Latest reviews

The carbonado 190 is the best blade I have ever played with as it has an amazing feeling when striking the ball and even though the carbonado is a very fast blade you keep the control in to the table and away from the table, I currently play with carbonado 190 and airoc astro m on both sides and I recommend them both they are both incredible to play with

Airoc astro m is a great rubber as it has a great feeling when striking the ball and you can generate a massive amount of spin and speed while keeping the control, it also has a great touch round the net for short game, the rubber is really good for counter looping and even from back from the table it keeps the control and arks well over the net

This is truly an excellent rubber. I use it in the softest sponge available though I have tried the harder sponges and believe those will appeal to people looking for something more on the hard sponged Chinese end of the spectrum. It's an interesting mix of a soft tacky/sticky Chinese topspheet on an Eurojap type tensor sponge with modest catapult. The idea is to create great control and brush spin on slower loops and serves, though not as linear as harder sponged non-catapult Chinese rubbers. The payoff is that on harder shots away from the table, you don't have to swing as hard to get good pace and spin. This is most apparent in the 38 and 39 deg sponges, especially the 38 deg.

It also comes tuned but plays decently when the tuning wears off. There are also protective sheets if you like them. The rubber has a tuning layer, so you only need glue for your blade and not for the rubber itself. Yinhe seems to be giving the latest batches Provincial level Quality Assurance.

No rubber quite plays like this - maybe Tibhar Evolution MX-S, though that is more tilted towards the Euro side of things and I would consider this rubber even more towards the Chinese short game and quick attack style.

I have used it on a variety of blades, including composites and all wood blades. What blade you decide to use it on depends on your style - I like it on all wood blades, but it played decently on Xiom Vega blades (the whole series) as well.

Hi all,

So heres my thoughts on the free butterfly balls and also first review.






As like many others I Entered the butterfly easy ball competition, after a period of waiting they arrived!

So here are photos of what I received in the UK. I Compared them with some poly balls I bought this week as well.
There was a definite difference in appearance which some might argue are the quality of the balls... The balls are more dull looking and don't seem to have much of a matt finish to them which is very noticeable compared to the xushaofa balls.
As others have mentioned probably this is because there club practice balls not competition balls.

I heard that butterfly were doing a new batch of poly balls as the original ones weren't very good... Hoped these might be something along the lines of the new ones. (bit early to say but if the durability of these are the same level or better on the newly developed balls id say butterfly are onto a winner!)

In the pictures I also compared them alongside to an 40mm tsp ball as well as a xushaofa brand poly ball.

First impressions bouncing the ball on the table and a few brushes against my rubber, it felt like the balls are more "Lively" than the XSF polyball, so bouncier, but not giving off as much spin on the ball as the old 40mm balls do.
It felt like this would mean a slightly quicker game on the table with the BTY balls compared to the XSF balls or even Joola balls for example.

Joola balls I felt about the same weight (id have thought they all are the same weight though) as the BTY balls but are slow on the table during hits.
XSF balls always fell to me heavier/more dense than the BTY and Joola balls.

when playing with them maybe it was the hall that day, but it sounded like these balls had more of a 40mm ball sound to them. Much less plastic sound that was very noticeable when first switching to polyballs. It felt like the speed of play was faster than when playing with a XSF ball, but still not as fast as the old 40mm. It felt like the ball bounced higher off the table counter looping but also longer across the table too.

Last picture is after say 2-3 minutes knock up of forehands. So we had managed to scuff the ball surface quite easily from hitting the surroundings or edge of blades etc. Its visible (arguably not in the photo - my bad!) that the creases from stress when hitting the edge of the blade, a wall, edge of the table or something else look to be very much "internal to the ball", hard to describe but the old 40 mm balls you could kind of feel the crease on the outside of the ball. Also this did not feel like this "crease mark" effected the play of the ball at all - definitely a bonus!

Joola balls i found went soft spots and warped,
XSF balls on the other hand ive found get soft spots or shatter,
Stiga balls seemed to warp or crack,
Donic balls... never had any luck with these, maybe just a bad batch but they shattered very quickly...

After only a light hit with theses, They do seem better than the Joola ones and definitely other brands with exception to XSF, that said though I think it would be good to see how they get on over time and more play...

Compared to the training polyballs id say i think i probably prefer these,
its hard to make the comparison properly against a 3* ball but id say BTY are definitely onto something here if they let these lead onto new BTY competition balls.

This rubber is simply on a league of its own, not because it is the best rubber but because there's nothing out there that is quite the same. Yes there are many that are similar but trust me its not the same. This is a very fast and bouncy rubber with a lot of spin. No matter where you hit the ball from whether its short or far from the table, it will go in the way you want it to. It goes well with all sorts of blades, all wood, ALC, ZLC, any other fibres out there. This rubber is suitable for both backhand and forehand looping as it has quite a high arc to it (which compromises its short game when paired with faster blades such as ZLC blades) leading to a good short to mid-far game. going too far from the table will purely depend on the player as i dont believe that the rubber itself can give that much power. Hence overall this seems like a perfect rubber.
There are DOWNSIDES however and these are very important. The most important thing about this rubber is its lack of gears. trust me when i say this, no matter who hits the ball with a tenergy it will go on. You do not need much power at all to get the ball on the table producing a fair paced spinny shot by just hitting the ball. This is a very bad sign for beginners and those who want to develop their shot. this rubber pretty much plays the game for you hence you will not improve much starting off with it. So for those who are just starting off and want to improve the game i recommend stepping away from Tenergy to develop appropriate power, spin and shots before using this even though this rubber will feel like the holy grail of table tennis rubbers.
Also the rubber itself does not last very long - id say about 6 months of playing once a week therefore a very expensive choice indeed

The instrument series by Nittaku are probably one of the best crafted blades out there, just looking at the grains on the blade was a beauty on its own, therefore though pricey its definitely worth it.
Now to the review, at first I had tenergy 05 on forehand and 64 on backhand therefore I couldnt complain much about the speed. The control was amazing at this point, most of my loops went on quite easily and with you could pretty much feel the ball with every shot, no matter how soft or hard you hit the ball (just to describe how great the feeling of this blade is).
The problem came in when i decided to put on a sheet of hurricane provincial to the forehand, (Ive always used tenergy so hurricane was a whole new experience here) I found that the ball went nowhere literally. i could not even get one shot over the net which was very frustrating. This was when i realised how slow the blade really was. Why i say it was in the blade is because i put the same sheet on an innerforce T5000 and the hurricane was perfectly fine.
I still rate this blade 5 stars however because paired with any european/japanese rubber it will never go wrong and the feeling and craftsmanship of this blade is just superb

This is one of my favourite blades to date. Compared to other ZLC blades (apart from the innerforce) it has a really nice feel to it which sounds more woody when coming into contact with the ball. I was using tenergy 05 on both sides and what i found was that it was very quick when it came to close to table game, making things like flicking much more difficult compared to an ALC blade.
Despite this, when you start looping close to mid distance it was a beauty as it had power and quite a lot of dwell time for a ZLC blade (which is still much less than an ALC blade in my opinion hence why i had to change)

Bluefire JP was good and Acuda was good also, but this product merges them and makes a better combo. To be honest the JP series was not as successful as M series, their topsheet wore off quickly, so this is a reboot for JP series in my opinion. The sponge is the same as the JP series, the topsheet is very similar to the Acuda series. I tried it on both sides and loved it.

Fresh of the package there is someting new and something old in this rubber, clearly the grippy, but not tacky rubber surface greets us, to touch it is a bit grippier then the M series. The pimple stucture of the topsheet is similar to the normal Acuda, but the material of teh topsheet is somewhat softer to the push. The sponge is the very familiar Bluefire JP sponge, with the distinctive smell and the even pores inside it. I loved this sponge in the JP series, because they were very linear and spinny, so I had some high hopes.

Counterhits
When counterhitting I felt some spinginess in the whole rubber, but the overall speed was less, than M2, when hitting the ball flat. When making the contact a bit more spinny the rubber comes very lively and the speed increased a tempo. It was clearly visible and forseen, that this rubber was not engineered to counterhits. During smashes I felt the lack of power, even the bottom of the rubber, so I could clearly hit through it.

Looping
Acuda series were always adored for their looping characteristics. As seen on the counterhits, when the blade was a bit more closed the ball speeded up, this force was actively working in the loops. Looping can be achieved with insane spin, medium throw, very fast pace and good control. To use this rubber at most, you must have an intermediate technique, but the topsheet helps you with that. Have I mentioned, that when hitting with a closed racket angle the rubber becomes more faster? Oh yeah! Well this rubber makes you loop all the time, with spin and speed. Lifting underspin has to be timed, and the ball will clear the net, but huge arc monsterloops are hard to create. Counterspins have to be timed well also. So If i compera to the JP or the M series, this rubber has a greater potential for a much aggressive play, but with a greater risk... as it used to be. Blocking loops were firs decieving me, they cleared the net, but I clearly saw them in the net, the trajectory is very low.

Short play over the table
For the first time when pushing the ball I had the same Tenergy feeling, when my opponent pushed with P2 i had to lift the ball instead of pushing or it instantly went into the net. Other honorable mentions with these capabilities Donic Barracuda, Xiom Omega (Elite). The rubber is a bit bouncy and sensitive to incoming spin as any other high spin european rubber, but due to the medium throw, it was not hard to keep the ball low and spinny. Due to the loop/smash speed duality of the rubber I found it hard to flip with FH. BH banana flicks were revarding and hearth warming shots. Serves are spinny, but I had to count in the spring effect of the rubber... so after some adjustments my serves were great.

Summary
[FONT=&quot]I play with M2/M1 and the throw was sufficient, the speed was better, than M2, the spin is awesome. The rubber is not very sensitive for incoming spin like Tenergy, bounces a bit less, and the speed is the same or a bit slower. Control and drops are flatter, but do not go into the net. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Still I can say as an intermediate player I had the required technique to use this rubber effectively, only had problems in finding the right angles. I do recommend this rubber to a spin oriented player, who wants a decent attacking rubber which is more forgiving than Tenergy 05. Playing distance is close to mid distance, from far away developed and strong strokes are required to get the ball clear the net. Durability is the same as an usual Donic rubber, some abrasions after 30-40 hours of play (please keep it clean), but the grip remains, occasional reboostering is required after 3-4 mounths and it is good for a year. [/FONT]

Blade recommendation
My blade for the testing was a Yinhe/Galaxy/Milky Way - Venus 14, a blade hat is a Butterfly Timo Boll Spirit Clone with 80-90% identity. I would not recommend softer blades for this rubber, because it may feell mushy. Clearly this rubber was designed to loop so looping blades are recommended with stiff or nearly stiff builds. Flexible blades max require better technique and longer strokes to get the maximum out of the rubber. I really liked the rubber on the Zhang Jike ALC (2012 Blue dragon pattern) Which has koto outer plies and kiri core, but my setup was also nice with limba outer ply and kiri core.

[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Overall, if you want to upgrade from Bluefire JP buy this, if you want to be more aggressive, than Bluefire M, buy this. If you want a bit more spin, speed and control than Acuda, buy this.[/FONT]

Best blade in the world when it comes to feeling/feedback. I have played with over a hundred and more wooden blades, but this particular blade has a unique/unmatched feeling when you play with it

You can literally feel the ball sinking into the blade producing tons of spin, especially if you know how to accelerate your paddle. Great choice for loopers/blockers/counterattackers who like to add variation in their game and lift underspin shots with ease.


----- For more information about the features/materials/ of the blade, also check the review below by UpsideDownCarl----


Its an allround offensive blade, but even a defender can use it. The only disadvantage is that it needs some extra power on topspin topspin rallies 2 ++ meters away from the table, but this isnt much of a problem especially if you have correct stroke mechanics and effective use of power when you strike. But let the pros worry about that, amateur play 99% of the time does not involve topspin to topspin rally 2++ meters away from the table (im talking about perfect technique in your topspin, not just hitting the ball hard with your upper arm and no body roration)

Great for learning how to "feel" the ball. I totally recommend it for beginners and players who emphasize on spinny shots and soft touch play. If you are a good BH banana flicker go for a blade faster like the clipper


P.S. For more information about the features/materials/ of the blade, also check the review below by UpsideDownCarl

I have been using Donic Bluefire M2 on my forehand and backhand for last 1 year. Here are my impressions about this product from Donic

Blade(s) used: Tibhar Stratus Powerwood, Donic Waldner Senso Ultra Carbon

Durability: Very good durability, my sheets lasted almost an year! I used to play 4-6 hours per week for 5 months and later I started playing 10 hours in a week. After 8 months, I relglued the rubbers and the life was extended for almost 4 months more. So overall, I am really happy with the life of the rubber.

Speed: I was using Donic JO Platin previously on my forehand and backhand I used to feel that the spin generation by JO Platin rubbers is less as compared to Sonex JP Gold, which I used previously for 8 years. I read very good reviews about Donic Bluefire M2 and was compelled to try it out. I found this rubber having very good speed. Almost too good for my level. I realized that it is very important to select an OFF-/OFF ply for this rubber. Anything higher and control suffers big time. Donic Bluefire M2 offers medium to medium-high arc on first opening loops with very good depth. It is easy to just lift a backspin ball without putting efforts once you control this beauty. However, if you tend to stiff your arms or hold your blade tightly then your strokes will suffer and you will be inconsistent. This rubber rewards active strokes. Even on serve receive, I have to play the ball and just cannot keep the rubber and expect things to happen. Due to high speed, it is important that you move a step or half back after first opening loop. Since due to catapult effect, the follow up topspins are fast, low and very deep. It is easy to make errors on aggressive strokes using this rubber. Blocks with this rubbers are too good as you can keep the ball low, fast and deep in your opponent's court. So as per me, this rubber has a learning curve. How fast you can control it? Well, it totally depends on your level and how you play and how many hours you spend practicing with this rubber.

Spin: I was able to generate very good spin on my serves, push, and topspins. Counterattacks and counterloops are easy, however, it surely requires a skilled hand. Beginners will find this rubber very difficult to use since it reacts to incoming spin, thus making life difficult on passive receives. Opening loops are fairly easy. If you time the ball early then with a short stroke you can generate awesome spin.

Control: Well, this is a subjective aspect. I found this rubber difficult to control initially, when using it on Tibhar Stratus Powerwood. I later moved it to Donic Waldner Senso Ultra Carbon and had better control. But, you must know that I have used Donic Waldner Senso Ultra Carbon for 8 years, may be this is the reason for this observation. If you are ready to invest time, then you will find the experience rewarding and enjoyable.

Weight: It is a heavy rubber, I feel that it is difficult to use this on both forehand and backhand if you don't like heavy setups.

Thank you for reading. Hope this review helps you and you enjoy your game more and more! God bless.

I am happy to have this rubber (Bluefire JP 01 Turbo), the speed is good, spin and control is amazing. The weight is good, I think the rubber is very good on the forehand side.

Virtuoso +

OSP Blades, made the old fashioned way: hand made, built after you order it.

Blade construction: Limba-Limba-Ayous-Limba-Limba


Okay, I think this is the perfect racket for me right now. It is an Off (speed rated) blade. It is fast enough but not too fast. The outer plies are fairly soft and it has great touch for the short game. So pushing the ball short or looping or flipping short are easy and the blade allows you to make all kinds of touch shots.


You can make your pushes very short and nice and spinny. This helps make receiving serve much easier. Flipping short balls is also pretty easy because this blade allows you to do all touch shots with good control.


It also has great feedback and really nice wood feeling. So it is easy to feel exactly where on the blade surface you have made contact.


The blade has excellent dwell time so you can loop with control and a lot of spin. It feels like I can put the ball exactly where I want to. But it also has good gears so that when I swing harder I can make shots with great power.


The blade is good at looping from any distance. When I am backed up I have no problem playing from far. But the blade really shines close to the table and at mid-distance where you can make power loops with precision.


This blade is ideal for an Allround Offensive player who does a little of everything and values spin and placement on his shots but also wants to be able to put the ball away with power shots when the opportunity arises.


The blade has some flex but not as much as the Virtuoso. The blade has a really nice deep pitch on contact that makes me want to keep driving the ball and making power loops. This blade can make you addicted to the feeling of a good loop or drive.


All in all, this blade feels like the ideal blade for an intermediate to advanced offensive minded player.


A friend of mine who is a semi-pro player has one of those 6mm Clippers which he got in 1991. He also has two Nittaku/Avalox P-700s from back in the same year. Those two blades feel unreal. Before I felt this and my Virtuoso (OFF-), those three blades felt better than any other blade I had tried. The Virtuoso + and the Virtuoso (OFF-) feel just as good but a little bit slower with more control and dwell time. But they have that big wood feeling that I really love.

Some people who don't like it say it is too soft. I asked for it to be, basically, as heavy as possible: I have the small head (150mm x 157mm) and it is over 90 grams which is what they list as the heaviest weight. That is perfect for me, especially since the handle is NOT hollow so it is NOT head heavy which I also like.

It is center balanced. Not too much weight in the handle. Not too much weight in the head. So some people will like that and others will not. Like Der_Echte will want more weight in the handle and someone else will want more weight in the head. But for me it is perfect. [emoji2]

And one person told me he didn't like it because it freaked him out how he could feel exactly where the ball was on the blade face when he hit. That also is not a downside to me.

A lot of people will complain it is too slow, I definitely don't think so. But those people who want Sardius or Schlager Carbon speed will. Someone who is used to a TB ALC will notice it is a bit slower but, if that is not a concern, they will adjust to it.

For me it is more than fast enough even though my technique is good enough to handle a Schlager Carbon. [emoji2]

I just like the all wood, moderate speed thing and generating my own power.

Oh, one more positive. For a long time I have felt that Butterfly blades are the most solid I have seen. You bang the side on the edge of the table by accident while serving and they seem to sustain the least damage.

Somehow this one seems indestructible. My Virtuoso (OFF-) and my V'King are both solid and about the same in terms of sustaining blows as a Butterfly blade.

But this V+ is a tank. It may be because they made the small head with the highest weight. But I have slammed it into the edge of the table a couple of times and it barely got scratched. I was actually amazed by how solid it is. I have never seen a blade as strong as this one.

The topsheet on these rubbers is amazing they really grab the ball well and let you create a lot of spin. This one is medium hard. I have tried this one, and the Stiff and Limber versions. Stiff is a little harder but not too hard. Limber is softer and perhaps too soft or not the right kind of soft. But this one is really quite good. I played with this one the least. But it plays really well and you can generate a lot of spin with it. The throw angle is medium, not too low, not too high. This rubber is great for topspin and for opening against backspin. This is a very good backhand rubber. I like the Stiff version more for forehand. But this one is really good for the extra control with all that spin on the backhand side.

So, this rubber was really nice for the first few weeks. Then the sponge seemed to sort of die. Like it had been boosted but lost the boost effect. And then it played very slow until I reboosted it. I don't like to boost. But this rubber needed it after a few weeks. Otherwise I would have tossed it. Once it was rebooted it played fine and has lasted a long time. Once it was reboosted it felt really good. It has really good spin. Amazing control and the topcoat really grabs the ball well.

The thing about these Victas rubbers is the topcoat really has great grip and grabs the ball very well producing great spin. The sponge is a bit dense and it is harder to feel the ball with these rubbers than it is with Tenergy. But, the topsheet is so good on the Victas rubbers that these are worth using. They play better than the price that is charged for them. So they are a great value.

Allright. This rubber pretty much rocks. The price is pretty reasonable for how good it is. The topsheet is simply amazing. You get great spin and a ton of control. I feel like I can loop anything with this rubber. The sponge is the one drawback to it. The sponge could be better. But the sponge is not bad. It just is not as good as it could be. And the topsheet is so good it makes up for that. This rubber was made for the 40+ Poly ball. It works great with either the celluloid or the poly ball. But it really grabs the poly ball quite well. The throw angle on this rubber is medium high. But you get a great arc on the ball because of how much spin this rubber can generate.

And this is one of the most durable rubbers I have used. Even with this rubber looks dead and worn out, it still grabs the ball well enough to keep using it.

Hi everyone,

I'd like to give my opinion about the softest version of Evolution rubber, Tibhar Evolution FX-P. I'm pretty curious to how this rubber perform since I've heard and seen many good reviews about this rubber, so I decided to buy one sheet from tt-shop on my neighborhood and start to replace my old Mark V rubber with Tibhar Evolution FX-P. The result of my experiment is like this :

Speed
The speed is not really shining, but i found that it's good enough for me to control the game. Tibhar Evolution FX-P offer almost the same speed of Mark V but with more catapult effect on it. I felt the rubber has a longer trajectory compared to Mark V rubber I used before.

Spin
The soft sponge help me to generate a lot of spin without too much effort either from close or mid distance. The amount of spin I can generate also increasing using this rubber. It's also very easy for me to do a very short spinny serve without too much brushing action. Thanks to great soft sponge.

Control
I think this rubber is very forgiving. One of my weakness is I'm really easy to get out of position. Using Tibhar Evolution FX-P I can return the ball with higher percentage event though I slightly mishit the ball. The amount of consistency also incredible and it's so fun to play with. Pushing & blocking also good because this rubber is not sensitive to incoming spin. I found that i can control the incoming spin from my opponent serve easier with this rubber.

To sum up, I think this is a very great rubber for someone who looking for a faster rubber with great control and spin. Very user friendly and suitable for both FH and BH side. A little by litte of my friends starts to change to this rubber because of it's extraordinary performance.

Is one of the better plastic balls at the moment but still improvements to be made as it does break in half sometimes mid air, and is often quite wobbly as it is soft, will be interesting to see DHS bring out a better ball...hopefully soon!

Very good looping rubber and I'm really happy using it. I can loop all backspin easily. DHS H3 Neo is a very good rubber to produce a very consistent forehand topspin. It's tacky surface helps me in getting a better control. Recommended for advanced players who really seeking balance in speed and spin. But one of the downside of this rubber is it cannot generate the speed by itself. I need to produce the speed with of own body and it takes a lot of physical efforts to do that. I think this rubber is good for a topspin offensive player with strong physical capability. I don't recommend this rubber if you like to smash the ball flat because of its tacky surface, flat hitters will struggle to adjust their stroke.

Hi everyone,

In this review, I will review my first ever carbon blade Donic Baum Esprit. The setup I'm using is Donic Baum Esprit with DHS Neo Hurricane 3 on FH side and Tibhar Evolution FX-P on BH side. And after playing with this blade for a week, here's my review :

Donic Baum Esprit is my first carbon blade since I played table tennis in 2014. Usually, I'm using an all-wood blade, but I'd like to experiment a little bit by moving to a carbon blade. I'm an attacking player who likes to loop the ball very often. For me, Donic Baum Esprit helps me to loop the ball more consistently. The speed I can generate is great enough and the amount of control & spin is very good. It also has very large sweet spot which give you more forgiveness even if you slightly mishit the ball.

Short game is so smooth. I can control the short game easier. The amount of dwell time that this blade has also good for flicking the ball. My short push is getting better now and my forehand also my backhand flick become more deadly.

In looping and counter-top spin rally, my shot also getting more consistent. The amount of control from Donic Baum Esprit also good when you're playing far from the table. I found that I need an extra effort to create a long arc when I played far from the table, but when using Donic Baum Esprit I can do a very big swing without worrying the ball come out of the table. Blocking also quiet easy to do with this blade I can do both active and passive block without too much effort. For me this blade is very balance in short-distance, mid-distance, and long-distance game.

Things I don't really like from Donic Baum Esprit is the wood quality issue. It seems the wood pretty easy to get damaged. The layer is pretty thin and sometimes it makes me really nervous to play aggresively from close the table.

In my opinion, this blade good for player who really love to top-spin the ball a lot. I will not recommend Donic Baum Esprit for direct hitters because the blade is not so hard so you won't get any benefit by hitting the ball flat.

Here is my video preview on the Butterfly Easy Ball with Tom.

Butterfly have released this new ball made in Germany to combat current issues with many plastic balls. The material used in this plastic ball is unique and actually feels like celluloid. The sound is a lot crisper than I was expecting. When we compared the Easy Ball in comparison to a traditional plastic ball in the bounce test, the Easy ball bounced longer. Impressively when comparing this new ball to a celluloid ball, the Easy Ball still managed to do the same with a higher and longer bounce. As this is a training/youth ball, I am looking forward to the 3* competition ball, this will be interesting.


Conclusion: The easy ball has been developed for youth training, casual play and for robots. This ball will be the first of a new line of products from Butterfly, from a training balls to 3 star balls. This new material certainly has a new feel and sound.

The manufacturing process of this ball is different whereby the ball is made by creating two halves. You can see this on the ball in its raw material colour (see footage).

Butterfly's future 3 star balls will be coloured white like traditional balls. The seam of this new ball has the same thickness as the two halves on the inside and out which creates a very round, high bounce stable ball.