, I will be selling my Freitas ALC.
Please have a look in the 2nd hand section of the forum...

One of the best blades i have ever used in the speed glue era...it has a normal small sweet spot as a thinner 5ply wood blade. It has great potential to produce spin and it is a high throw blade with decent feel and good blocking. With today's equipment i would recommend it for a beginner up to 1400 US rating level; I recommend it for a player with an allround style of play that has a vision for a game that is spin and feel oriented and likes to feel vibration in their hand. it plays well in close to mid distance from the table.

Incredible spin. Made with new thicker-sponge, thinner rubber-concept. Tried on Nittaku Septear Lead and Stiga Clipper CR. On CR it is a monster, very, very fast. But the spin is ridicolos. I have won alot of my points in the league just on my serves with incredible spin. Played 110 times with it, then bought a Hexer Powergrip to try. Also good, Good on both FH and BH, but this kind of rubber is always FH for me. Always in black. Highly recommended speedglued too. The sound in the traininghall on the Septear is awesome. Buy and try!

Had the pleasure of testing out the Xiom Ice Cream AZX over the last few weeks! After extraction from the trapezoidal prism box, here are the basic stats:

Thickness - 5.7mm
Weight - 87g
Headsize - 157x150
Structure - Koto-ALC-Limba-Kiri-Limba-ZLC-Koto



Visuals

The build quality is super-high - nice finishing on the fiber layer, no blemishes anywhere I can see. The handle is wide, but fairly flat - it feels very comfortable to me, but it isn't as beefy as some bigly yuge euro handles. I'm happy to say that the wings are different to recent Xiom blades (e.g. Vega Pro) and the overall feel in the hand is excellent. Everyone's grip is different of course, so this is a very personal thing, but I'm glad Xiom have made this change.

Testing

I've put 9 sessions in with the AZX before finishing this review, 3 sessions each with 3 different setups. Initially I went with my current rubbers (QiJi, Moon Speed Special) to give a direct comparison to what I've been using recently. Then I switched to Rasanter R47 Ultramax on both sides in an effort to bring out the hybrid nature of the blade with a rubber I'm familiar with, and finally to Omega VII Pro on both sides.

Basic Speed and Drives

From initial reviews, I was concerned about the speed and if it would be too much to handle. Well, it's fast, but not insane. I'd put it slightly above a Viscaria, but noticeably below a MJ-ZLC.

The feel on basic drives is pretty sharp, but I've used harder Boll ALCs so it's not excessive. The ALC side feels a bit more "distant" than the ZLC - not hollow, but more of a "dry" feel for want of a better word. I didn't really notice a big difference in speed between the two wings here.

It's also pretty linear and easy to use, if you accept that the speed is generally high all the time.

Looping

When using more expansive strokes, you notice the big potential for power from the blade. Although there isn't excessive flex, it's simply fast. I found slow loops to be a little awkward because the blade just wants to go faster, deeper, more more and so on. It's very good from distance - you can play some massive strokes from 2m back, and the pace and spin result in some incredible bombs.

Looping is the time when the difference between the ALC and ZLC becomes really noticeable. The ALC side produces a meaningfully high arc in comparison with the ZLC. I was skeptical about this, but I have to admit that it appears to be a real feature of the blade. When looping hard, I can really load up the spin on the ALC side, but the ZLC goes much flatter and gives the impression of being faster (simply because it's a more direct path to the table).

Blocking, Flicks, Short Game

I found the blade to be medium stiff overall, which helps a lot when blocking. Add this to the sharpness of the initial feel and it works very well when blocking, if you can cope with the pace.

BH flicks are good - fast enough (obviously), direct, and the ZLC's lower-arc nature helps to keep the ball low when putting some zip on a short service return.

Short game was hard for me. It's a bouncy blade, and with hard eurojap rubber it's a handful for my level. I popped a lot of pushes and service returns up, especially with the R47. I'm used to more forgiving blades and would need to make adjustments.

Overall

This is a well-made blade, with a premium feel. It's fast and capable of very destructive play, without being uncontrollably quick. I feel that it suits a highly-mobile, dynamic player who attacks from mid distance and has great footwork and mobility. This doesn't describe me of course - but I can picture it being a real weapon for lots of younger/faster/better players.

The "hybrid" construction is interesting, and while I was initially skeptical it does have a noticeable effect on play. And it's also a bit different to other combination blades I've used in the past, and worthy of a bit of time to describe here I think. Previously, I've used Sanwei Two-Face, Valiant Terminator, and custom builds by Levi, tt-manufaktur and Ross Leidy but all of these used different outer plies to create the combination effect (the Valiant stands alone here in having ALC/ZLC as well as an outer ply difference). This approach does the trick, but introduces a marked difference in feel/speed between the two wings. This may be what you're looking for of course, but adapting to this imbalance takes time - the contrast between the FH and BH isn't intuitive by definition. The AZX is different here, because the basic properties of the blade feel very similar - feel, speed and so on. You just get a higher arc with the ALC side. It seems to have a singular aim - support the common need of the standard, modern two-winged loop player by having a dynamic, high arc on the FH side and a more direct, lower arc on BH - while introducing a minimum of disruption to the overall balance of the blade. I presume this is what Xiom are hinting at with their notes on blade balance and being the first hybrid of this type. If so, I think it's a success! I haven't used anything quite like it before, and it's a fascinating approach.

First of all I would like to thanks TTD member hils4ever and XIOM for giving me the opportunity to test the new XIOM Jung Youngsik Ice Cream AZX blade.

Unboxing
The Ice Cream AZX comes in a beautiful purple, orange and silver presentation box which has a trapezoid shape to simulate an ice cream. On top of the box the symbol of Jung Youngsik is shaped like and arrow. It looks good and the details are held simple and clean. My first impressions when grabbing the blade I could feel the finish was smooth and the quality is in the high end of the scale. I wish though that the edges of the wings were sanded down a bit instead of having a sharp edge. The design of Ice Cream blade is very appealing as well. The color scheme from the presentation box is to find on the handle of the blade where the black color is used as background, the purple color on the Zephylium Carbon side (ZLC) and orange color on the Arylate Carbon side. On the blade faces there is some marketing text and JYS signature is on the ALC side of the blade. Near the wings the Xiom has printed an A and a Z to distinguish the sides of the blade. The logos on the handle looks great and are made metal. It is getting more common that the companies are letting go of the plastic lens which has been used for decades. In the bottom of the handle the a logo saying Ice Cream, XIOM and JTTAA. It has a bit of 3D effect when looking at it from an angle. I don’t know if it’s for checking genuity of the blade, but if not, it is a nice detail.











The sample I got is FL and has these specs:
Composition: Koto-ALC-Limba-Kiri-Limba-ZLC-Koto
Weight: 85g
Thickness: 5.7mm
Handle size: 100x23x33mm Width at narrow flared section is 25mm
Head size: 157x150mm















I wanted to do a frequency test, but forgot to do it before gluing the rubbers on. I will add it later.

Comparing the handle with a Viscaria the Ice Cream seems to be a bit smaller than Vis, but not as small as some newer DHS blades.

Test setup will be 2 times Xiom Omega 7 Pro max on each side ending up a total weight at 183g which isn’t that bad considering having two max rubbers glued on blade. Review is based on 5 training sessions of approx. 2 hours each.



Drive
When hitting the ball I could immediate feel the blade and the combination with Omega 7 Pro was fast. The balance of the blade is towards the center which I like more than head heavy setups. Hitting with the A side the vibration is similar to other ALC blades which is a bit numb, but still you have the slight feeling of the ball. I try to twiddle the racket and play with the Z side. Here there was a noticeable difference! Playing with the Z side the vibrations was a lot and it felt more soft than when playing with the A side. The sweet spot of the blade is large making it very consistent to play with.

Loop
When looping with the A side the impression of power and using the high gear of the O7P the full potential of the Ice Cream blade was pretty obvious. I had to adjust a bit coming from with a chinese rubber with flatterer trajectory, but when the adjustments were made it was easy to land the balls on the table. The A side has a medium-high arc and medium throw and the dwell was very good even with a 47.5deg rubber. The O7P is making a nice click sound like the good speed glue era. My impression of the Z side when looping was that is was a bit slower and the dwell was greater than playing the A side. The throw of the Z side is low-medium and the arc of the ball was medium. Engaging the ZLC layer I could the extra dwell compared to the ALC, but this is without compromising the balance of the blade.

Block
The passive game with the Ice Cream blade together with O7M it excels good control and consistency from the large sweet spot. In terms of sides I prefer blocking with the Z side in BH and A side in FH. Still when punching a bit or being active on the incoming balls you still have the feeling of having good control.

Short/Flick
In the short game you need to have a good touch to be able to keep the 2nd ball short due to bouncy rubbers and the outer koto. The O7P are not so sensitive to incoming spin as e.g. T05 which is good if you struggle with spin when receiving the ball. Flicking with Z side in BH is preferable for me, The dwell from the blade using the low gear of the O7P making the easy to flick. You still need to be active on the ball. Flicking with the A side in FH you only need to use a short stroke because the catapult effect from the rubber and the hard koto. Again here if you have a good technique it is easy to flick with less effort.

Conclusion
The Xiom Jung Youngsik Ice Cream AZX is a high end signature blade which comes at a price of 159.90 EUR which is pretty similar to other composite blades from Butterfly. The blade is really nice and the durability is good. I like the overall design of the whole package, but for my personal preference the blade is a bit too fast. I would rate it on par with the Viscaria in terms of speed and maybe a little faster. The blade is definitely for experienced players that like to play from close to mid distance from the table. It is a looping blade which is great in the blocking game. Flicks using the ZLC side is noticeably one of the strong attributes of the blade. If you are the type of player that builds you game with some of the aspects above I would recommend this blade to this person.

I switched to this rubber in December and use on both sides of my Tibhar Stratus Power wood blade.
Right off the bat, the spin from this rubber is too good, not a single complain there. Whether it be 3rd ball openings or top-spin rallies the spin is incredible.
It is also very easy to vary the spin using the rubber. So, dummies are really easy to execute - it also does well at fooling the opponent.
Speed is also very good - but I am using it on a wooden construction so I can't really get as much speed as the rubber offers.
In the department of control, you will need to be an experienced player with well developed and confident strokes to adequately utilize this rubber. That being said, if your arm is set it is pretty easy to control the ball and push it to the corners of the table even in high-speed rallies.

I have noticed that touch play is not very good - serves will often drift long and high, so will short touches if not playing with utmost concentration. But once the rally opens up you can really dominate the opponent.
Overall, the best rubber I have used.

As mentioned by yogi_bear. This rubber is not for learning table tennis. This rubber is for people that already have a decent technique and spent time with systematic practice to improve it.

The nominal 55 degree sponge is not as noticable as with other compareble rubbers (like Joola Golden Tango). The rubber and topsheet are very bouncy and there is no time a "dead" feeling that you experience so often with harder rubbers. Compared to a Omega 7 Pro, it does not really feel any harder, just much faster. In the begining I used the O7P and O7T on a Vega Tour blade and as mentioned in the O7P review I struggled with the speed of both rubbers.
Over summer last year I was able to adapt to the O7P very well and played it now for 5 month on my FH.
After I received the Omega 7 Tour I tried on the FH first and again had the same problem with speed and spin sensivity as earlier with the O7P. The Omega 7 tour faster and shots tend to get even longer than with the Pro. Blocking was nearly impossible in the beginning and after like 5 hours of trying I gave up.
I then tried the Omega 7 Tour on the backhand and this worked better. Maybe because of the shoter strokes, I was able to manage the speed and also got used to blocking. Only my underspin shots and chops were many times to long and so I gave up on the O7T and wanted to save it for later in the year, when our match season is over, to give it more time in practice like the O7P.

But....I did also receive the new XIOM IceCream Blade and I was surprised how the behaviour of this rubber changed after using it on the this blade. I use the O7T now on the ALC side and use if as my FH rubber. Gone is the blocking problem. I can now precisly block and placement is excellent. Short play is a brease and shots that previously went too long, now have a better arc and get on the table again.

I did put weigth on the negative side, although it has to be mentioned. Omega 7 Tour is a heavy rubber, but this is to be expected with 55 degree rubber.

All in all this rubber is a spin machine. With every stroke you will be able to generate spin. If you are used to the O7P already and would like to add a speed and spin, than O7T is worth a try. It will require some time to get used to the amount of speed. But you will be rewarded with excellent loops with high spin and excellent speed.

As mentioned, the rubber is sensitive to the blade composition. I found it difficult to play it with ZLC (I tried it with the Vega Tour and IceCream ZLC side as well) but works perfectly with the IceCream AZX ALC side (maybe it was designed that way)....

Weight: 91g

I was sceptical in the beginning as I have played a XIOM Vega Tour blade for quite some time and none of the newer XIOM blade were good enought to replace it. The special Hinoki feel combined with special core and ZLC was the perfect combination for me.

From the specs the IceCream AZX is nothing even comparable to Vega Tour with Koto outerply and ALC composite. Nevertheless XIOM was generous to have me play this blade and so I gave it a try. Glad I did, because IceCream blade is really outstanding.

ALC side has very crisp and noticable feedback, which helped me to improve my FH loops, as I can very well notice if I hit the ball more towards the center or outer of the blade. The loop arc is more noticable compared to my Vega Tour, even with rubbers that have a lower throw like the new Omega 7 rubbers. But most noticable is the very high precision that I can now put into my shots. Placement is much easier with this blade.
Ball contact is very short, but still looping backspin is working well.

ZLC side has less feedback (compareble with Vega Tour), but still enough to be noticable. The throw is a bit flater than with ALC, which requires a bit different technique when looping against backspin.

I did play ALC on FH (with various rubbers like Vega Pro, Omega 7 Pro and Omega 7 Tour). I can only anticipate that IceCream was designed for O7x rubbers (or the otherway round) but the O7x rubbers work extremly well with the blade. I first had the O7P on the blade and it already worked perfectly, but lately changed to O7T and this now the combination I stick with.

On BH (ZLC) the O7T was bit to much speed and I had less control in blocking, but with O7P it works as before.

I didn't mention spin so far, but the blade supports very well in generating spin. I didn't miss anything compared to my already spinny Vega Tour blade. I really like the higher precision of the IceCream, which makes even risky placement (loops to wide FH or parallel blocks towards the edge of the table) much easier.

The IceCream Blade definitly is a blade for people that do regular systematic practicing. It will be hard to manage this blade and the O7x rubbers with only 1-2 hours fun table tennis a week. The blade has a higher speed than Vega Tour, but as the the Vega Tour it is very linear in playing.
No bouncy effect that kicks in when you don't need it. If you hit the ball hard, the shot is blazzing fast, if you only touch the ball, it is short and slow. I really like this behaviour.

A small comment on the handle. XIOM really did change the handle for the better. The handle now fits perfectly in my hand and the cross over to the blade itself is not as edgy as with the Feel Series.

Professional equipement developed by XIOM... I really like it. I found a very worthy replacement for my Vega Tour (which I will keep because of it special material combination)

Heavily overshadowed by other Hexers thanks to Andro themselves. Andro tried promoting this rubber by means of durability which is the biggest mistake ever, and official ratings were also complete BS. In fact depending on the players/blades this is still the best Hexer contender alongside even the latest Hexer Grip/Powergrip. It's also one of the top 3 Chinese-Euro Hybrid rubbers in my mind alongside Joola Golden Tango PS and Tibhar Hybrid K2 (the latter one might be rare but I can guarantee it's good), although Duro does give quite a different softish hitting feel from the other 2.

Spin: The mild tackiness of this rubber isn't only for durability as Andro suggested, but also helps Chinese-style brushing strokes / spinning, and believe it or not this still has the best surface grip among the Hexer series. Even Grip/Powergrip you would have to sink into the topsheet/sponge a little bit to get the grip while Duro doesn't require such. Although still a bit offf from spinniest Chinese rubbers like Hurricane 3, Battle 2 etc, the overall spin level is still higher than even my Omega 7 Pro for my current backhand which is already real spinny. Short games spin potential is unquestionable (better than Grip/Powergrip), and it's even a bit spinnier under harder impacts as the ball sinks even just a bit deeper into the 42.5 sponge. The mild-tacky topsheet/soft sponge combo surprisingly works here despite this is usually the recipe that fails Chinese topsheets.

Speed: Low catapult but by no means slow. Still faster than Hexer Powersponge at least. A bit bouncy at lower gears if comparing to Chinese standards I would say it's closer to medium/medium-slow Euro rubbers' standards. You wouldn't want the sponge too fast anyway with the topsheet which favors Chinese-style strokes when it comes to spinning. It's worth noting however that the sponge doesn't easily bottom out, which has always been the strength of Andro (even for their 37.5deg sponge), so there's more speed than you expected once you drilled through the 42.5deg sponge a lot under very hard impacts. Behaves a bit like Chinese rubbers in that regard if you ignore the extra amount of sponge compression in Duro's case.

Power(Spin+speed):
If considering purely from rubber perspectives then ultimate power would be lacking when compared to Chinese Provincial rubbers such as Battle 2, Sanwei's Target National and a boosted H3 due to the medium-soft sponge, so ultimate spin/speed are a bit below the likes of above, however Duro offers better power at softer strokes. Hard strokes it's more comparable to Hexer Grip while Grip would ultimately edge out with its noticeably faster sponge. For reference Grip is even easier to generate power at medium impacts.
However Duro is more geared towards hard spinning than speed, so having a fast stiff blade can make up some of the power disadvantages.

Arc / Throw:
By general standards it's closer to the range of Medium to medium high depending on the blade chosen. However deadly low-arc topspins can be executed at will.

Control: Always been best aspects about Hexers, even till now there're hardly any rubbers that can match Hexers' forgiveness when comes to (counter) topspin games. Some Chinese rubbers maybe even better at short games due to much lower bounciness but Duro is still very good at that, even flicks are easy as hell despite 42.5 sponge, and overall controllability wise Duro is easily one of very best in the market right now.

Weight: At not even 43g after cutting Duro is very light for a rubber which resembles Chinese rubbers' behaviors. Even Grip/Powergrip weighs close to the 50g mark and only unboosted non-Neo H3s can come just a bit closer to Duro's weight. Most other Chinese rubbers (even without boosting) easily go beyond the 50g mark or above. If you don't have beastly arm strengths of the pros then the weight savings from Duro might make quite a profound difference in actual match play.

Hexer Duro may not have the best power of top Chinese rubbers but there're other strengths (such as control and easily extractable power, comparing to Chinese rubbers at least) which makes it an (almost) top-performing Chinese-Euro Hybrid rubber which performs like nothing else on the market, even when comparing to Tango PS or Hybrid K2. I personally don't pay much attention to durability but I'm on my 3rd sheet of Duro and I can say its durability is more than good enough, if not best.
Suggest pairing Duro with blades that have still top ply to facilitate sponge engagement for spin/power. Duro is also a great backhand choice for those who have good looping techniques on backhand and meanwhile want do things with great safety and not too fast. If u're used to other European rubbers for backhand u shouldn't have difficulties with transitioning to Duro thanks to its hugely forgiving nature as well as retaining Euro-type feedback when impacting the ball.

Rubbers used: MX-P, Sanwei Target National, T05, Bluestorm Z2
The first thing I noted when I started playing with this blade is that it does not perform very well in close to the table counter or drive rallies from the bh side. This blade's forte is backing up a little and playing topspins with as much quality as you can. It's also surprising to me that despite the crisp and relatively hard feeling you get, the ability to grab and spin the ball is very strong. Opening up is pretty much effortless and the spin you can generate is very high. Still I would not recommend trying to play hard and agressive with the blade as the ball tends to overshoot when you try doing so and that's not what Butterfly designed the blade to do. You have to go for spin and placement over speed. The gears that this blade has are one of its biggest strengths. Even with MX-P on the bh I was able to push quite short to the table or go for a soft spinny flick off a low push and then follow up with a much stronger shot. Another thing I noticed is that the older ALCs (without the hologram) tend to be a bit faster than the newer ones with the hologram (Similar case with Viscaria). The blade pairs very well with Tenergy and MX-P but the Bluestorm felt a bit too slow. The Target was very good on the forehand but I would not recommend using a very hard or tacky Chinese rubber like Hurricane 2. All in all, if you know how to use it, this blade is one that is very hard to go wrong with.