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This is a review of the Yasaka Rakza 7 Soft rubber in the color red, max sponge.


Blade: Stiga Hybrid Wood penhold


Initial observations:
Top quality topsheet.
Soft springy sponge in the color white.
Weight is avarage. Not as heavy as chinese rubbers.


Throw:
The Rakza 7 Soft I would say has a medium to low throw. Lower than chinese rubbers like the H3 Neo and TG2 Neo, lower than the Rakza 7 but slightly higher than Stiga Boost XT.
Compared to Rakza 7 the sponge is "bouncy" and the throw gets a boost. The throw length is perfect for my forehand game, feels really "safe". The springy feel does not suit my bachand game, but I will try to give it more time.


Speed:
Not a fast rubber, however the sponge provides bounce enough to balance the spin and is a big part of the rubbers exelent control.
This rubber is about as fast as the H3 neo was on my blade, but for different reasons. The H3's tacky topsheet needs a huge effort from you to generate speed, so does this rubber.
As a forehand rubber, the speed and bounce could be better. Perhaps the R7Soft would benefit from a softer blade, just like the H3 Neo did. Will update the review once this is tested. (Not hapening soon! )

[edit] After a few weeks I glued this rubber on an old Banda JO Waldner blade and this blade suits the Rakza rubbers much better. The speed was increased noticably! [/edit]

Spin:
Good amount of spin thanks to the top quality of the topsheet. The topsheet is a little tacky, it picks up a small amout of dust but not much. Easy to clean.


Control:
I love the control of this rubber.
The balance between speed and spin is really good.
Way more control than Stiga Boost XT making my game slower but more consistant.


Value:
Great value for your money.

This is my review of the Yasaka Rakza 7 rubber in the color black, max sponge.



Blade: Stiga Hybrid Wood penhold

Initial observations:
Top quality topsheet.
Medium soft sponge in the color white.
Weight is avarage. Not as heavy as chinese rubbers.

Throw:
The Rakza 7 I would say has a medium throw. Lower than chinese rubbers like the H3 Neo and TG2 Neo but higher than both Rakza 7 Soft and Stiga Boost XT.
Compared to Rakza 7 soft and Stiga Boost XT the sponge is not "bouncy" at all so the throw is therefore really direct. Great throw length. For me it is perfect for my backhand. Also works well on forehand.

Speed:
Not the fastest rubber on the market, however it provides enough speed to blance the rubbers spin and is a big part of the rubbers exelent control.
It is faster than the H3 neo and TG2 neo on my blade but not as fast as the Stiga Boost XT. However it makes up for it in both spin and control.

[edit] After a few weeks I glued this rubber on an old Banda JO Waldner blade and this blade suits the Rakza rubbers much better. The speed was increased noticably! [/edit]

Spin:
Good amount of spin thanks to the top quality of the topsheet. The topsheet is a little tacky, it picks up a small amout of dust but not much. Easy to clean.

Control:
I love the control of this rubber.
The balance between speed and spin is exelent.
Placing the ball is such fun.

Value:
Great value for your money.
Will buy this rubber again.

Hi all,

Here's my video review on the STIGA Emerald VPS blade.

The emerald blade was released in 2014 as an advancement of the STIGA Infinity blade. The blade arrives in premium quality packaging with the clean unique look which STIGA are renowned for. The surface of the blade is varnished which helps protect and prolong it's life. The Emerald weighs 98g and consists of 5 plys of wood. The Emerald VPS is 6.2mm thick. Similar to the recent Carboando Blade Series, this Emerald blade has two metal insignias on front and bottom of the handle which furthers the premium feel of the blade. The Airoc Medium rubber were used on both sides of the blade. In the review we compare the Emerald to the popular STIGA Infinity VPS.


Forehand Topspin

Nice solid control that traditional wood blades are well known for. The emerald felt quite hard and had a solid contact. You can generate a good amount of power when playing attacking shots without compromising on control.

Away from table Footage

Away from the table the blade has excellent stability and great feeling. This feeling and control allowed me to put a lot of power into my shots because you know you can trust this blade to produce the same consistent ball everytime.
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Backhand Topspin

The Emerald is very effective for backhands, where it produces a hard, fast impact. I liked the lower direct trajectory that can be produced when playing backhands.

Blocking

The large sweet spot and medium to hard stiffness allowed for excellent feel when blocking and safety in my strokes. The quick, crisp reaction of the blade suits offensive play very well.

Comparison between Emerald and Infinity blade

We found a few similarities in the review between the Emerald and the Infinity blade, one of which was the feeling. Both possess a strong wood feeling. In terms of weight between the two, the Infinity felt slightly lighter in the hand. A noticeable difference between the two blades was the speed. The Emerald was stiffer than the infinity which gave the blade more of a rebound effect, which in turn made the blade faster.

The difference in speed between the two is caused by a different outer veneer. The Emerald has a new hard green Ebenholz outer veneer, whereas the infinity has a lighter, outer veneer.

The Infinity however has a greater dwell and, therefore gives you slightly more forgiveness than the emerald and is slightly more suited at close range shots.

Spin

With the Emerald, there was a good amount of dwell time which helped create a lot of spin when playing against backspin from either a serve or a push ball.

Conclusion:

The STIGA Emerald blade certainly has more gears than its predecessor Infinity in terms of speed. Like the STIGA Infinity which we reviewed in 2014, we found the Emerald blade had bundles of control.

We were especially impressed with the speed to control ratio away from the table. In comparison, the Infinity seemed more suited from close range to the table. The Emerald due to its greater speed, really helped from mid distance and away from the table.

Overall the Emerald works very well for attackers looking for that extra bit of zip in their shots from a wood blade. It is suited for those players looking for high end speed with good control and is really easy to use for any experienced player.

In 2014, myself and Tom reviewed the STIGA Infinity blade, you can watch the review here.

Highly impressed by this rubber !! I am using a black sheet as FH rubber on Hurricane Long 5 blade.
1. hard sponge : perfectly qualifies for a good, powerful FH rubber
2. very grippy topsheet : easy to lift any kind of of underspin
3. medium low throw : good for counter topspins and blocks
4. great control both close to the table and away : but you need to get used to its sponge hardness ... cannot play casual shots close to the table and expect the ball to land on the other side...play with commitment and this rubber will deliver everything you need !!
5. it is not springy like other tensors, which proved very helpful when i was lifting underspin of opponent serves with topspin shots....

Recommend it to ppl who are at a decent level of play !!

was earlier using carbonado 190 with black-rasant[FH] and red-aurus_soft[BH] until I decided to try HL-5.
Seems to be a very good blade indeed !!
I am using black-rasant_power_grip [FH] and red-tibhar 5Q_update [BH] and it is proving to be a lovely combination. The throw angle of the blade is medium types as it is not overly stiff
The combo provides enough control for close to the table shots on both FH and backhand. I can easily lift backspin using FH and the ball stays close to net height..
thanks partially to the grip of Andro rubber and partially to the control the blade offers. It is also very convenient to do banana flicks from BH and the ball does not easily overshoot. This was slightly troublesome with carbonado 190 which was very stiff and low throw (though that helped tremendously in close table drives and blocks) (difficulty in playing these over-the-table backhand shots forced me to try HL-5 rather than sticking to 190) .. chops are controlled. blocking is also good, not the best considering the fact that I was using carbonado 190, which was amazing in this aspect. The handle is a bit thin, so it will suit you well if you have small palm size (my case..!!... this is a big reason for me to switch to HL-5 from 190.... somehow the flare in stiga handles feels inconvenient to me....personal issue though) , but the only downside I can see as of now is a bit of head heaviness....this turns advantageous when you play power shots (loop drives from mid/far).
Cheers !!
Aditya.

Butterfly created a hybrid between Tenergy 64 and 05, and this rubber is precisely this. It has more spin and a higher throw compared to Tenergy 64 and also a bit slower. For blocking, Tenergy 64 still rules with a lower throw. I wanted more spin and changed to Tenergy 80, while still being less sensitive to incoming spin compared to Tenergy 05.

I got lucky and bought my Holy Grail in China from Bora Wang, the Chinese player who played for Turkey. It was expensive, even in China. 650 RMB which equals around 70 EUR at the time.

I opened the vacuum sealed rubber and added three thin layers of Haifu Seamoon booster. This might not be required, but I wanted to feel the true experience. The rubber is rated at 41 degrees, which is quite hard, even for Chinese rubbers. That is why I added the booster.

If you have played with any other national versions of the Hurricane 3 rubber, you will feel right at home. At first, this rubber had a distinct "ping" sound. After around 5 hours of play, this sound faded and the rubber became softer and came to life. There are two reasons to use this rubber.

1. Spin. This rubber has ridiculous amounts of spin. This gives a very characteristic arc when looping. Tossing spinny serves is easy.

2. Control. What you play, the rubber answers. There is a linear function of input and output. If you touch the ball softly, service returns will be short. If you swing at full power, the ball will explode from the racket. It is very difficult to do flat hits. You have to really work with every stroke. Counterlooping is much easier compared to tensor rubbers, since the rubber will grip the ball and reverse the spin.

The rubber is slow when using incoming speed, everything has to come from your stroke. This is a direct consequence of the control that this rubber has. For me, the advantages overcomes the disadvantages. This rubber is very similar to a 41 degrees regular Hurricane 3 national orange sponge. The main difference is a bit more bounce and a less tacky topsheet.

Rakza 7 is a fast rubber with a nice top sheet, which Yazaka claims has a higher amount of natural rubber. When executed properly, this rubber will really shine. It is not very forgiving, but instead demands good quality shots. This rubber has a medium throw. This rubber has built-in glue effect which is one source of the power. When the glue effect runs out, the rubber becomes quite dead.

The T-2 is my first blade. The first rubbers to be on that blade were the Globe 999 on both sides. After I have put some older Acuda S1/S2 on it.

Speed

The T-2 is a very fast blade, not as fast as T-11+, but still a very fast blade. It'll reveal it's speed with some fast rubbers that will also make the racket heavier, because the blade itself is very light.

Control

This blade has little control, it is quite hard to make some fine precise shots.

Hardness

Hardest blade I have ever played. It is rock hard, has almost zero dwell time and gives a low arc. Definitely not for a looper. I don't recommend to put on it chinese hard tacky rubbers, like Globe 999, because it will have a completely dead feel, and the racket won't be good for anything - it will become slower, with even less dwell time, unefficient for blocks/hits/smashes, and it will require a massive effort to make a good loop.

Sound

This blade has a very funny and unpleasant loud sound, it sounds somehow like hollow.

Handle

A large, comfortable handle, after measurements, it seems identical to OSP flared handle and Stiga Legend handle.

Durability

After some hits in the table, there are some bumps on it, so it's definitely not a Panzer.

Strategy

This blade definitely isn't for loopers nor defenders or allrounders. It is for a hard hitter/smasher that likes to play close to the table without too much spin.

Conclusion

The Yinhe/Galaxy T-2 is a cheap(less than 25$) and light fast blade that is good for hits/smashes/blocks. It lacks control, and it is very-very hard. It gives an unpleasant sound, but you will get used to it. A big plus of this blade is its large and comfortable handle.

good balls, much better than dhs 3 star or nittaku sha+

I have played with the XSF +40 for several weeks now and the ball is easy to change to from the cell ball. The quality of the balls are quite consistent, but there may be some balls that are oval. One thing I've noticed about the XSF seamless ball was that it was slower than many if the other balls. Also an edge ball from the blade can easily break the ball. It happened a couple of times for me. Overall the XSF ball is one of the best of the poly balls in terms of durability and roundness for the buck, but it's speed kills the thrill of the game.

Spinny, relatively fast rubber suitable for the first shot attack and counter spins. It is also very good in service and receives. I like this rubber a lot, it would be good if the durability was better, but all in all a good rubber.

I have just tested a new Acuda p1 blue rubber on my fh with my Michael Maze blade and I have to say that I have a bit mixed feels about it.It´s not a rocket but with correct stroke it is fast enough. It´spinny but not over sensitive to incoming spin. Here are my observations.

Serving:
Acuda p1 has very grippy and softish top sheet. Grippyness with hard sponge makes this rubber really good for serving. It´s easy to get lots of spin to my short serves and fast serves are controllable. Serving is really one of the areas where Acuda p1 really shines!

Opening from underspin:
Acuda p1 has a lowish throw so I had to execute my opening loops from heavy under spin with thicker contact than my JP02 which has been my fh rubber for last year. If I wanted brush loop the ball I had to lift the ball really heavily and when I did that the ball was loaded with spin. However brush looping with this rubber requires really good contact to ball and it was not easy to execute if I was out of position.

Loop and drives:
Acuda p1 has a harder sponge than my normal rubber and I felt that I needed to loop and drive with thicker contact than with JP02. Loops and drives were very accurate with low arc. Looping from middle distance required quite heavy racket movement upwards due to low throw of Ap1.

Counter looping:
Counter looping if the bounce is the best thing of Acuda p1. If I was in good position for counter attack of the bounce my counter loops were really secured and precise. Out of position I still felt quite comfortable and was able to get most of the counter loops to the table. When I stepped couple meters of the table situation became very different. I wasn´t able to get good contact to the ball and the rubber felt really unstable. I think that might be because I haven´t use a rubber this hard before. But anyway this was a major thing that made me stick to JP02 for next season.

Blocking:
Acuda p1 is not really sensitive to incoming spin in blocking so I think that blocking with Ap1 was really easy.

Service return and short game:
As mentioned earlier the Acuda p1 has really grippy top sheet and this really shows in service returns. If I read the spin correctly I was able to execute an excellent return. If I miss read the spin... well the outcome wasn´t really that good. In short game Ap1 worked great for me. It was easy to keep the ball short and equally easy toput lots of spin to the ball. I don´t really do flipping on my fh sono comment in this section.


Conclusion:
If you like to play aggressive topspin game near to table and your footwork keeps you in good position most of the time Acuda p1 could be THE rubber for you. It´s not the easiest rubber to play with but it rewards your good shots.

Well, the only plus of these balls is their roundness. I didn't have any major roundness issues with them. And now comes the bad part. These balls are slow. It is more difficult to spin them. And they do break fast. I mean really fast. I broke 2 of them in my last match, even if I am a player that give priority to spin over power/speed. The only ones who liked these balls were the choppers. And let's not forget about the price of these balls. So, I will continue to play the old balls, but if I have to choose a plastic ball, I have no reason to choose DHS balls over the Xushaofa ones.

The XSF 3-star ball is, for me, the best plastic ball until now. It is faster and way more durable than the DHS 3-star 40+ ball, but sometimes XSF balls are not round. They come as a significant improvement over the DHS 40+ balls, but still are worse and more expensive than the old 40mm balls.

I would say it is a good Blade for Beginners. It is not very fast and easy to control. Furthermore it is not very expensive and it is a nice feeling, holding it.

It is very fast and spinny... exactly what i like to play. The only problem in my eyes is, that its not as easy to control as the # Manufacturer Stats say.

Very nice to look at and the Tibhar Blue Spirit shoes are very comfortable, especially when playing 4er-Tisch / Ultimate!

We will be using this plastic Tibhar ball at the upcoming 4er-Tisch World Championships 2015 in Germany. This will be the first time the event will use the plastic ball. We find the Tibhar 3* plastic ball to have great durability which is important.