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Exceptional new blade from XIOM. High Quality craftmenship and perfect finish.

The blade combines the best of both worlds (All wood and composites). It has the touch and good feedback from an all wood blade, combined with the larger sweet spot, low weight, stiffness and lower throw of a carbon blade.
The most outstanding feature is the high controll. I never played a blade that handles linke an ALL+ in passive play (serve, block, short play), but gets into speed as soon as you start looping and driving or aggressivly pushing. It has enough speed to be played in half distance, but also huge controll, when played close to the table.

I found MY blade after nearly testing 20-30 blades over the past 6 years.

This blade is amazing!!! I played with the Timo Boll Spirit before this. This is what i needed. Extra power!
The control is alot bigger! The feeling is bigger and the sweet spot reminds me of the mizutani super zlc. Difference is that this is a softer blade.
Reminds the TBS but better in all aspects. Get it if you dont have it!

Hi all,

This is my review of the kenta blade, i hope this shall answers some of your questions and concerns.

Kenta Blade

Weight: 92gr
FH rubber: Hurricane 3, 39 Degree
BH rubber: Ten 05 fx

Total weight: 190 gr

Benchmark against

Viscaria (old tag)

Weight: 91gr
FH Rubber: Hurricane 3, 39 Degree
BH rubber: Ten 05 fx

Total Weight: 191 gr

The build:
- The blade outer layers are very nice, aged woods, i was told they were Ayous. The rest is almost similar with the Vis.
- The handle is very tiny, feels hollow in your hand. Looks very nice indeed.

The play:
- Forehand counter hits: Extremely fast (30% faster than the Viscaria), and super low arc. Balls constantly hit top of the net for counter hitting. I had to adjust my technique to keep the ball stable.
- Forehand loops against top spin: Extremely easy, super low arc. No matter how much spin you get, you will be able to add more to it in return. For mid, and far table counter loops, this blade clearly is a winner compared to Vis, even HL3, or Clipper CR.
- Forehand loops against back spin: very easy. You can brush with ease, and the ball already on the other side of the table. However, it's difficult to produce high spinny balls due to its low arc. This blade is best for loop killing the back spin ball. Placement is very easy as well.
- Forehand block: Amazing control and placement regardless of incoming top spin level.
- Forehand short touch/push: low arc, extremely good control even with this fast blade. pretty amazing.

Forehand conclusion: Off++ (IMHO), low dwell time, shaky (vibrates alot, maybe due to the handle construction), i do not get enough feedback from the blade. I used to loop with my wrist loose for a whip lash effect, with this blade, i have to lock in my wrist to get stable shots. It's more suitable for FH looper. This blade is best for near, mid, and far table counter loops. Especially, you can easily loop the ball under the table, where you can hide your ball contact (this is the best feature i've experience so far). It allows me to do incredible shots with various spin. Cons: in regards to spin, i would categorize this blade as "Spin returner", while the Vis is more of "Spin negator and producer" (you eliminate the incoming spin, and generate your own spin). This blade gives me a feeling of uncertainty in regards to spin, which i dislike. Also, when you smash, the ball wobble!

- Backhand counter hits: too fast, lack of control, you feel like there is no dwell time at all.
- Backhand topspin: with ease, spinny, but you don't know exactly where the ball's gonna land.
- Backhand on table opening: Crazy spin when you get the ball on the other side, fast, low arc & super spinny, however, it's not consistent. And you can't do slow opening shots.
- Backhand loop vs. back spin: super easy, fast and low arc, but once again, lack of control.
- Backhand blocking: Perfect! regardless of spin, you can always put the ball on the other side with very low arc.

BH Conclusion: Off++, hard to control, perfect for blocking. Backhand opening with lots of spin and speed, but once again, not much control.

Conclusion:
Spin: Kenta > Vis
Speed: Kenta > Vis
Touch: Kenta < Vis
Control: Kenta < Vis

Recommendation:

Suitable for 1 wing looper, back hand blocker. Would not recommend for players who do not have basic strokes down. It doens't suit for explosiveness type of play. Maybe, it works with European players.

IMHO, if you want to play this blade, change the handle.

Cheers.

Before using this blade, i had used the ma lin extra offensive blade. When using the ma lin extra offensive blade, the feeling was great, but as i began to develop more, i saw the blade lacked a bit of speed, so i got the extra offensive 7 blade. This blade is basically like the ma lin extra offensive blade, but a bit faster due to the carbon. The feeling and control are the same. The speed, however, is a bit faster, which is want i wanted. I would recommend this blade to anyone looking for a nice not too fast carbon blade with feeling. I only got this blade for about $34 from tabletennis.11.com

I had this blade for a very long time... Very good and well made blade, the only problem with this blade is the head size, its very small. It always hit the edge of the bat thus you need to be extra careful to prevent that from happening.

If it wasn't for the head size, I wouldn't have replaced it. I just wished they made it 157x150 size.

I just got the chance to try out Butterflys new Bryce Highspeed 2.1mm. I still remember the old Bryce from the speed glue days and I was very eager to try out these rubbers. Here is a short review from my first practice with these rubbers.

I used them together with STIGAs Infinity VPS and I only played with the poly ball. First of all I think these rubbers is really fast, even faster than the Tenergy series. I got a really good pressure on my opponent a bit away from the table but since they were so fast they were also a little hard to control. This rubber is developed for the pros and I recommend it for offensive players who prefer great speed over control and spin. The spin in these rubbers were Okay but nothing special, there are other more spinner rubbers out there.

My serve and return went a little high and long in the beginning but after some adjustment I could get a good low serve. I liked them very much in my backhand flick where I could get a good spiny touch.

Overall I think this is a good rubber but nothing special. I had really high expectation but I must say that I still prefer Tenergy and Airoc every day in the week. They felt a little too fast for me but can suit some really offensive players very good I think. Like Marcin5673 wrote I think it’s mostly hype around these rubbers, (just like the new STAR WARS movie) and I think there is many cheaper rubbers out there that plays equally good, or even better. I will try them out some more and make the longer review.

This rubber is mostly all Butterfly Hype. I regret spending 125$ on this sort of useless product for me.
I normally play with Tenergy05 & 64 or Tibhar Evolution rubbers & this Bryce is not even close to the rubbers mentioned earlier.
This rubber looks great visually, and has a good weight. It is very fast but it has a weird feel to every stroke. It has way less spin than Tenergy.
It is hard to open up and it requires perfect stroke on every shot. I am soo disappointed with this rubber.
If you are Tenergy user do not bother spending $ on this, because you will be disappointed!!!

These blades really super fast ... because of excessive firmness control ... therefore if one of the rubber for the backhand election might be difficult to control when returning the opponent's attack ...

After this Blades wear really tight solid material .. .. so no shakes at all ... let alone supported by Andro rubber Rasant Power Grip for (FH) and to balance I wear Butterfly Tenergy 25 FX for (BH)..

I wear a US size 11 and these shoes fits great. Finding the correct size via the internet is troublesome. I use them only for competition so I can't rate about their durability. Using them on rubber (competition) mats and wooden floors they hold my feet snug, fairly lightweight, and allow me to move laterally.

Their color pattern is catchy, although they could do away with the silver and just have them white/blue (that's the bling on the Cons).

I believe in spending good money on good shoes and I feel I have spent wisely.

Now if I can click my heels 3X to get into position for the ball, I'll be thrilled

Perfect balance on spin, speed and control.

This rubber is just extremely well balanced rubber.

It seems that this rubber is not very famous even though its quite popular in Japan.
As the Top TT equipment company in Japan, Nittaku has finally made a rubber that is comparable in terms of qualities of its own.

The G-1 stands for Grip on the ball.
With that being said, the grip of this rubber is insane.
The grip make me perform backhand flick to short backspin serves extremely easily.

Although the rubber is quite straightforward rubber and it does not have its own unique trait like Hurricane 3, I would recommend players to try this rubber once.
My very personal opinion is that, this rubber makes all techniques easy to do.
Please try it and you will understand. 5 stars.

Similar to timo boll alc. Very easy to open up and counter spin. Also, chopping is easily down with it. The dwell time is Hugh so serving needs to be taking at a very low place.

This rubber is decent for beginners as it is a very controlled and balanced rubber and at a affordable price. It can allow lots of control for topspin and drive, and can handle chops and backspin well with its decent spin. It can also control the ball from medium distance. This is a very good rubber for learning all shots.

The bad part about the rubber is that it cannot produce high speed ball or not much speed.

I used the shoe because I prefer good grip shoes, the grip is really one of the best in table tennis shoes.

I like shoes with the feeling of fitting close to my foot, but here the fitting comfort was not given, I still had the feeling the shoe is not fitting, it is too loose.
I tried with a new inlay but there was no improvement.

I used it for one month than I switched back to a professional shoe brand.

Here is my review on the Garaydia T5000 which has been released in 2015 designed for the plastic ball. The T5000 is from the Garaydia series which is Butterfly’s latest line of carbon blades.

The blade is built with 5 plies and has a excellent finish. On the underside of the blade is a holographic lense to stop counterfeit products. Watch the video review below, the rubbers used on the blade are the Butterfly Tenergy 05.


Overview

The thickness of the T5000 is the greatest out of all three Garaydia blades (ALC + ZLC) with a thickness of 7.2mm as seen below. If we compare this to a traditional carbon blade such as the Jun Mizutani Super ZLC which has a thickness of 6mm. The core of the Garaydia has been developed thicker to produce greater speed.



The T5000 blade uses Japanese hinoki wood as the outer layer on the blade which gives the blade a soft feel maintaining the control of the fast blade. Tamaca Carbon is the composite used.

The blade weighs 88 grams.



Speed

Out of all 3 blades, the Garaydia T5000 definitely felt the fastest. This is due to its thicker core and harder touch which works well for the power players playing close to the table. The blade has a lot of feel even though it’s a super fast blade and would be suited for players who like to play flat, fast shots.

Arc

This blade had the lowest arc when hitting direct shots which helped on close range play such as the flick. It doesn't have the same dwell as both the ALC and ZLC. This means that the ball really rockets of the bat and has a high rebound effect which some players may struggle to cope with, for instance players that have a more all round spinny game. Again this is designed for the more aggressive power players who want sheer power.

Hi all, this is my review on the Garaydia ZLC which has been released in 2015 designed for the plastic ball. The ZLC is from the Garaydia series, Butterfly’s latest line of carbon blades.

The blade is of 5 plies and has a excellent finish. On the underside of the blade is a holographic lense to stop counterfeit products. Watch the video review below, the rubbers used on the blade are the Butterfly Tenergy 05.


Overview

The thickness of the ZLC is the first attribute myself and Tom noticed in comparison to other Butterfly blades. Notice how much thicker the core is in the image below. The ZLC has a thickness of 7.1mm, whereas the Jun Mizutani Super ZLC has a thickness of 6mm. The core of the Garaydia is thicker to produce greater speed.



The ZLC blade uses Japanese hinoki wood as the outer layer on the blade which gives the blade a soft feel maintaining the control of the fast blade. Zylon Carbon is the composite used.

The blade weighs 88 grams.



Speed

The Garaydia ZLC, felt fantastic and really worked well for my style of play and had similar dwell to the ALC. This dwell gave me high arc in my strokes, a feature that I really enjoyed with this blade as it allowed me to produce lots of spin and safety with my topspins.

I really noticed this safety also when playing against backspin using my backhand flick and when opening up. The ball soaked into the hinoki/Zylon Carbon and created a lot of rotation on the ball. This blade felt similar to the Butterfly Amultart and the Zhang Jike Super ZLC which we reviewed last year. When going explosive shots the the Garaydia ZLC blade felt very quick, however not as fast as the T5000 which gave me great stability in my play. I would not recommend this blade for people who are early level players/improving players, this is blade for intermediate to advanced level players who have a high level of skill.

Spin and Dwell

Although this blade is fast as it uses ZL Carbon, I found I could produce a lot of spin when playing against backspin. You get a crisp feeling and this blade gives you the ability to produce a quality shot with minimal action.

Conclusion

The soft feeling you get with the ZLC, due to the outer hinoki wood and the Zylon carbon fibres, give great spin and dwell in your shots. The hinoki wood helps absorb incoming spin which particularly helps in the serve and receive area to get good bite and zip on the ball.

The ZLC blade has a very good speed to control ratio and is extremely well balanced. This is definitely my blade of choice within the Garaydia range as it suits my style of play well, playing mid distance to the table generating spin and safety in my shots. I like how I can get a lot of power and speed whilst the control is maintained.

What’s going on guys, this is my review on the Garaydia ALC which has been released in 2015 and designed for the plastic ball. The ALC is a top of the line blade by Butterfly from the new Garaydia series.

The blade is 5 ply and has a really nice smooth finish and also has a holographic lense on the underside of the handle to stop counterfeit products. Watch the video review below, the rubbers used on the blade are the Butterfly Tenergy 05.


Overview

One characteristic we first noticed about this blades is how thick it is in comparison to other traditional carbon blades such as the Jun Mizutani Super ZLC notice how much thicker the wood/core is on the Garaydia in the image below. To be precise the Garaydia ALC blade has a thickness of 6.9mm, whereas the Mizutani Super ZLC has a thickness of 6mm. This core thickness helps promote speed in the blade which has been tailored for the 40+ ball.



The ALC blade uses Japanese hinoki wood which is designed to keep the soft touch maintaining the control of the fast blade. The Carbon used is Arylate Carbon.

The blade weighs 86 grams.



Speed

The Garaydia ALC comes packed with control and its speed is very noticeable. The crisp feeling is very evident with this blade as expected with the arylate Carbon and I would not recommend this blade for beginners. The ALC has a low trajectory and felt slightly faster than a Timo Boll ALC.

When playing 3 point forehands playing at maximum pace and speed preciseness in my technique was required due to the low arc of the blade. Once I had adjusted I could really produce a lot of speed in my strokes something which I really liked.

Spin

When playing against backspin with the ALC the large sweetspot and great dwell helped to counteract the spin and gave us high amounts of accuracy. This helps produce lots of rotation on the ball. If you have tried a Timo Boll or a Zhang Jike ALC the dwell felt quite similar.

Flicks and aggressive shots

This blade really excelled when flicking and playing counter topspins and shots close to the table, due to the low throw generated this helped in this department.

Conclusion

The new Garaydia ALC blade has definitely been developed for the new plastic balls due to its sheer speed and thicker core. One noticeable feature you get with this blades is it’s the crisp feeling and the ability to produce a quality shot with minimal action.

The ALC has a soft feeling when brushing the ball and playing against spin. If you were to choose a blade from the Garaydia series, this one would feel the most controllable as it has a touch more dwell time than the ZLC and a lot more dwell than the T5000. I would not recommend this blade for someone until they are competent in their shot quality and consistency due to the responsiveness of the blade. An advanced top spin attacker would really benefit and like this blade for playing top spin shots from mid distance and close to the table. When going for speed the ball has a low, direct trajectory, and when playing with spin you get good arc on the ball from the blades dwell.

I play with mainly spin variations, long pimples for backhand and close to the table.

Control is really great and one can be making a lot of spin with this Hurricane 3 neo

Speed is slow but I forget that default since many qualities !

This robot is a very good one. We do have an AMICUS3000pro in our table tennis club and sometimes I play with it to get much safer in the control of motions. It´s nearly impossible to play so much balls in a row with a real partner, but repitition means all to automatism.

There is the possibility to set four different balls with different speed, spin and direction with an overall adjustment of the number of ball which the robot shoots out. If an exercise is good for one, you can save the exercise to the internal memory. (because it´s sometimes hard to get the perfect direction when someone tries this alone! So only load a saved exercise is much easier).

Here is my review of the Nexy Kanaph. I have been playing with this blade since early December and I have already logged around 60 hours with it.

Design/Cosmetics
The Kanaph is a beautiful blade. Initially I wasn not a fan of the purple and black handle color but seeing it person changed my mind, this blade is very pretty to look at. The bottom lens has a unique design, it adds to a more premium look. The hinoki top ply is very smooth and I do not see any imperfections. The burnt core gives this blade a racing stripe look.
I was told by our local reseller that I should give the straight handle a try. He was right. The straight handle is very comfortable. It is not as chunky as other straight handles that I have tried, in fact it is rather slim. It fits my average hands like a glove.

Feel
I really enjoyed the feel of this blade. The hinoki top ply gives the blade a soft feel while the carbon layer and burnt kiri core give it a crisp, sharp feel. I find the feel a bit odd, but in a good way. It is both soft and crisp at the same time. When hitting with medium low power the hinoki top ply feels sort of like a damp layer of wood, abosorbing the impact of the ball. Compared to the Nexy Oscar where you can feel which part of the blade face the ball is hitting, I can feel the impact on the whole face of the blade. So the Oscar feels sharper while the Kanaph feels duller. Which one is better is purely subjective.
On more powerful shots, you can feel the ball dig deeper into the blade. In fact, you can almost feel the core of the blade communicating with your hand. I really enjoyed this feeling since I always know how much power I am putting out unlike some other composite blades that feel numb. The feeling that I am getting is not really typical vibration associated with all wood blades, rather it is more like haptic feedback telling your hand how hard you are hitting and at what angle.

Control
This is a very linear and controllable blade. There is no sudden catapult, no wierd speed jumps, you get what you put out. This feeling of control encourages you to hit harder and faster. I did not feel like I have to hold back, in fact, I feel like I want to hit harder every time. Looping from mid to far distance is a dream. The length and direction of the blade is easily controllable. Short game was also exceptional. On passive shots, this blade is dead. It is not bouncy at all. It is possible to drop the ball very close to the net when recieving serves.

Speed
Since the Kanaph is linear, it is like you are playing with 4 different blades - an ALL+, OFF-, OFF, and OFF+ blade. With passive shots this blade is dead, the ball does not bounce very far. Once you increase the power output the blade starts to come alive. If there is a chance to really rip it, the blade can be an OFF+ - very fast with a direct trajectory. With my stroke during counterlooping, the blade feels right in the middle of OFF range.

Looping
From what I read, I was expecting Kanaph to be more of a hitting blade than looping. But I was surprised the blade did really well in this department. Spin generation is very easy, control is exceptional, ample dwell time, yet crisp and sharp feel at the same time. One thing to note is the arc. The arc seems to be on the low side. Using the same sheet of Sigma 2 Pro on the Lissom and Vege Pro, the arc during loops seem to be on the low side. I tried an Omega V Europe and the arc seems to be even lower. With my normal looping stroke I was hitting the net a lot. I therefore had to do a more vertical stroke to clear the net. But when I switched to Omege V Asia the arc seems to be high enough to safely clear the net during looping rallies. Aside from the low arc, I consider this my almost perfect looping blade.

Conclusion
This is an exceptionally good blade from Nexy. The playing characteristics and feel of the Kanaph are what I have been looking for in a blade. I currently have the Lissom and Vega Pro but I am contemplating selling them both because the Kanaph has the control of the Lissom and the stability and power (actually even more power) of the Vega Pro. If I really have to say something I do not like about the Kanaph it is the arc. But after playing quite a bit with it for the past weeks I have already adjusted very well. So I guess this is my perfect blade. No more blade ej-ing....for now...

We have had time to test the new Bryce Highspeed this afternoon, a black 2.1 rubber on a Primorac Carbon blade.
The rubber has no obvious weakness and its strength is definetely its directness and speed in the open game, away from the table in spin on spin or close to the table in blocking.
It´s a medium rubber about as hard as tenergy 64 and performs with no noticeable speed glue effect/sound. It´s light, cut to racket size only 42 grams.

I played the rubber on my forehand first and had little trouble opening vs strong underspin from a defense player several levels above mine. In direct comparison I felt my other rubber, in this case a Bluefire M1, produced more spin, but not more speed.
I tried the Bryce on the backhand then and found it easy to control and ultra-precise in blocking the heavy topspin balls from my partner. The blocks are fast and difficult to handle for the attacking player.

Later I tested the rubber in matchplay versus another attacking player (approx my level). On the forehand everything felt easy enough, spinnier balls for opening or fast balls for direct points were no problem. Maybe I´d like a little more contact, but the balls landed where they were intended and control was good.
When I tried the Bryce as backhand rubber I found that I like a lot more contact on that side, or a softer rubber. While blocking was good, the topspin rate was below average.

I played a few more games vs another defense player and came to the same conclusion, on forehand the Bryce Highspeed works ok for me, on backhand it feels difficult except when blocking.

Lastly, a friend tried the rubber and also found the Bluefire considerably more spinny, the Bryce overall good, but nothing we haven´t seen before.

I think players going for the maximum speed will find Bryce Highspeed an attractive rubber. But I think there are direct and fast tensor rubbers already that cost less, and an Acuda turbo might do the same job as efficiently.

If your game is fast and straight, try this rubber. But if you´re happy with the speed and especially the spin of something like a Tibhar Evolution MX-P there is quite probably no reason to be tempted.