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Nittaku acoustic is an allwood blade composed of limba, limba, tung-tree, limba, limba the limba ply being a soft ply makes the blade soft with great feeling. There is some variation in weight, mine is 91g which is a nice balanced weight to me.

The amount of vibration is great for me as a developing player and not too over the top which I felt with my older allround classic blade. While it is an offensive blade it is not too fast, but due to the limba plies it has good dwell and it is easy to spin the ball well. I'm using tenergy 05 2.1 on forehand and donic baracuda max on the backhand. It is quite heavy at 191g but you quickly get used to it.

I think I would be able to handle an even faster blade due to the slower backhand rubber, but I rather focus on heavy spin and upgrade speed slowly with time and this set up with the acoustic seems ideal for this goal. If you're a flat hitter then you may want to go with something different.

The handle is quite small so keep that in mind if you have big hands, this also means it can be a bit head heavy, which I'm still feeling but getting used to.

I'd highly suggest this blade to someone that has played for a while and developed their game but looking for something slightly faster and want more spin. Because of the softness of the blade it's good to keep in mind what rubbers you put on it as well as how developed your backhand or forehand is e.g. I'm using tenergy05 a fairly hard rubber on my forehand which is suited for speed and spin while the baracuda is slighly slower but is forcing me to spin more as gives me good control for the short game and blocking.

very good rubber for spin-against-spin-actions, short serves with massive spin, short loops and long drive topspin strokes are possible with great arc in flight path! the ball pops out of the rubber at very high angles, so it is possible to close the blade very much and generate immense rotation. another advantage to other rubbers is the feedback feeling when you hit the ball hard, that means you can even change blade position at ball contact so the ball jumps not too high/low.

I've been playing the Andro Rasant for 2 months now and I'm very happy with it. It's so fast but at the same time it's also controllable. It is not as spinny as a Tenergy but it's still enough to generate a lot of spin. This rubber suits perfect to me, it's good for short play, you can easily play counter topspin and also play very fast topspins.

Hey guys!
Since February 2015, I've been using this flared blade with BTY Tenergy 05 on the FH, and Yasaka Rakza X on the BH.
Once you see the packaging it comes in, it is very clear why it costs £280. There is a nice look to the blade, with the colour coordiantion making it very attractive & once holding the blade, it has a very comfortable feel (even if you adjust your grip for certain shots).
Once rallying, you'll notice it has a very nice feel to it straight away and reminds me of the feel of the BTY Innerforce ZLC (somewhat stiffer but a fair bit faster).
FH(Rocket)- Even from my first hits I could really feel the ball sink in to the blade and making most of it's wide sweet spot. It took me a few practise sessions to get back into my complete rhythm of play but once I did, balls flew past sparring partners and the blade had more than enough power to hit past opponents.
BH(Need to be very consistent)- In my first few matches of using this blade, I found it very difficult to get more than one/two shots on per point. They'd always go too long or go into the net. However after some getting used to, it felt much easier to drive/punch past opponents and force them off the table. Backhand flicks were excelled- whether you wanted to put them down the line or produce heavy spin back, it was very easy.
Short game(Need very good touch) Due to the JM Super ZLC being so fast, touch play would not be easy to control at all. Balls were always going off the table due to the speed but it was heavy spin being produced. When wanting to do a dropshot, sometimes the ball would be picture perfect, sometimes the ball would just bounce off the blade and off the end of the table. Fortunately, this got much better after time and you feel well in control.
Finally, I'd recommend this blade to any offensive player for both BH/FH who is consistent. Even if you miss the sweetspot you still have a good chance of getting the ball back on. The dwell time enables the ball to literally 'sink' into the blade and produce tons of spin.

For a while now, I have never been able to fully understand what the Nexy folk mean by "bang impact". I have always been a heavy topspin brush looper of sorts who even when I loop drive was basically doing a very thick brush with hard sponge.

I got the Nexy OLAM to test as part of an effort on mytabletennis.net to get testers and reviewers for the OLAM/Zealot. What I had heard about the Zealot had already left me not so much of a fan with comparisons to the YEO fairly common place. The Nexy designer described OLAM as a special blade that expels the ball and talked about things like "line factor", "point factor" and "bang impact" etc.. I wondered about the marketing hype but decided that hey, it was worth a shot to see if this blade was really special. Moreover, as someone who likes softer outer plies with dwell time, this could simply be a reaffirmation of my position that blades with hard outer plies help no one.

I got an OLAM (88g ST handle) from Nexy. It looked good and had this annoying red diamond stud on the handle but nothing so bad I couldn't use it. I stuck on MX-S briefly on the rubber and tried it out in a couple of matches. MX-S though tends to play similarly on just about every blade I put it on - the one thing we noticed was that the ball came out the rubber faster when I used MX-S and that blocking was amazingly easy. So the depth of contact made the blade feel fast but the rebound wasn't like rockets or anything like that. I almost felt sometimes that I couldn't hold the rubber on the blade (I had this experience later when serving with MX-P on the blade where the ball seemed to stay on the racket for such a short time I could hardly serve the ball over the net when brushing). This might be a result of the hard beechwood outer ply, an outer ply I have never played with before. Below the beech however, we have the usual spruce, limba and kiri suspects from looping blades, so this blade is a looper's blade where you have to work to get some impact beneath the top play, but the hardness of the top ply creates a lot of linear control.

I was going to write this blade off as another harder blade that I couldn't use but I was impressed by the blocking control. I decided that I couldn't do a review in good faith without playing with the blade for an extended period and that I had a tournament coming up and couldn't do so so I used the blade occasionally until the tournament I prepared for was over. I am now playing with it through out this week to better understand what the blade about - I am using Evolution MX-P rubbers on both sides.

This blade may have helped me see where I got the benefit of hard outer plies wrong. In a sense, one can argue that soft outer plies and some wood combinations promote brush impact and harder outer plies and some wood combinations promote bang impact. It's not that you can't do both brush and bang with any combination, but it seemed that the OLAM rewarded deep impact. Because the blade was so linear, I kept trying to increase the contact depth of my stroke and it seemed that the linearity of the blade made seeking a deeper contact depth rewarding. Brush topspin strokes work, but making harder contact works even better on topspin balls and with great control too. The MX-P felt like a good match because its high grip/dwell counteracted the feeling of slippage that I felt on the OLAM in general. And MX-P rewards contact depth as its sponge is relatively hard so I didn't feel that there was a serious risk of bottoming out the MX-P sponge on power strokes.

The OLAM itself is either a massive innovation or a hint to me that I have gotten the benefits of hard outer plies wrong. It might be the latter, but I highly recommend this blade to anyone who is currently a fan of brushy strokes and wants to improve the contact depth on their shots. Use it with extremely modern rubbers with high grip like Tenergy or Evolution or the slippage may drive you crazy if your contact depth is not high enough - the topsheet will almost entirely determine short game control and slippage. You will feel as if you have laser accuracy on many of your shots because of how the blade performs on bang impact. I will post some practice and match video from this weekend to close out the review later. Will also add any comments then.

I bought balls from an Aliexpress vendor and DHS says they have improved the material they use. Fortunately I only bought 6 of them.

The weight was an average of 2.76 grams with small variance. This is identical to XSF and Butterfly G40+, a little more than Nittaku Premium 40+. This would meet the strict ITTF standards that come into effect this January. It is an improvement over previous DHS balls, which were always over 2.80 and would not be approved after January. The balls have a nice bright white color, a rough surface and they seem round.

Beyond that I have nothing good to say about these balls. The bounce height is still very low, in fact identical to a Joola 40+ ball from June of 2014 (which was made by Shanghai DHS factory). In play this is obvious. The balls stays low, dips a lot, doesn't come out which makes play at middle distance difficult, and there were occasional weirdly low bounces. In short, most of the things we have complained about regarding playability of Chinese seamed balls from the start are still a problem, even with the latest version of the balls from this company. Maybe these new ones will turn out to be more durable, but they still suck. And since they suck, I don't plan to use them, so I don't think I will be the one to figure out if they are durable.

I implore tournament directors, league officials and club managers, please don't use these crappy balls. Why impose terrible balls on players when there are at least three different types of decent balls available (seamless, Nittaku Premium, Butterfly G40+). If price is an issue, go with seamless.

Great rubber for FH and BH. I've said this quite a bit, but our rhyzm line has always seemed to be more of a speedster while our maxxx line has always focused more on spin.

After you glue it, it will probably shrink a little bit when you reglue it. Also with all of our maxxx and rhyzm lines you're likely to get it pre-tuned from the factory. So if you're using the water based glues it is a pain to reglue so you can pretty much do 2 things. Either just glue a layer on top of the old glue or make sure to use good white glue like finezip, haifu, dianchi or dhs.

I personally liked this rubber on the BH. As with any of the newer rubbers these days durability is really low compared to rubbers from a few years past. But then that makes sense as with any business that relies on repeat customers rubbers that last too long (1-3 years) will not make them profitable. It costs a lot to purchase the fees for certification and then get a mold ready then you have to play around with the composition as best you can since all rubbers in ESN (major European rubber manufacturer) are basically the same. Doesn't matter if it's JOOLA, Donic, Stiga or Adidas you're most likely looking at an ESN rubber. These days with the plastic ball brands are all about the grippy surface and bouncy sponge.

But what that means is that your rubbers will not last as long as they used to. If you're training with a plastic ball it also means that you're going to lose durability because the balls just do more damage than the celluloid ball did. They're a bit heavier and have a little more friction and they break all the time which scratches the rubbers more than celluloid did.

So just in general you'll find that you're rubbers don't last as long with Plastic as they did with celluloid.

MSRP $64.95
Everyday $59.95
MAP $39.95

PM me if in the USA, I can probably get it for cheaper.

This rubber was great on the backhand. It's soft at 37.5 degrees, but it definitely has more of a kick than the Xsoft. Before Tenergy came out this rubber definitely had potential to be a good speed glue replacement. However since it's got a less porous sponge it's nothing compared to rubbers these days. It definitely has a great sound when you're looping with it.

The rubber is super spinny and has a decent kick to it. It's great for mid distance and close to the table. I often recommend this as a BH rubber for anyone who likes to spin and is upgrading from something slower. Once you have good feeling it's a great rubber to upgrade to from say Sriver G3 or any of the beginner rubbers.

After it's been glued for a while it will definitely start to lose it's kick faster than modern rubbers. That's basically what I mean about Old Style Rubbers.

MSRP $54.95
Everyday $49.95
MAP $37.95

If you're in the US I can probably get you a better price PM me.

Brave was a limited run rubber, made in Japan.

It's actually a great rubber for spinning and over the table looping. Yue 'Jennifer' Wu, USA 2016 Olympian used this rubber and liked it, but as it became discontinued she decided to switch to Maxxx 500 and Maxxx-P

This rubber is pretty awesome to counter off the bounce with. It's a fusion Chinese feeling, but japanese bounce to it. I would probably compare this to Sriver G3 and other great rubbers that spin well.

If you can find a good sheet this rubber is great, but just know since it's been discontinued for at least a few years there's a good chance you'll end up buying a baked sheet that is no good.

MSRP $49.95

Energy 325 is a rebranded Energy Xsoft rubber. It's a great rubber on the backhand or even a step up for beginners using a mambo/sriver type rubber to learn the fundamentals.

If your style involves blocking or quick counters off the bounce this rubber is great to play with. You will lose power mid distance, so stay away if you're looking for a good mid distance rubber.

MSRP $54.95

Everyday pricing $49.95

Minimum Advertised Pricing (MAP) $37.95

I can probably go below the MAP pricing if you're in the USA and interested PM me.

I used this blade for about 6 months paired with a few different rubbers. This blade only has one gear, and that gear is fast. It's extremely difficult to get this blade to go slower for you. It's got 7 plies with glass carbon in between each layer which is really overkill. The blade does however give you the superior wood of stiga blades.

can't recommend this one.

Unfortunately this blade is discontinued and now they only have the innerforce LAYER zlc.

The zlc layer is closer to the middle of the paddle and on the outside there are two limba plies. this causes the blade to have a very strong all wood feeling and a ton of dwell and flexibility on loops.

I have played with Astro M about 20 hours on my fh. I have quite good serves and I try to attack with my fh everytime I have an opportunity. My game plan is to make the points with my fh with high risk.

Astro M is a really good attacking rubber with medium throw, good speed and spin and excelent control. It´s not too bouncy for a short game but gives a really good catapult effect when I drive hard. With spinny opening loops I can get excelent control and good amounth of spin. This rubber is very balanced rubber. Not too fast but fast enough to hit winners without maximum effort. Counter drives of the bounce are easy to excecute when I´m at the right possisition and if I´m a bit of the control of my strokes is still quite good. From mid distance this rubber is really good and throw angle is perfect for my technique.

All and all I have found that Astro M is easy rubber to play with. Only donwnside seems to be it´s durability. After 20h of playing time I can see significant marks of wearing on a top sheet. It still plays great tough. With better durability this would be a five star rubber for sure!

Edit. Now I have used 3 sheets of Airoc Astro M I still feel that this is playingwise the best post sg rubber for my game which I have tried. I have played about 20+ 1 tournament/sheet. After that the top sheet is too worn out for my liking. I have noticed that this rubber has to bake in before it feels perfect. With last 2 rubbers I have stressed them a bit (like a rubber band) before gluing it on my blade this way there is no brake in time and the rubber feels perfect from the first loop. NOTE do not stress the rubber while glueing otherwise it will shrink.

The 2.0 regular Rakza 7 is still very good at driving, blocking and smashing. I decided to try 2.0, coming from Max to experiment if I needed a bigger margin of error when miscalculating or performing out of position strokes. Using 2.0 holds true for backhand strokes, but for forehand strokes I may return to Max. Loop quality and ball grip is missing in performing forehand loop, drive, block and smash. The 2.0 sponge forces you to actually be in the right position for every shot. That has plus and minuses depending on what kind of game you play. Overall I may stick with 2.0 on BH and Max on FH.
** UPDATE** I've stuck with FH: Rakza 7 Max and BH: Rakza 7S Max.

i bought Secondhand Zhang like blade from Malaysia pp4m Facebook group.
i really like ALC carbon blade type, it has very good dwell spot and easy to control.
this blade is not too stiff. I used tenergy 05 (FH) and Donic Bluefire M2 (BH) and i used to play close to table.
Previously, i had butterfly Micheal Maze ALC blade and Kong Linghui ALC blade, but i really attached to this blade.

Good for close to the table speed players but not meant for players with so much power. Good speed and great for blocking and counterattacking. Good mix of 05 and 64

Overall really solid blade with good weight, and considerably faster than the Timo Boll ALC. Good for close to the table players who play fast and better with not so hard rubber. Perfect with tenergy 05 or maybe 80. I switched from Timo Boll ALC because the zhang jike is faster.

I have just started using this rubber, I was recommended it as I hadn't played table tennis for a very long time. I was using Mark V rubbers back in the day.

I use this rubber on the backhand, so for me this rubber is more about control than speed as I tend to do loads of blocking on the back hand. I don't want the rubber to quick. I want a solid amount of spin and control as I want to feel the ball as much as possible. Donic have provided just that and it's feels great with just enough amount of control when blocking. The grip is solid when looping with the back hand and want to attack. I highly recommend the Donic Acuda S1.

Same Package, really grippy as well but way more soft when pressing finger. No smell, very little curl. I could easily reglue with simetry this rubber. when i clean the sponge, despite have softer sponge, i did not damage it just like P7. I used Norizuke San Yasaka Glue on both.
Control control and control. This rubber is all about control. Has decent speed ( if t64 is 9.4 this is 9.0), very good spin even with small wrist movement. Dead in passive game, doesnt accept income spin. Punch blocks 80% goes to the table. Well, i punch block a lot, i love to push to the oponent do a slow loop :3
Low throw but not like LT Sound, id say Medium Throw, like MarkV or Vega Europa. Despite the throw, 3rd ball opening is easy and very controlled and so does 2nd ball attack. At my level, most of serves are heavy-long-lateral in my BH. I can easily attack those balls, not lighting fast to win the point but i really do considerably damage. As its brother P7, P3 also shines Mid Distance when you do a full swing. The arc is awesome, trajetory low.
In short :
*Awesome BH Rubber
*Dead short game
*Little wrist movement packages tons of spin
*Medium-low Throw
*Grippy as rat-trap
*I did not like the feeling that much. I prefer the P7 at this department. Feels like a Xiom rubber.
*Durability might be an issue. It is soft (42.5 i suppose) and the topsheet is thin compared to P7, Rakza or Omegas.

[video]http://www.tabletennisdaily.co.uk/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=8079&d=1441850395[/video]

Very nice package. Really, really grip and hard when pressing finger. It comes with a plastic package with holes. Doesnt have any strange smell and curls a lot. Regular dome. It really was a struggle to glue it and when i did, the sealant on the Tenor let it loose and after sanding it a bit, i still cannot reglue with perfect simetry, mainly due its curl. It really makes me mad, it is just 1mm off to the left, but really,makes, me, mad.
Boucing the ball on it makes very little noise. Not overly bouncy with a relaxing vibration. The spin i got when i throw against the rubber is the highest i got so far. Rakza 7, H3NEO, Omega Asia, LT Plus, none. I even draw some stripes in the ball to be sure.
When first i played with it was a disaster. Very high-throw, a bit bouncy when you go passive, but much less than Rakza 7. Just after 4 hours i started to put some balls on the table. About a 8 hours to make some quality shots. It is really a different but awesome rubber. 3rd ball opening is a breeze. With you wrist movement only you can do damage with spin. Slow loop is very easy as well, although it is bouncy short game, with a good swing you can do a slow spinny ball close to the net.
FH exchanges you can really feel the ball sinking in the sponge, despite being overall a hard rubber, the feeling is very butter soft
In short
*Ultimate Spin
*Good speed, 8.5/10 id say.
*Pleasant feeling.
*Not noisy
*Low, medium, high gear are there at your will.
*Looks very alike Rakza7 topsheet, and being its durability very alike markV (7months now and plays/look like new) i think P7 so will do last that much.
*Rumors says Adidas is discontinuing TT products