Latest reviews

I've used it for my FH in max thickness and the speed is a little bit less than Sriver FX in theory. (mine was faster, maybe the blade had something to do with it)

What I loved about this rubber is the grip, perfect for hard chops at any distance from the table, only experienced players with proper techique will rise those chops. The serves are easier to do since its low speed and high tackiness would allow you to perform serves with extreme spin without having the trouble of a long serve. You can do decent topspins with it but they won't be super fast.

This rubber is for medium level players to play with and against, it's durable, tacky and reliable, but won't be popular with the offensive players.

very fast rubber suitable for the game away from the table. I use it in Max and the sponge is not soft at all, i can't feel the ball sink in even with the new plastic balls.

The FH topspins and the sidespins (far from the table) are amazing as long as you have the proper technique, the BH chops and pushes are risky moves because of its speed and the high throw bounce of the rubber.

The price of the rubber combined with its extreme fragility have become an issue for my tight budget.

This rubber is great. It is alot different than Euro tensors. It has a very hard sponge, and topsheet. The topsheet is very tacky which gives you great spin and control of the ball. But it also makes your hits flat, and a bit slower. If you don't have good technique this rubber will show it. If you have great technique this rubber shows it and improves upon it. Not meant for people who are used to t-rexing for their loops and smashes. You need full arm and body motion to get the most out of this rubber. Also good for blocking and chopping. Such great ball control, you can place the ball anywhere with ease.

Great rubber - not too reactive to spin whilst maintaining the ability to generate vast amounts of spin of its own. Very durable however not very fast.

This rubber has everything that you need.... in the first month or so. It is quick, spinny and easy to control, however, after a month or 2 you will notice that it starts to lose grip extremely quickly and will lose all grip in long rallies, you will find yourself having to constantly breathe on it to give it grip after allmost every point. If you could find a way of making it a lot more durable, then it would be a really good rubber for the allround/slightly offensive player.

Donic Acuda S1 Turbo is by far the best rubber in the Acuda series and i personally would say that it is the best rubber ever made by donic (Better than Bluefire) it is very fast and extremely spinny, its control isnt amazing but that is expected. It is definately a good alternative to the common tenergy. I think that tenergy is slightly faster but has amost exactly the same amount of spin. It is perfect for the attacking player and is perfect for looping. there is no strugglewith blocking with this rubber. It also allows you to generate an enormous amount of spin of the push. Overall a very good rubber.

Speed 9.0
Spin 9.8
Control 9.0
Tackiness Slightly Tacky
Weight Medium
Sponge Hardness Medium – Hard, harder than MX-P.

Overall 9.8

As requested by some players after my last review of the TIBHAR Evolution MX-P, this week I have reviewed the TIBHAR Evolution MX-S. Like the MX-P, this rubber is currently available from my UK sponsors Bribar Table Tennis at a special offer, first 100 sheets sold price of £34.99, reduced from £46.99. You can view and buy it here: http://shop.bribartt.co.uk/tibhar-evolution-mx-s.html

I tested this in Sweden where I’ve been practising for the last week for the upcoming World Championships – I’m feeling good and strong! I brought a couple of sheets out with me on the off chance I might get some time to test it. I tested this rubber for an hour after our session on my spare blade, which is a TIBHAR Samsonov Stratus Carbon. I played with the MX-S on both sides of my blade, with the maximum sponge thickness available.

When I prepared the rubber I noticed the sponge seemed a little more firm and harder to touch than my MX-P, and the surface of the MX-S was tackier than my MX-P sheets. It is not like a Chinese style extremely tacky surface, but it is tacky all the same and running my finger along the surface provides a fair amount of resistant. It feels like this rubber is going to provide me with a serious amount of spin.

The first obvious difference between the MX-P that I use and the MX-S is the speed and spin difference. The MX-S is a tiny fraction slower, but the surface is slightly different and the sponge feels harder – but the spin it’s able to generate is really, really heavy when I’m playing my forehand topspin loop to a block. It gives me more spin from mid distance when I’m looping the ball on both my forehand and backhand, through the curve on the ball is not increased – the ball flies in a similar manner to my shots when I use the MX-P, the curve I get is similar but that’s probably more to do with my technique, the angle I hit the ball and my contact, but the spin is definitely a little greater. Remember, when it comes to the technique and contact point we all do this a little differently to each other!

When I’m serving short with spin, it’s easy to control the ball and keep it short whilst loading the ball up with backspin or topspin. With the MX-S being a little slower than the MX-P, this is an advantage when serving short and then topspin looping the 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] ball return from my opponents push ball. The high grip rubber top sheet allows me to spin the first ball aggressively.

When I’m receiving from my opponents serve, the top sheet allows me to touch the ball short easily with a really good amount of back spin. We do this a lot in the matches I play to try to prevent the first strong attack, so this is a really good aspect of the rubber. When I flick, the slightly harder sponge helps me to flick through the ball, and when my opponents serve drifts slightly long I am able to topspin over the table with relative ease as the rubber grips the ball so well.

Close to the table when my opponent is looping the ball at me, blocking and controlling feels easy. The ball does not sink as much into the sponge (although this is very, very marginal) but I am able to block very well and place the ball as I want to. The main difference is that the sponge makes the ‘feeling’ of the ball different. It’s not any better or worse than the MX-P that I use, but it’s a slightly different type of reaction and feeling that I think some players will really love.

For speed, I have rated the Evolution MX-S as 9.0. It’s fast, and a very good versatile attacking rubber. The sponge provides good speed and the top sheet is still a Tensor style rubber so the tacky nature does not take away from the speed, but it is a little slower than my MX-P sheets. Away from the table, when I’m playing topspin to topspin the MX-S feels brilliant, I am able to topspin the ball hard and with lots of spin, the arc is not huge but straighter than I expected, but the shot feels very safe and the topspin generated is brilliant.

For spin, I have rated the Evolution MX-S as 9.8. The amount of spin the top sheet provides is outstanding! It’s tackier than my MX-P sheets, and provides more spin. The ‘bite’ on the ball when I try to spin heavily from my loop shots, serves and receive of service push shots is really heavy. I practised some short sidespin serves with both backspin and topspin, and the kick on the other side table when the ball bounced was really extreme.

For control, I have rated the MX-S as 9.0. It is similar to my MX-P in this respect, but the feeling is different – it is a different type of rubber for a slightly different type of style so of course this will be the case. It is easy to serve short with spin, easy to receive with and great for blocking and controlling. The control on my attacking topspin shots is similar to my MX-P sheets, but again it just feels like a different reaction on the bat. It is the same control level but different. If you try both of these rubbers, then you will definitely be able to see what I mean by this!

To sum it up, this rubber is a fantastic choice for those attacking players who love the feeling of a slightly harder sponge and a top sheet that will produce lots of spin. I have played in the past with much harder sponges than this, so compared to those this sponge would still be medium-hard but this is certainly a harder sponge than the MX-P and the top sheet provides more grip. It offers a really good level of control, and a very good balance between the speed it can provide and the spin it generates.

Really nice shoes! Very good comfort, grip and they look good too, I have the white ones. Very satisfied!

I have tried many of the new plastic balls and find the Nittaku ones last longer than all the others. They are good quality, however not perfect just yet. But I hope soon they will be. They are good shape and feel slightly harder than the other plastic balls I have tried. Overall Nittaku seem to make the balls more round than other brands. Again it's not always perfectly round but most of them are.

These shoes are great, great quality and come at a very good price. They have excellent durability which is very important in table tennis due to the physical demand. They are better than any other TT shoe I have tried. They grip very well on all playing surfaces.

In my opinion id say Mizuno make the best table tennis shoes. They are very light, feels like i'm walking on a cloud lol

I'd say these rubbers come as close as you can to the butterfly rubbers. The spin/speed is quite good, they also last quite long, maybe a little too pricey for some but if you want to try out the donic rubbers, try the m1/m2 collection, deuces!

I'd say this blade is really, really good, it's quite popular around the world and I've just started playing with it and I can easily understand why, the touch feels really good, very compatible with the rubbers, it's a fast blade but fits a professional player as well as a non-professional player. It's not very heavy either, just about right, if there are people here looking to try out/buy a butterfly-blade, I'd definetly recommend this one, I'm out, peace.

Vari Spin is rubber with low speed and much control. I think it's a good allround rubber for beginners or players with defensive/allround style. Every stroke or technique is possible with Varispin.

Stiga Carbonado 145 Review!



Carbonado 145
Head Size: 150 x 156mm
Thickness: 5.8 - 5.9mm
Weight: 88 grams
Handle: Straight
Hardness: Medium Stiff

Rubbers used: Calibra LT Sound max, LT Spin and Hurricane 3



Finally, after months of anticipation and excitement the Carbonado 145 arrived at my door step. I wish I could have gotten this baby much, much earlier but then due to large volumes of orders I had to wait for a while. Stiga informed me that these 2 Carbonado blades are a result of a 3 year research and development using the high tech material Textreme. Textreme is a high tech carbon fiber used in making lightweight bikes, parts of a formula car and this is even used in Prince tennis rackets. Textreme boasts of a thinner carbon fiber layer compared to a traditional weaved carbon layer that is used mostly on conventional carbon blades in the market today.

The Carbonado 145 blade comes with a a very good finish on the blade surfaces. Unknown to many people, Stiga has been improving the quality finish of their blades. The blade comes with a metal tag which gives a much more better quality finish. Gone are the thick NCT coating on the blade surface. What remains now is a much thinner and barely noticeable coating on the surface. Before, you could see an obvious dividing line that separates the NCT coating between the blade head and the neck of the blade part.

Before everything else, I would like to point out that the 2 Carbonado blades 145 and 190 have only slight differences in that they have the same construction and wood veneers (Limba-Textreme Carbon-Ayous-Ayous Core-Ayous-Textreme Carbon-Limba). Also, the orientation of their carbon weave is their distinguishing mark. The 145 having a slanted or diagonal orientation and the 190 which has perpendicular orientation. The 2 ayous layers before and after the central ayous core are a bit hard to see at first unless you look at them closely. The Textreme carbon layers are very thin. In fact much thinner than most carbon layers of other blades presently in the market.



Speed

The Carbonado 145 blade is not blazingly fast. I would rate it as Off to Off+ but more on the OFF side. In comparison to other Stiga blades, The Stiga Intensity Carbon is much faster. On other brands, the Carbonado blades at time can be faster than a TB ALC or at the same level of a primorac carbon at time. The Super MJ ZLC is much faster than the 2 Carbonados.

Feel

I thought the blade is very stiff but only mildly stiff. The 145 only felt a notch harder than a regular ZJK ZLC blade but feels more solid. It has this different carbon feel because every time you strike the ball with the Carbonados, the feel of being woody and carbon like alternates in my hand. It is a good thing actually because the 2 blades offer good feed back. The vibrations are minimal compared to the intensity carbon. Also, unlike conventional carbon blades, it doesn't feel that hard and ball feedback is slightly enhanced maybe due to the textreme carbon layers that are very thin.

Throw

Tried using both soft rubbers (LT Sound) and medium rubbers (LT SPIN) on the Carbonado 145 blade. In a way Stiga was right in claiming that the 145 has a higher throw but personally I would rate this 2 blades as having low throw heights but with the Carbonado 145 having a higher throw. The 190 has about 2-3 inches ball height from the net when doing spin drives or loops. The Carbonado 145 has about 3-4 inches of ball height using the same strokes and rubbers.

On close to the table attacks

The Carbonado 190 has this low, sharp trajectory when doing smashes and spin drives. Close to the table, the Carbonado 190 is much better than the 145. When you attack with loops you need a bit of adjustment for your ball arc especially when taking the ball on-the-rise against underspin. It takes a bit of practice, but when you get the hang of it you can adjust to it easily. When you use attacks on the ball that use more sponge compression and care for speed more than the spin then the 190 is much better.

On mid distance/far from the table

The 145 version easily outshines the 190 despite both having long trajectories, the 145 has a slightly higher arc when countering or spinning the ball mid distance. Through this slightly higher arc, the 145 is more forgiving than the 190 and offers more room for error on that distance.

Other strokes

Depending on the distance both blades are very good at blocking but the 145 blocks better at mid distance and the 190 close to the table. I have to say that both blades have high levels of control and are much user-friendly compared to other super-fast blades in the market. On short strokes, both are not that bouncy on drop shots and flicks but I would give the 190 as a better blade in doing drop shots because of its slightly lower arc than the 145.



My Personal Choice

I was more impressed with the 145 in comparison to the Carbonado 190. The arc was slightly better when I used a Hurricane 3 on the blade. The combination proved to be very good and balanced - the 145's speed + the H3's spin and control. The 190 was a better blade with a Chinese rubber on the forehand but I felt that the 145 is much better. I will not be surprised if people who wanted an alternative to composite blades and are looking for something with a different blade will get the 2 Carbonados while using an H3 or Globe 999 National.

Overall, I am greatly impressed by the Carbonados with much more partiality on the 145 version. I think that the trend of making a faster blade every time a new season for blades arrive is over. With all the very fast rubbers in the market right now you will not worry much about speed but rather on the feel and control of the blade. The speed itself can be partially compensated by the rubber you use. The Carbonado 145 blade is user friendly even to those players who are on their intermediate levels.

I've only had this blade for a couple of months, but I can already say that I love it. The blade is quite cheap, but you get A LOT for the money. The blade has a balanced feel between speed and control, but I feel like there is more control to the blade. I have DHS Hurricane 3 on forhand (black) and Donic Akkadi Taichi on backhand (red), and this combination is very good for my style of play (Offensive). I'd recommend this blade to anyone who is ready for their first custom racket. The blade could have been a little harder though.

Overall this is the best rubber out there.. I find it very good for counter loop and for getting lots of spin! Everyone should try this (If you have more budget that is)

Excellent blade. The feel and control is outstanding; makes you feel fearless when blocking. The speed isn't the fastest, but is more than enough to wallop the ball past your opponent. Mates well with medium tensor rubbers (T80, Razaka 7, Boost TX etc). It is also exceptionally good value, I pick up mine online for 32 Euros!

A slight snag is the softish wood makes it fragile. SPW chips easily and repeated gluing also caused the surface of the blade to splitter on mine. Lacquering the bat and using tape to protect the edges is recommended.

Quality rubber. Does almost everything well and has great control. But, for me, it was tough to generate sufficient spin when serving. Long fast backspin serves were easy to return for opponents, where as with Razaka 7 or Boost TX they are a handy way of picking up quick points. Shame. If it hadn't been for this I would have kept it.

I played with this rubber when i was beginner and now its on my spare blade. Pretty solid rubber for someone who is learning basic strokes. Controlable,medium- hard sponge and is slightly medium tacky rubber

This is an amazing blade for those interested in a controlled offensive (Off-) blade that has good flex and amazing feeling. I love this blade and am happy with it.

My Virtuoso Off-, I have to say, is pretty much the perfect blade. The blade is soft. It has a really high throw angle so it is really easy to loop backspin with this blade. It has a ton of dwell time. The ball stays on for long enough to really generate a lot of spin. It felt that way to me. But people who were on the other side of the table started asking, “how are you getting so much more spin?” The flex of the blade also helps with dwell time and extra spin. It loops like a dream. And to me, this is the biggest asset, it has the best wood feel and the most sensitive wood feel I have ever played with. The delicate, sensitive wood feel is there but there are no unwanted vibrations. You can easily feel different kinds of ball contact. It is like a fine tuned instrument.


Part of this has to do with the woods being used and the thickness of the different plies. Part of this has to do with the gluing process when OSP laminated the plies.


This particular blade has the plies: Limba-Limba-Ayous-Limba-Limba. The outer ply is very thin. that also goes into why the blade gives you such an ability to feel the ball so well.


In reviews I had read this blade is supposed to be very good at close to the table. I heard it loses something as you go farther back. I found this blade to be amazing close to the table. I know my level went up because of how well this blade performs in short game and over the table. I know this is not the fastest blade I have used. Not even close. And when I switched to it I was coming from a blade that is considerably faster. So for the first few days it felt on the slow side. But once I got used to it and really felt in sync with the blade, it felt to me like it performed quite well from all distances.


This blade also a really nice sound on contact which I love. It is a nice, fairly deep, snapping sound, almost a crunching sound when you get good solid contact. It is part of the feedback of the blade, but, to me the sound is important and affects to feel. I love the sound that you get from this blade. It gives so much feedback that it did take a few days for me to get used to it though. Then I fell in love with the feedback and the sound.


With this blade OSP offers a variety of head sizes. 150mm x 157mm (small), 150mm x 158mm (medium) or 150mm x 159mm (large). The medium and large head sizes are going to give you more wood feeling, a faster pace and a larger sweet spot. They are also going to perform better for backhand centered play. But they will also cause the blade to have a bit more weight in the head. I chose the “small” head size. Although they call 150mm x 157mm a small head size, that is a very standard head size. Some blades that have that head size are Stiga Clipper, Stiga Offensive Classic, Stiga Allround Evolution, Timo Boll ALC, ZLF, ZLC, Spirit, Viscaria. The list goes on.