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STIGA Carbonado 45 blade
Weight: 93g
Thickness: 6mm
Type: Carbon OFF
Composition: 7 ply
Rubbers used with blade: Genesis M

What’s going on guys, it’s Dan and Tom here from TableTennisDaily. Today we are in the TableTennisDaily studio with a brand new review looking at the STIGA Carbonado 45 and 90 blade.

Written Review:

About the blade

These two new blades are an addition to their predecessors the Carbonado 145 and 190. The main structural difference between the 45 and 90 to the originals is that the 45 and 90 have a thinner carbon fiber layer. The carbon used being STIGA’s signature textreme carbon.

The Carbonado 45 and 90 use 64 grams per m2² (per square meter) of textreme carbon whereas the 145 and 190 use 100 grams per m2² (Per Square Meter) of carbon. This 36% less carbon in the 45 and 90 is designed to give more of a woodier feel than the previous models.

The compositions of wood within the 45 and 90 are the exact same. The only real difference between the two are how the carbon fibers are applied. The 45’s carbon layer is placed at a 45 diagonal orientation and the 90’s carbon layer is placed at a perpendicular orientation. These different angles affect the trajectory of the flight of the ball.

The carbon layers within these blades seem a lot thinner than other blades. For example here is a close up of the Butterfly Viscaria blade in comparison to the Carbonado 90.

The blades are crafted using STIGA’s traditional look with sharp features and very solid feel. Myself and Tom used both blades in the review using the new STIGA Genesis Rubbers on both sides of the blade.

Speed

Initially we noticed that the ball did not shoot off rapidly like we usually expect from carbon blades. The 45 and 90 both posses more of the popular STIGA wood feeling rather than a carbon one. It was apparent from early on that the blades were not amazingly fast due to the lower carbon ratio, but the high quality textreme technology produces a great sweet spot and clean contact.

When doing an exercise I felt I had to make good use of my body and legs to produce power on the ball. We felt the two blades both fell between medium to hard in terms of density with the feedback being both woody and carbon, a rare quality that we haven’t really encountered before except for the earlier models 145 and 190. This flexibility gave us a lot of feeling and control for our strokes.

Comparison between 45 and 90

The Carbonado 45 and 90 are both very similar in terms of speed, with the 45 producing a touch higher arc in strokes than the 90. When playing topspin attacks with the 90 the ball has a more direct trajectory than the 45 which has a higher throw angle.

Dwell

What we really like about the both of the Carbonado’s in general is the dwell and control. Although the blades have a thin layer of carbon the wood soaks the ball into the core of the blade producing lots of spin. This was evident against backspin. This extra dwell helped with my accuracy on 5th and 7th ball shots. One attribute I noticed throughout was I didn't make to many easy mistakes that you can sometimes find with faster carbon blades.

Open ups

My favourite shot at the moment is the backhand flick, perhaps I was inspired to much by Fan Zhendong in the review of the Carbonado 145 blade. If you haven't seen that review, be sure to check it out on youtube. So yeah, before I get carried away by being mesmerized by Fan Zhendong again, the Carboando’s are great when it comes to putting spinning the ball. Using the backhand flick I was able to put Tom under all sorts of pressure through applying lots of rotation on the ball or through good ball placement. The feeling both blades gave me, gave me accuracy needed to take advantage of the point especially on the follow up with the backhand topspin.

Blocking

Another area where this blade shone was in the blocking department. When blocking you can feel the large sweetspot giving great consistent contact when trying to control the ball onto the table. This is also due to both blades not being too fast.

Conclusion:

The Carbonado 45 and 90 are very solid carbon blades with a lot of control. These blades have not been designed for high end speed with the focus being more on consistency and feeling that the woody feel provides.

For players who like to play with a lot of speed the 145 and 190 would be more suited to them as they are quite a bit faster by maybe 10-20%. The 45 and 90 are faster than a Rosewood blade for example however not as fast as a Zhang Jike ALC. These blades are for offensive players who prefer to have control over speed. They suit most offensive all round players who like to play more tactically and not purely base their game on fast attacks.

Between the two blades I preferred the 90 over the 45 as I liked it’s direct nature. The two blades are both very similar speed wise but the 90 does create more of a direct trajectory which I like especially on my backhand for aggressive punch shots. The 45 felt more suited from mid distance to away from table whereas the 90 worked well from top of the bounce at close range.

As mentioned previously the dwell is high on these blades which works well for producing spin on the ball from serves, to open up type shots.
These two blades are excellent for blocking and mixing up the play where they felt suited for an all round based game with enough speed to play outright winners when necessary. Due to the hardness I think medium rubbers will be optimum on this blade. Such as the Genesis S, Tenergy 05 FX or a tensor type rubber.

The Carbonado 45 and 90 are unique blades in the sense that they are made with carbon yet both are a notch slightly slower when compared to their predecessors and other popular carbon blades like the Viscaria for example. This reduced speed creates more control. The thinner carbon layer lets the ball soak further into the blade making more use of the blades inner wood veneers. This means they both have both a woody and carbon feeling that we really liked.

This blade feels really good in your hand. I personally use the AN handle and really enjoy the look and feel of this blade. It is well constructed and durable. If you like a soft feel and a good amount of control this may be a blade that is worth trying.

I've started using Genesis M Max on my forehand. It's a very linear rubber, with a Chinese-like tackiness, and lots of control.

Suitable for agressive and controled play. Struggling a bit from a distance, as it's quite inert (compared to other tensors), and need a good technique to generate lots of speed.

Seems very durable. Far more than any other non Chinese rubbers so far...

Let me foreshadow this review: in my opinion, the Omega V Euro and Omega V Pro play remarkably similar, with the V Euro being a little bit spinnier and bouncier. Accordingly, I made similar observations. FH flat hits had a tendency to go long. Properly executed FH loops resulted in a nice crisp sound and beautiful arc over the net. Soft, touch-based loops from mid-distance are encouraged over hard loop drives. Opening loops against backspin are easy due to the high throw but it is hard to generate high speed, which makes it possible for the opponent to get into position and attack the slow loop. This rubber is great for BH loops, which are spinny and have a lot of margin over the net. Click for our full review.

Omega V Pro plays significantly softer than V Asia and V Tour, and also has a much more pronounced catapult effect. Being someone who has a fast forearm and who puts considerable power into his FH shots, I often found myself struggling to control the length of flat FH hits, with many balls flying off the table, leading me to lose confidence in my FH shots. FH drives and loops felt better and were associated with a loud click and plenty of safety over the net. However, these shots are best played from mid-distance using ‘soft’ hands and a fair amount of touch. This is not a rubber for power loopers. Lifting backspin is relatively easy, but I wasn’t able to impart as much spin on these opening loops as I would have liked. Blocking is good, in large part to the spin-insensitive topsheet, but the bouncy nature of the Omega V Pro meant more of my blocks strayed long than with the V Asia and V Tour. For our full review, see this link.

As expected, the Omega V Tour feels slightly softer than the Asia version, and it is only a smidge softer than Tibhar’s MX-P (~46 on the European scale). The V Tour weighed 50 grams when cut to my 157 mm x 150 mm blade, which is one gram less than V Asia, MX-P or Gewo’s Nanoflex FT48. Omega V Tour’s throw angle is slightly higher than Omega V Asia’s, resulting in a very pronounced arc over the net and excellent looping consistency. I applaud Xiom for getting the combination of throw and catapult just right with the V Tour. Loops against backspin were a little easier than with the Omega V Asia, and seemed to generate more spin, presumably due to deeper penetration of the ball into the softer sponge. Blocking with V Tour is excellent and consistent, which again reflects an excellent combination of throw and catapult. Just like V Asia, the Omega V Tour is insensitive to spin, allowing for excellent control on serve returns. Click here for our full review.

The Xiom Omega V Asia is an excellent rubber, which has a very favorable speed/control ratio, making it a delight to play with. It excels in all aspects of close and mid-distance play. I would suggest pairing the Omega V Asia with a blade in the OFF- or OFF+ range that has a harder outer ply and/or internal composite layers to get an extra kick. It will be interesting to see Xiom launch an updated version of the Omega V Asia with 5% more spin from a tackier topsheet. Such a rubber would have the potential to be a true game changer. Read the full review.

First impressions...
It is a well built blade, nice comfortable handle pretty exactly the same with the rest of the series having nice handles except for the 06 where I guess some QC issues happened as I noticed handles that weren't symmetrical, that wasn't done right etc. An interesting fact with this blade is that it tends to sort of change it's feel a lot when using a different rubber. It seems to synergize with different kinds of rubbers very well. I have a client who uses it with T80 and EL-P. Then my coach who uses it with MX-P and Palio AK47Blue 40+ and the blade seems to enhance the rubbers performance or should I say bring out more of it's characteristics. Anyhow enough on that... It is slightly stiff blade, 5plies of wood and 4 plies of Fiber. It's composition being Wood-Fiber-Wood-Fiber-Wood(Core)-Fiber-Wood-Fiber-Wood. The Fiber ply next to the top ply gives it more stiffness and feel in the short game but the Fiber ply next to the core gives it great feel when looping. It has a lot of dwell, and is basically a jack of all trades OFF blade with ample speed, good control, good dwell and feel all in all. It's hard to describe this blade as it's basically just a really good blade with characteristics that don't really stand out.

Pros:
Good Control
Has a nice dwell
Good Feel
Compatible with any rubber but will pronounce the rubber's characteristic even more.
Ample speed and Many Gears
Jack of All Trades

Cons:
No characteristic that stands out as it's generally
A little too much dwell for me as it lacks just a tad bit of rebound for blocks even with MX-P

Conclusion:
This blade would suit anyone. Period. Except for those who like using soft rubbers especially on the forehand as it'll way too much dwell unless if that's what you like then that's a good thing for you. For those wanting a stiffer version of this, basically that's the Energy 04 as that has the Fiber plies next to the top ply and no Fiber next to the core. I prefer that over the 03 just because of personal preference of mine to side with stiffer blades. But all in all the 03 is a do it all, jack of all trades.

Palio Energy 02

First Impressions:
The Palio Energy 02 is a flexy 5ply all wood blade. It has a good feel and a nice kick from the blade. It feels somewhat like my Korbel black tag considering they are both 5ply all wood blades but the Korbel is Stiffer than the 02.

Review...

The Energy 02 is indeed an OFF and flexy blade with ample speed. Great for looping. It has a nice dwell,feels good and has good control. Compared to my Korbel black tag, this is slightly slower. It plays a lot better in the short game compared to the Energy 01 though the Energy 01 blocks better. I can easily place the ball exactly where I want it to and easily vary the speed and spin of balls.

Conclusion
It's good for players who like to loop with a flexy blade with sufficient speed and control. I haven't tried an Acoustic before which many argue is the best looping 5 ply all wood blade so I can't compare it to that. Nevertheless, for it's price it's really good. Best for an intermediate looper who prefers all wood. Or could be a nice backup blade for an experienced player.

P.S.
Among the Energy series blades that I've tested(bounce test) I think I'll own an Energy 02. The Energy 03 feels the best among the range, but it feels kinda similar to my Tibhar Samsonov Stratus Carbon so I would rather get an Energy 02 for myself.

Palio Energy 01

This a 3 ply allwood blade listed as OFF-. I put on the Palio The Way 40+ and the Palio AK47 40+ to review the Energy 01, rubbers were previously on my black tag Korbel. So I'll be comparing this to how it feels on my Korbel.

Initial Impressions
The handle feels pretty good, I like the handle on this one. With the rubbers on it, it does feel slightly head heavy compared to the Korbel which felt pretty head heavy so I used a grip tape to balance it out. During the bounce test I could feel a lot of vibrations with a slightly muted feel of the bounce unlike the Korbel where the blade feels alive and this feels kinda dead. I will test it out in some drills and some match play and will update this review...

Review...

The Energy 01 is a Stiff 3ply all wood blade. It feels dead yet has vibrations. It offers high control but lacks sufficient dwell time because of the stiffness which caused my flicks to be ineffective in match play. Surprisingly for an OFF- blade, this blade blocks really really well. I usually prefer OFF+ composite blades for blocking but this blade definitely is definitely really really good at it.

Pros:
Control
Stiffness for blocks
Huge sweet spot
Great for flat hitting

Cons:
Stiffness caused a lack of dwell time which in turn caused my short game and "feeling" when looping to suffer in match play.

Conclusion:
I see this blade as one that an allround offensive player would like or one who focuses on placement and control rather all out attacking.

Almost instantly into my evaluation of the rubber, it becomes evident that the S-1 also is the softest and slowest of the Fastarc rubbers during gameplay, thus not fitting the “speed first” description very well. I could clearly feel the subdued woody feeling of the test blade when performing aggressive shots. Nonetheless, the S-1 provides a good response, slight clicking sound, and excellent control on FH drives. The throw angle on loops is fairly high but because the S-1 is rather slow, several of my FH loops didn’t clear the net. Once I started looping with a more open blade angle and/or greater arm swing speed, I had excellent control over my loops, although they didn’t feel very fast or spinny. Read our complete review here.

The Nittaku Fastarc C-1 feels marginally harder to the touch than the P-1, which is surprising given the softer sponge and lower weight (47 grams, 157 x 150 mm). The C-1 shares the spongy feel of the P-1 on fast FH shots. FH drives are reasonably crisp and can be played in a very controlled manner but dwell time is slightly extended relative to harder rubbers. The rubber’s medium-high to high throw provides plenty of safety over the net when executing FH loops against heavy backspin. Loops have a respectable level of spin on them – just like with the other Fastarc rubbers, the sponge and topsheet seem to work in perfect harmony with each other, instilling a sensation of control into the player. I was able to hit loops with a lot of topspin-sidespin variation from mid-distance and with greater confidence than with any other rubber, save for Fastarc’s G-1. For our full review, click here.

The Nittaku Fastarc G-1 feels similar to the touch as Xiom’s Omega V Asia but is two grams lighter at 49 grams when cut to my 157 x 150 mm test blade. The feeling on FH drives is very crisp and direct and there even is a hint of a clicking sound. FH loops feel great and are easy to execute. The throw angle on loops is medium high to high, providing plenty of clearance over the net. The G-1 definitively generates more spin than the P-1, possibly because I had more confidence to hit harder due to the firmer sponge. The control on loops is truly excellent and I was able to really work the angles. In my opinion, the G-1 is a little faster than the P-1 and accordingly provides plenty of power and arc to play loop-to-loop rallies several meters behind the table. Read our full review here.

The Nittaku Fastarc P-1 feels quite firm to the touch just as would be expected for a 47.5 degree rubber. It is also relatively heavy, weighing 50 grams when cut to the 157x150 mm test blade, which is similar to Xiom’s Omega V Tour (50 g) and Tibhar’s Evolution MX-P (51 g). A little surprisingly to me, taking its weight and physical feel into account, the P-1 feels quite soft and spongy in gameplay. FH drives were ok, but the ball penetrated the rubber a little deeper than I expected and thus emerged with a slight delay. The P-1 feels significantly softer than, e.g., the Fastarc G-1. The throw angle on forehand loops with the Fastarc P-1 is quite high and provides plenty of arc and safety when looping heavy backspin balls over the net. What struck me about the P-1 – and as it turned out, the rest of the Fastarc rubbers – is that it is rather spin insensitive. This, in turn, allowed me to execute loops, including more “artistic” down-the-line, inside-out and other crazy angle loops, with excellent control. For a full review, follow this link.

For reasons that I cannot explain, the 39 degree DHS Hurricane 8 sheet that I used weighed significantly more than the 40 degree version. Batch inconsistency? Thicker sponge? I don’t know, but it sure is heavy! I found shots from mid-distance to be a little easier to execute with the 39 degree rubber relative to the 40 degree rubber. However, the differences between the mid-hard and hard versions are minor, less than 5-7% in my opinion. The 39 degree version is slightly softer and bouncier than the 40 degree version, meaning that looping requires a little bit less effort, which I actually think is a disadvantage, as full effort shots now have an increasing probability of going long. Click for our full review.

Hi, this is my review for the Butterfly Korbel FL Handle (Black/Old Tag) in comparison to the Silver Tag model. P.S. I haven't tried the new version with the green gem on the backside of the handle so I can't comment on how different that is.

The Korbel Black has great great feel and feedback. It responds well to the variations in contact points, varying degrees of power and the angles that hit your shots with. Speed is just enough and is just enough to finish points with. You can easily pair this with Fast modern rubbers in Max Thickness and it'll be pretty controllable compared to using other OFF blades.

The basic difference of the Black Tag and the Silver Tag is that the Black Tag feels springy and elastic and has more flex and dwell. Whereas the Silver Tag is stiffer and slightly harder which in turn makes it feel about a notch faster. In terms of feel they are quite different. So I have yet to find a blade that feels just like the Korbel Black Tag that I own.

Only thing I don't like about my Korbel is that it's quite head heavy, so I use a Grip to counteract that. It is one of my favorite blades only 2nd to my Tibhar Samsonov Stratus Carbon.

This shoe, looks good and feels good. Is pretty light and performs well. Though has a tad bit too much grip for my liking. My main problem with this shoe though, is that the flap doesn't stay in place, having me to re-adjust it several times while playing which is very annoying. Perhaps it just happened that I happened to get a lousy stock, though that may say something about their Q.C. All in all a good shoe, but definitely not my favorite.

To date, this is the most durable seamed ball that I've used in comparison to the rest of the seamed polyball offerings from other brands. Though the Seamless version of this is definitely better... Consistency from ball to ball is also very good. My only qualm in regards to this ball, is that it has this chalky feel on the ball when new, I don't recall this being the case with most other balls. All in all good, imho best seamed polyball in the market.

The 40 degree Hurricane 8 is a heavy rubber, weighing 53 grams when cut to my 157 mm x 150 mm blade, which is two grams heavier than other heavyweights such as Tibhar’s Evolution MX-P or Xiom Omega V Asia. FH drives feel ok but do not have the crisp feel of European/Japanese rubbers. FH loops and loop-drives have a unique arc and kick to them, which make the opponent’s life very difficult – I can best describe the shots as having a flat trajectory to begin with, which is followed by a very strong dip shortly behind the net, and a strong kick off the bounce. Looping against heavy BH spin is a breeze because the ball sticks to the rubber, which gave me a little more time to guide the ball over the net with tremendous amounts of spin. However, it is important to have good timing and footwork – shots hit out of position, careen far beyond the table. Needless to say, that I didn’t observe any ball slippage. Click here for our full review.

The DHS Hurricane 3-50 weighs 48 g when cut to the 157 x 150 mm test blade, which is similar to the Hurricane 3 Neo sheets, suggesting that the soft sponge is made of a higher density material. I was completely baffled after hitting the first couple of FH drives. Speed glue sound and feel? That was the last thing I was expecting from a Hurricane 3 rubber. FH drives and flat hits produce a very loud clicking sound, which serves as a useful auditory tool to adjust the bat angle. The throw angle of the DHS Hurricane 3-50 is the highest in the tested series, but, unfortunately, at the same time, the rubber also is the slowest in the series. As a result, looping against heavy backspin requires fast swing speeds to ensure that the ball makes it over the net. The feeling and control while looping is great and shots can be executed in a very controlled manner. Follow this link for full review.

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