Good First Tensioned Rubber

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Hi, everyone. I'm not quite new to this site since I've been lurking before without an account. Anyway, I went back to playing table tennis last year. I used Musa 3 to re-learn my strokes. After a few months, I feel comfortable enough that I believe it's time to try a tensioned rubber for the first time.

I'm deciding between a Vega Pro or a Vega Japan. I've read before than VJ is prone to slipping especially with the polyballs, but those threads were in 2015. I'm not sure if the quality is better now. Pro seems to be a safe bet but I'm not sure if it's spinny enough with the new balls. What I'm really looking for is a rubber with great spin, and maybe a little faster than what I'm using now but the focus really is spin. Also, I believe that using med-hard sponge (45-47 degrees) rubbers is great for transitioning into better tensors in the future.

I am welcome to suggestions from other brands but I really like Xiom since they are durable and quite cheap. Thank you.
 
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I returned to TT last fall and after finally admitting that my childhood's Mark V no longer did the trick with the new balls (and w/o "proper" glue) I started reading lots of reviews and interviewing people I was playing against. I had look at tensor rubbers from Tibhar, Andro and Xiom and finally settled for Andro Rasanter R42 (FH) and R47 (BH) purely based on the reviews. The price for Xiom and Andro were both at around 30€/sheet.

Really happy with the setup after about 4 weeks. The first couple of practises were a disaster with balls flying 1m off the table but I'm adjusting quite nicely. I will never go back to a non-tensor rubber.
 
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If your focus is on spin and transitioning to a tensor rubber for the first time then I recommend using a medium/soft sponge rubber in the 40-42 degree range.

Xiom Vega Asia DF
Andro Rasanter R42
Tibhar Evolution FX-S
etc....

Definitely stay away from super fast stuff like Evolution MX-P, Rasanter R47, Omega VII Pro, etc... I wasted time and delayed my development by using rubbers that were too fast and hard for my skill level. (But they are fantastic for blocking!)

I am currently using Xiom Vega Europe DF on both sides and love it. It's on the soft side, but it's really fantastic for creating spin and also has a lot of control. People have been commenting about how much more spin I produce now. It's not particularly fast, but it's not slow either. Vega Europe DF and Vega Asia DF are similar, the main different is that Asia DF has a harder sponge which produces a flatter and more direct arc. (Asia is 42 degree hardness)

Check out the video review from table tennis daily. (I can't post URLs yet)


Hope this helps! (Also, i haven't tried Vega pro yet)
 
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Hi, a quick question again. I read yogi_bear's review of the Musa 3 and said that it's good enough to replace some rubbers in the Vega series. Now I'm thinking, should I jump ahead to Omega V Pro/Euro?
 
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