Latest reviews

Good blade! Do it all blade is a good description. Not very fast, good blade as a first off blade. Good control and good feeling. Nice grip. Played with this one as FL handle. Not expensive at all.

Really good rubber, Very spinny, speed is ok. Better speed than hurricane neo 3 and more spin i'd say. Same goes for the grip! I have played with the neo 3 and i find this better!

This is a really good rubber, it is very fast and comes with lots of spin and arc. It has very good touch and block too. However it is expensive!

Really good blade, Played with this before changing to Timo Boll Spirit. It has almost everything, control, power, easy to play, well balanced.

Fast and light blade, good feeling, really nice ST grip, one of the best i think. Very fast some times!

There not much to say, The best, amazing, the feeling! If you dont have it, buy it and you will probably never change and never regret that buy. I've played with many blades and my last one before was Viscaria, I was really satisfied but there was something missing. Go for it!

I'll start telling that I'm beginner and consequently I haven't tested thoroughly other blades, just some hits.
Having said that it's a blade that will satisfy the needs of a beginner in every way. It is also generous speedwise so you won't need a replacement any soon. Being glued with XIOM sigma I eu rubbers I didn't manage to tell the difference comparing to a Donic Waldner - tenergy combo . In the end though you got to like the looks of the blade as well and this one excels in this area in my opinion. The feedback from the blade when hitting flat is a lot. When looping I feel it is less but it could be a flow in my technique .
I hope this helps a bit

I got my 3 ball pack from the official retailer in my country. Well 2 from the three balls broke after two edge hit, not cracked, but exploded. So, less then two hour for a single ball. The third one was less round and 'lived' 5 hours. The surface remained grippy and the playing characteristics did not change. Overall they remade the Butterfly 3star cell ball from poly, with a bit less speed. Well as far as durability is concenrned I would not buy this ball.

Update!
A new series of poly balls came out called Easyball and they improved a lot. Well it definetly plays like a poly ball, but it is very durable and round, not perfectly round. Butterfly dismissed the feeling to gain durability.

I was suprized, why is there no review on this blade, so I ordered one. As from a chinese manufacturer I set my standards for a wider range, as I expect a bit bigger variety in the production of a blade type. This particular V-16 blade tries to be a substitute of the famous Michael Maze blade from Butterfly. Let's see. Weight should be around 85 mine is 92,4. Thickness should be 5,9 mm, mine is 5,94 mm. I measured the veeners under a microscope and they are quite uniform thick at the head of the blade, there is a bigger variety at the handle. The surface veener was lacques and repolished in the factory, nice. The whole composition of the blade and the materials used seems a quality work. No trimming of carbon and kevlar fibers on the edges. So manufacturing seems nice, even in weight department Butterfly can vary 4g from the given value. Tempo and general sound of the blade seems an OFF+ blade, when hitting a ball with a naked blade, or resonating it on your skull.

Testing the blade with rubbers, I paired it with a boosted pair of Three Sword Red Dragon non ITTF rubbers. This setup resulted in an OFF racket with fine touch. The blade has a nice feeling. Ball feedback is really good and scales well with power. The soft touch is similar like the real Maze blade. The speed I think is a bit more, but it is very linear and adjustable. Dropping is piece of cake no matter if it is passive or punch drop. Looping is very dinamic with a fine touch. When smashing you can feel the ball and you can achieve very good kill shots. Ball placement is quite easy, the blade is a bit bouncy, but the rubber slows it to minimum. I believe both hard sponge rubbers and soft sponge rubbers are good for this blade. [/FONT]
Many people say that they bought different pieces of the same model, well I believe mine is a bit heavier and a bit faster, then the average ideal model. Handle is very nice similar to the Timo Boll series.

Overall all I can say this blade is a very nice clone of Michael Maze, around 80-90%. The wood is the same as in MM, but the arylate-carbon is switched to kevlar-carbon, which resonates a bit more, which overall compensates the general numb feel of the yinhe blades. Buy this blade and you won't regret it. Mid distance looper/attacker blade that has a fine touch.

Alright. Here's my take on the ball. I have to say, I was pretty disappointed when I used this ball. From reading agold's review and many others, I thought that the ball would be very spinny, somewhat like the old ball but a little slower. Boy, was I wrong.

This ball is for one, not very round. I don't complain on the "odd bounces" that others do. However, I do feel like it is something to note here.

Secondly, it is just too slow for any play. No matter how I hit this ball, it just seems to float through the air and land "softly?" is how I would like to describe it? I don't know. It's a very weird effect.

Next, the ball lacks any sort of spin. I tried putting loops in, serves, pushes, etc. Nothing had any spin. I couldn't do anything with the ball.

However, the ball (being so bad) did help me adjust to the DHS balls and how they play. I don't know how this works, but that's what happened. Final verdicton't waste your money on these.

I think that Airoc S is a very good soft rubber with much control and feeling with a clear and nice sound. This rubber is well suited for the poly ball and I think Stiga has manage to design the rubber great with the new ball in mind. The rubber is very soft so I recommend it for all round players who prefer soft rubbers with a balance between speed and control. The topsheet makes it easy to get spiny short serves and returns.

The rubber has a pretty flat trajectory and I mostly recommend it as a backhand rubber. It is not the fastest rubber out there and can sometimes lacks a little power from the back in my opinion thats why I play with Airoc M. Airoc S is as durable as my Airoc M which still feels almost completely new after playing with the same rubber for almost two month now. I think Airoc S Is overall a great soft rubber and I give it 5 out of 5 stars.

I just started using this rubber about three weeks ago and after training with it a minimum of an hour a day I have come to the conclusion my expectations were too high. I really expected this rubber to have a bit more speed and spin. After reading a lot of reviews I expected the rubber to be too fast for a beginner, I consider myself a beginner, to handle but I actually wish it was a little faster. I think the top sheet really does a good job of gripping the ball. I can place the ball exactly where I want to hit it. I am a little disappointed in the spin and speed but that could come with more practice. Overall great rubber!

I am an intermediate level player so this a great rubber for me! I really like the control and speed of the rubber. I was hoping for a bit more spin but I think the poly ball has a lot to do with the spin. Overall a great rubber for a beginner like me to work on control and form.

I have really enjoyed using the Nexy ball. Compared to a celluloid ball it has a higher bounce and less spin but from what I gather that is normal for any poly ball. I really enjoyed the price for the quality of ball!

When I first saw these bad boys in the BTY Catalogue of 2010 I just had to get myself one of them.
The first "Limited Edition" table tennis shoe model ever made.

It's basically a remodeled Asics Attack SP, but damn BTY did a good job designing these.
They are probably the lightest TT shoes I've ever worn. Even more so than the classic Mizuno Crossmatch Plio.
The grip is a lot better than the original Mizuno outsole as well.
However, with the heavy emphasis of "barefoot feel" of these shoes, comfort and support are definitely sacrificed.
The alpha gel is only filled in the heel part of the midsole, therefore players that are used to the tip-toe stance are definitely going to find these rather uncomfortable.

All in all, probably the most handsome and maybe the lightest table tennis shoe ever made, but definitely not the most comfortable.

So.....probably the most loved piece of rubber ever since the Sriver dominated, with a unprecedented market domination in the pro scene.
It achieved all these with the highest price tag as well, peaking off at 50 GBP a piece at retail in the UK, and also a much shorter usable lifespan than its major competitors from the 3rd generation of ESN Tensors.
So how does the T05 stay on top even though the 4th gen ESNs have proven themselves to be very very good with a lower pricetag?

The answer is really with the sponge.
I first tried it back in 2011, after I tried almost every 3rd gen Tensor ESNs (Baracuda, Vega etc...) and all the Bryce variables available on the market. I was skeptical about buying a rubber that costed 80 SGD back then and often hearing bad stuffs about it such as it shrinking relatively quickly, the edges crumbles easily and the surfaces becoming slippery after some heavy usage. Went for it anyways and have never looked back ever since. The feel of the ball transmitted from the sponge to your hand is just unreal. It honestly felt like nothing I have used before at that point. I could feel the ball so clearly that i could simply do more....stuff with it dwelling on the bat.

The spin of the rubber struck me second. I rely heavily on my serves to create shots on the 3rd and 5th ball, so naturally I had spent considerable amount of time practicing all sorts of services. Before I tried the T05, i was usuing Acuda S2 on my FH. That thing simply couldnt generate as much spin as the older Baracuda for some reason. And after the conversion to T05, the increment in spin was so obvious that even my training partners could notice on the first few serves.

The speed wasnt all that amazing for me when I first got the rubber, as I used Bryce Speed FX on my BH for about 4 months before the T05 came in, but one thing I noticed is that the ball goes off the sponge faster than it did on the BSpeed FX. I guess this is both good and bad. On one hand you have a smaller margin of error on your strokes as you have less time to adjust for it once the ball hits the bat, on the other, blocks become slightly easier as I didnt have to use as big a stroke to block off top spins on my FH.

Now for the gripes I have with this rubber. It simply doesnt last as long as the ESN Tensors. The rubber will start to shrink after a month or two and by a huge degree as well. And when the shrinking starts, the grip will start to loosen dramatically as well. It will go as far as to play like an anti-spin rubber. The spin sensitivity was way too high in the beginning for me as well, however, its not a bad thing once i got used to it. It actually turned into a very aggressive weapon when I can push the opponent's serves back with good depth and a huge amount of spin on top of those that came with the serves.

All in all, this was once the best all around rubber one can get without dipping into the unknowns of custom made professional variations of rubbers, however it does come with a lot of trade offs in its price, short lifespan and unforgiving spin sensitivity. Also, as we have started training with the new poly balls recently in preparations for next season, I've found that the rubber couldnt grip the ball as perfectly as it could before with the old celluloid balls. Thus, my serves, pushes and chops are suffering quite a bit with the lack of spin. With this in mind, T05 might not be the best rubber out there for competitive players anymore. However, I have yet to find something with the same excellent all-rounded-ness.

As a made in Germany rubber it share many similarities with other top end tensors. Got the same half matt top sheet look as newer BF and Rasant. You can feel the improved grip over R7 right away. Perfect dwell for new plastic ball which is what this rubber is designed for. Its throw is medium at best. Hardness comparable to T05 but lacks the famous T series gummy feel in play. Speed and spin is middle of the road among modern tensors. Only drawback I can think of is the weight. I have not actually weight the bare rubber but the whole Cpen setup of Yasaka SIlver 9 with RX both sides reached 196g. Definitely one of the heaviest rubber out there.

Hi guys

In the last couple of weeks I have been trying out the 190, but since I had to play team matches I had to stay with the 145 for a period. Now the season is finish I could train and test the 190.

My initial impression of the blade is the finish and quality of the Carbonado 190 is the same as the 145. The blue and black handle is just awesome! I must say that Stiga has hit the spot regarding the design of the Carbonado series. Again with the black metal top emblem and blue and white Stiga emblem in the end of handle, it just completes the Carbonado 190. If should point out a down side of the blade it would be the sharp edges on the wings of the blade.
Hitting with a ball without rubbers on I could hear the pitch was higher than my 145 which often indicates that the blades is faster than the blade you are comparing. Let's put some rubbers and test this beast!

Setup details: Weight 89g, Rubbers H3 Prov NEO boosted and Tenergy 64
Test ball: Celluloid

Counter drive: The first couple of hits with the ball I could easily notice the flatter trajectory the 190 has, because I was hitting the ball into the net. After playing some minutes and adjustments I was hitting the table again. Another noticeable feature was the "feel" which were less than the 145.

Loop: Ball after ball I was hitting the ball into the net with my FH. Now I was experiencing the flatter trajectory! After sending the first balls into the net I got a hang of the Carbonado 190. Looping with this blade with H3 in forehand the arc was very flat which can be an advanges on open ups. The blade is very consistent due to the large sweetspot which the TeXtreme carbon layer gives, but I did notice that the sweetspot was more vertical compared to the 145. Looping with the Tenergy on BH side I had the feeling I could "hold" the bold more than 145 with the T05 on BH. I am used to play with T64 in BH so I like this combination more. With the flatter trajectory of the blade and low arc from the T64 looping over table is amazing. I think the spin are quite alike with the 145 and 190, but in terms of speed the 190 feels a notch faster.

Block: Like the 145, the 190 is a blocking machine! There is a lot control with this blade and with the low trajectory you can often with success punch the ball back from the BH side.

Short play: Here the Carbonado 190 shines! In returning short it is easy to keep the ball close to the net also when you are coming in late to the table to receive short. Very controllable without having the feeling the ball is bouncing away from you.

Mid distance: As the 145, I did not need to add a lot of power when playing from mid distance. Even with the low arc I did not feel it was difficult to hit the table. Furthermore I did do any larger adjustments from the 145 to be able to play loop to loop.

Conclusion: The Carbonado 190 is a blade in the range of OFF. No more or no less. I will recommend this blade for fast close to the table game play,to 3rd ball attackers and mid distance players. The blade is minded for an all-round/offensive game play where you want to kill the ball at the 3rd ball. It is, as 145, very balanced between spin and speed where it is pointing more to the speed side. Stiga has found something in these Carbonado blades. The blades are special due its new fiber technology giving the blade a characteristic feel, which is positive. IMO I would say the 190 would be the rival of Viscaria FL.