Really nice shoes! Very good comfort, grip and they look good too, I have the white ones. Very satisfied!
Latest reviews
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.
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.
Just had my sheet arrive - Black, Max, 73g uncut, 179x168mm (same vital stats as MX-P really) . Cut to 151x156 the weight is 48.88g, which is around the standard for max thickness, hard ESN rubbers these days. Many thanks to Matthias Landfried over at tt-shop.net for the help in getting a sheet sorted!
This is a different beast to the rest of the Evo range. The sponge is different - smaller-pored, and without the booster smell which was so obvious on the original Evolutions and Bluefire Ms. It's obviously still a hard sponge though. The topsheet is monstrously grippy when you run a finger down it, and reasonably stiff. It feels like the grippiest ESN topsheet I've ever experienced. For comparison, I have a sheet of Omega V Asia here which has a far softer topsheet, less grip to the finger, and feels softer than MX-S overall despite having a harder sponge. I guess it's going to be very stable.
Once on the blade, MX-S has a hard, definite feel when bouncing a ball, with a dull "thock" sound. It feels fairly fast without feeling overly bouncy. The spin test is the headline news though - massive. Small wrist movement = big reaction on the following bounce.
Full-size pics are available here.
I gave it the full 3 hour treatment last night with Stiga's 40+ seamed ball. It wasn't long enough for a full review because it was more of a coaching session and I didn't play a wide enough range of strokes in the depth I want. I'll be back with a more formal review next week, so I'll just give some rambling comments for now.
MX-S was on the FH side of my regular Samsonov Pure Wood blade, and on my backup Pure Woods I had Big Dipper and Tenzone Ultra (BH rubbers on all 3 are Airoc M).
Warm-Up
I was slightly disappointed for the first 10 minutes. During the initial loop-counterhit warm-up MX-S didn't feel particularly "special" at all (meaning that no overriding quality jumped out at me). It was incredibly stable and easy to use, the arc was medium and nothing dramatic happened. At this point the only thing that jumped out at me was how easy the counterhit was, even against heavy loop. For comparison, I had a higher arc with both BD and TZU on the backup blades, but counterhits and blocks were more difficult.
Serve, Loop Against Backspin, Loop against Block Exercise
I then switched to a serve, push long, loop against backspin, block, loop/drive against block, free exercise. This is where MX-S made a lot more sense.
On the serve, you notice a real lack of bounce. This helps to keep serves short and tight, and also encourages you to add a lot more wrist action, which in turn results in big spin. This is an excellent rubber for serving, and all the associated other short game bits.
Then the long push comes in, and you loop against backspin. I'm not overstating things here when I say that this is the easiest rubber for lifting backspin that I've ever tried. It absolutely eats pushes and chops alive. I usually have to warm up my backspin-lifting strokes for a few minutes to get my bat angles adjusted after a counterhit warm-up, but not this time. I genuinely didn't miss a single one during the exercise.
And then the loop/drive against block, which revealed another interesting point. Driving the ball is very easy with MX-S, but it is noticeably slower than hard ESN rubbers from previous generations (MX-P and M1 are the obvious touchstones). You have to generate some power yourself on basic drives or you can offer up an easy ball. There were times when I stepped around to use FH from the BH wing and I ran out of room to get a full stroke in. The drive produced was a bit weak, and the court was obviously totally opened up. You need to be fully committed to get the rewards in this scenario. However, looping the ball against block is easy and very effective. In fact, taking a more Chinese approach and loop-driving more often than not was the most efficient and consistent approach for me in general during the session.
I stuck with this exercise (and slight variations in placement) for a full hour. I felt that it was giving me a good insight into how MX-S was working. After that we did some matchplay...
Matchplay
The qualities I'd seen during the exercises stayed true during the match. Short game was truly great, counter hits and blocks excellent. The FH flick isn't my best shot (needs work), but MX-S seemed good here too, although the lack of extreme arc did mean that I needed to get to the peak of the bounce - there wasn't a lot of leeway if the ball dropped. The main points worth talking about were during open play. Basic topspin drives had a medium arc, and the arc then doesn't change much when you start to load the ball up with topspin. With this comes the ability to disguise the level of topspin to some degree - the arc doesn't give the game away. Adding wrist to a loop brings heavy spin with ease.
Summary so far
Positives? Solidity and control - it's very easy to use, predictable, low catapult and linear. Good (but not wild) pace. High spin potential. Zero feeling of slippage with 40+. Super easy to vary spin, depth and placement during loop-loop play. Autopilot when lifting backspin.
Downsides? The medium arc isn't forgiving of positional problems, so recovery strokes on the run aren't as easy as some rubbers. And it isn't the fastest rubber around, which makes drives a little weaker (although that will be related to my blade choice to some degree - a faster blade will make this less obvious). I'm nitpicking here though.
This is a different beast to the rest of the Evo range. The sponge is different - smaller-pored, and without the booster smell which was so obvious on the original Evolutions and Bluefire Ms. It's obviously still a hard sponge though. The topsheet is monstrously grippy when you run a finger down it, and reasonably stiff. It feels like the grippiest ESN topsheet I've ever experienced. For comparison, I have a sheet of Omega V Asia here which has a far softer topsheet, less grip to the finger, and feels softer than MX-S overall despite having a harder sponge. I guess it's going to be very stable.
Once on the blade, MX-S has a hard, definite feel when bouncing a ball, with a dull "thock" sound. It feels fairly fast without feeling overly bouncy. The spin test is the headline news though - massive. Small wrist movement = big reaction on the following bounce.
Full-size pics are available here.
I gave it the full 3 hour treatment last night with Stiga's 40+ seamed ball. It wasn't long enough for a full review because it was more of a coaching session and I didn't play a wide enough range of strokes in the depth I want. I'll be back with a more formal review next week, so I'll just give some rambling comments for now.
MX-S was on the FH side of my regular Samsonov Pure Wood blade, and on my backup Pure Woods I had Big Dipper and Tenzone Ultra (BH rubbers on all 3 are Airoc M).
Warm-Up
I was slightly disappointed for the first 10 minutes. During the initial loop-counterhit warm-up MX-S didn't feel particularly "special" at all (meaning that no overriding quality jumped out at me). It was incredibly stable and easy to use, the arc was medium and nothing dramatic happened. At this point the only thing that jumped out at me was how easy the counterhit was, even against heavy loop. For comparison, I had a higher arc with both BD and TZU on the backup blades, but counterhits and blocks were more difficult.
Serve, Loop Against Backspin, Loop against Block Exercise
I then switched to a serve, push long, loop against backspin, block, loop/drive against block, free exercise. This is where MX-S made a lot more sense.
On the serve, you notice a real lack of bounce. This helps to keep serves short and tight, and also encourages you to add a lot more wrist action, which in turn results in big spin. This is an excellent rubber for serving, and all the associated other short game bits.
Then the long push comes in, and you loop against backspin. I'm not overstating things here when I say that this is the easiest rubber for lifting backspin that I've ever tried. It absolutely eats pushes and chops alive. I usually have to warm up my backspin-lifting strokes for a few minutes to get my bat angles adjusted after a counterhit warm-up, but not this time. I genuinely didn't miss a single one during the exercise.
And then the loop/drive against block, which revealed another interesting point. Driving the ball is very easy with MX-S, but it is noticeably slower than hard ESN rubbers from previous generations (MX-P and M1 are the obvious touchstones). You have to generate some power yourself on basic drives or you can offer up an easy ball. There were times when I stepped around to use FH from the BH wing and I ran out of room to get a full stroke in. The drive produced was a bit weak, and the court was obviously totally opened up. You need to be fully committed to get the rewards in this scenario. However, looping the ball against block is easy and very effective. In fact, taking a more Chinese approach and loop-driving more often than not was the most efficient and consistent approach for me in general during the session.
I stuck with this exercise (and slight variations in placement) for a full hour. I felt that it was giving me a good insight into how MX-S was working. After that we did some matchplay...
Matchplay
The qualities I'd seen during the exercises stayed true during the match. Short game was truly great, counter hits and blocks excellent. The FH flick isn't my best shot (needs work), but MX-S seemed good here too, although the lack of extreme arc did mean that I needed to get to the peak of the bounce - there wasn't a lot of leeway if the ball dropped. The main points worth talking about were during open play. Basic topspin drives had a medium arc, and the arc then doesn't change much when you start to load the ball up with topspin. With this comes the ability to disguise the level of topspin to some degree - the arc doesn't give the game away. Adding wrist to a loop brings heavy spin with ease.
Summary so far
Positives? Solidity and control - it's very easy to use, predictable, low catapult and linear. Good (but not wild) pace. High spin potential. Zero feeling of slippage with 40+. Super easy to vary spin, depth and placement during loop-loop play. Autopilot when lifting backspin.
Downsides? The medium arc isn't forgiving of positional problems, so recovery strokes on the run aren't as easy as some rubbers. And it isn't the fastest rubber around, which makes drives a little weaker (although that will be related to my blade choice to some degree - a faster blade will make this less obvious). I'm nitpicking here though.
- Speed
- Spin
- Durability
- Control
