Nittaku Hurricane 8-80 Power Review: Not What I Expected

[victormanriquey]

I really like the DHS Hurricane 8-80 on my backhand, and since I did the review of it a couple weeks ago, many people had asked me about the new Nittaku 8-80 Power version.

I had not tried it before and I couldn't let it go, so got a sheet all the way from Tokyo haha I was quite excited about it when it arrived (package looks very shiny and fancy), I even thought 'oh, this could be my new backhand rubber!' But unfortunately, I did not enjoy playing it that much, so that was a pity! 🥲

So in this week's review I tell you more about it, and why it feels like it may fit better as a forehand rubber than a backhand rubber (but I will still not change my H3N for this on the FH). See the full blogpost here: https://www.tabletennisequipmenthelp.com/blog/nittaku-hurricane-8-80-power-review

And for those of you in a hurry, here's the TL;DR as always:

Category	Nittaku Hurricane 8-80 Power
Weight	Heavy, around 53 grams when cut
Sponge feeling	Hard-ish Hybrid Chinese sponge, feels a bit harder than DHS 8-80
Spin potential	Very high due to the level of tackiness, slightly less than DHS Hurricane 8-80
Speed & Gears	Noticeably faster than the DHS 8-80
Throw angle	Noticeably lower than the DHS 8-80
Loops	More difficult than with the DHS 8-80, still good at looping
Serves	Less spin than the DHS 8-80, still plenty of spin
Flicks	Worse for flicks than the DHS 8-80 due to lower throw angle
Pushes	Good control and spin, similar to the DHS 8-80, slightly worse
Blocks	Decent control, similar to the DHS 8-80, slightly worse
Flat hits	Not great, similar to the DHS 8-80
Boosting	I would not boost it
Price	Medium-high price, around 40-50€

Feedback is always welcome, maybe you had a different experience, that's perfectly fine! Hope you will enjoy the read and see you next times for the Nuzn 45 & Nuzn 48.

Thanks!

Victor

 

[jk1980]

I got one that will arrive tomorrow. Will review and compare to Rakza Z EH and the like when I get to it

 

[victormanriquey]

I got one that will arrive tomorrow. Will review and compare to Rakza Z EH and the like when I get to it

Ah nice very good! I'm curious how you will experience it @jk1980 , planning to play on it on the FH I guess? Because you mentioned EH

 

[golden_son]

@victormanriquey You tested it on your Q968, yeah? Your review was disappointing since I bought a sheet myself, but I'm debating whether to try it on my HAL (koto + axylium) or my main blade (koto + ALC), both of which will likely offer a different experience from yours. I've learned the HAL likes harder, less bouncy rubbers (Big Dipper has been a revelation) but from your review the H8-80 Power kinda sounds like both? I understood it to be a ~36° sponge instead of the usual 37 or 38, which is *not* hard.

Eh, maybe I'll slap it on my Skachkov Carbon instead just for a test drive...

 

[victormanriquey]

@victormanriquey You tested it on your Q968, yeah? Your review was disappointing since I bought a sheet myself, but I'm debating whether to try it on my HAL (koto + axylium) or my main blade (koto + ALC), both of which will likely offer a different experience from yours. I've learned the HAL likes harder, less bouncy rubbers (Big Dipper has been a revelation) but from your review the H8-80 Power kinda sounds like both? I understood it to be a ~36° sponge instead of the usual 37 or 38, which is *not* hard.

Eh, maybe I'll slap it on my Skachkov Carbon instead just for a test drive...

Ah damn sorry to hear that! Try it out though, perhaps you love it, maybe your style fits it better!

And indeed on the commercial version of the Q968, the normal DHS WCQ but also on the Loki Kirin K6.

Big dipper V Im testing it now too as well, will review it soonish, Im enyoing it as well, got it on a Yinhe Pro 05 with Asia 3 on the BH, not a bad setup at all.

Anyways the hardness of the sponge is a confusing matter, if you check Nishoni and Nittaku germany they tell you different things, a distributor in reddit also said a different thing, god knows really what the truth is, to me it felt harder than my 37 degrees 8-80 but I was expecting a 35 haha

About the HAL or the main blade (which one is it? A viscaria like?) Im not sure what to tell you, on my inner AC blade it already had a low dwell, on an outer carbon it may be even worse, but perhaps its better, I cannot tell you

So I guess try it out and let me know @golden_son !! Im super curious now what you will think!

 

[mamedium]

so why wouldn't you boost it?

 

[golden_son]

Ah damn sorry to hear that! Try it out though, perhaps you love it, maybe your style fits it better!

And indeed on the commercial version of the Q968, the normal DHS WCQ but also on the Loki Kirin K6.

Big dipper V Im testing it now too as well, will review it soonish, Im enyoing it as well, got it on a Yinhe Pro 05 with Asia 3 on the BH, not a bad setup at all.

Anyways the hardness of the sponge is a confusing matter, if you check Nishoni and Nittaku germany they tell you different things, a distributor in reddit also said a different thing, god knows really what the truth is, to me it felt harder than my 37 degrees 8-80 but I was expecting a 35 haha

About the HAL or the main blade (which one is it? A viscaria like?) Im not sure what to tell you, on my inner AC blade it already had a low dwell, on an outer carbon it may be even worse, but perhaps its better, I cannot tell you

So I guess try it out and let me know @golden_son !! Im super curious now what you will think!

My main driver currently is the Yinhe Pro 11s, which is an asymmetrical blade with Viscaria-like BH side. That side matches the Skachkov, so I figure I can try it there to see if I would like it on my main blade without actually changing my main 🙂. Hopefully I can glue it up for a test run this weekend.

 

[jk1980]

Ah nice very good! I'm curious how you will experience it @jk1980 , planning to play on it on the FH I guess? Because you mentioned EH

Yes, I plan to put it on my second blade. First blade is Rakza z eh on forehand and h8-80 39 or 38 on backhand. Second blade got h8-80 °37 on backhand and I plan to have the power type as forehand.

 

[jk1980]

Rubber arrived and first weird thing was that measuring the sponge side of the rubber resulted in only 40° degrees with my durometer which is supposed to be the ESN scale. It's odd because the allegedly softer h8-80 °37 measured very similar. The recent LAC Pro that I got was also 40 ° degrees on the sponge while RZEH was 45° at least and H9 violett was 48.

Another note on the LAC Pro is that it got totally destroyed when removing it. It got cracks in the rubber when simply peeling it off. Never happened with any of my orange LACs before.

 

[victormanriquey]

so why wouldn't you boost it?

Because it already has a very low dwell time and enough speed, boosting does soften the sponge after the tension effect is gone but it will be hard to play initially. I also boosted the normal 8-80 and did not like the feeling, you can try though and experience it for yourself, maybe you like it!

 

[victormanriquey]

My main driver currently is the Yinhe Pro 11s, which is an asymmetrical blade with Viscaria-like BH side. That side matches the Skachkov, so I figure I can try it there to see if I would like it on my main blade without actually changing my main 🙂. Hopefully I can glue it up for a test run this weekend.

Cool makes sense let me know how it goes!

 

[victormanriquey]

Rubber arrived and first weird thing was that measuring the sponge side of the rubber resulted in only 40° degrees with my durometer which is supposed to be the ESN scale. It's odd because the allegedly softer h8-80 °37 measured very similar. The recent LAC Pro that I got was also 40 ° degrees on the sponge while RZEH was 45° at least and H9 violett was 48.

Another note on the LAC Pro is that it got totally destroyed when removing it. It got cracks in the rubber when simply peeling it off. Never happened with any of my orange LACs before.

40 ESN? thats very odd indeed, mine feels much harder than my nuzn 45 haha LAC is 40 on the Loki scale yes, but on the shore A chinese scale, odd all of it if the degrees are in ESN.

I have the normal LAC and removed it the other day to boost it (plays so much better boosted) and went fine! But i have not tried the pro

 

[belllfador]

40 degrees ESN is very soft rubber. I have durometer in shore o and is accurate for 4mm rubbers - G1 48 degrees, old T05 47, Mantra Pro XH 52. My green LAC was 50 degrees before boosting, that is around 38 shore a.

 

[jk1980]

We have to take into account that the tip of the shore O durometer is quite small, hence a sponge that might give not much resistance to that small pin might be stronger when something way bigger like a table tennis ball tries to indent it.

 

[jk1980]

Ichecked the initial bounciness which was less than H8-80 °37 even though the sponge was measuring so soft. Shore O hardness of my durometer showed 45° after it was glued onto my blade, so the topshit riggedness had to add something to the felt hardness.
The stickiness was regular for what i am used to with h8-80.

So i used the short time i had and gave it a little very short comparison on the robot using spinsight.
I was just interested in some quick reference so i set my robot to halflong balls to the forehand (mid forehand side / three forth of the width of the table) with -2 backspin.

I compared it (on an Nittaku Acoustic) with RZEH and H8-80 39° and finally for the lols with an one year old non-tacky Nittaku Hurricane 3 Turbo Blue which i had recently boosted twice.

This is very unscientific, because spinsight does only let me see the "best" shot or rather high score and not an average of the shots i performed, so take this with a grain of salt.

H8-80 Power Type:
Spin 117 Speed 35 km/h Power 86 Spinniness 1.8
RZEH:
Spin 114 Speed 32 km/h Power 83 Spinniness 2.5
H8-80 39°:
Spin 115 Speed 35 km/h Power 82 Spinniness 2.4

Now i have to say that i hit my robot head with a topspin basically on top of the guiding plates which made it unable to shoot the ball to the forehand and only shot to the middle (even though i tried to change the direction). The measurements that i did then do with the NIttaku Hurricane 3 Pro Turbo Blue (on the w968) were all kind of awkward for me, because i had to "Step around" a little to make space for the balls that did not come to the forehand anymore but rather the exact middle line.
Nonetheless the result was:
Spin 115 Speed 41km/h Power 93 Spinniness 2.0

Make out of it what you want. I will keep the rubber on the second blade and test it when the season is over. If one would have asked if H8-80 Power Type or RZEH was more powerful, purely from the feeling i would have said RZEH.

 

[victormanriquey]

40 degrees ESN is very soft rubber. I have durometer in shore o and is accurate for 4mm rubbers - G1 48 degrees, old T05 47, Mantra Pro XH 52. My green LAC was 50 degrees before boosting, that is around 38 shore a.

Yep agreed, LAC is 40 degrees but not on the ESN scale And yes mine too, I found LAC almost impossible to play without boosting, same for you @belllfador ?

 

[victormanriquey]

Ichecked the initial bounciness which was less than H8-80 °37 even though the sponge was measuring so soft. Shore O hardness of my durometer showed 45° after it was glued onto my blade, so the topshit riggedness had to add something to the felt hardness.
The stickiness was regular for what i am used to with h8-80.

So i used the short time i had and gave it a little very short comparison on the robot using spinsight.
I was just interested in some quick reference so i set my robot to halflong balls to the forehand (mid forehand side / three forth of the width of the table) with -2 backspin.

I compared it (on an Nittaku Acoustic) with RZEH and H8-80 39° and finally for the lols with an one year old non-tacky Nittaku Hurricane 3 Turbo Blue which i had recently boosted twice.

This is very unscientific, because spinsight does only let me see the "best" shot or rather high score and not an average of the shots i performed, so take this with a grain of salt.

H8-80 Power Type:
Spin 117 Speed 35 km/h Power 86 Spinniness 1.8
RZEH:
Spin 114 Speed 32 km/h Power 83 Spinniness 2.5
H8-80 39°:
Spin 115 Speed 35 km/h Power 82 Spinniness 2.4

Now i have to say that i hit my robot head with a topspin basically on top of the guiding plates which made it unable to shoot the ball to the forehand and only shot to the middle (even though i tried to change the direction). The measurements that i did then do with the NIttaku Hurricane 3 Pro Turbo Blue (on the w968) were all kind of awkward for me, because i had to "Step around" a little to make space for the balls that did not come to the forehand anymore but rather the exact middle line.
Nonetheless the result was:
Spin 115 Speed 41km/h Power 93 Spinniness 2.0

Make out of it what you want. I will keep the rubber on the second blade and test it when the season is over. If one would have asked if H8-80 Power Type or RZEH was more powerful, purely from the feeling i would have said RZEH.

Thanks so much for sharing @jk1980 !!!

Very interesting indeed. And how about your own personal feeling? What your hand and brain were telling you as you hit those balls? Also, do let us know about actual gameplay! I really struggled with the 8-80 power on the backhand opening loops for example!

 

[belllfador]

Yep agreed, LAC is 40 degrees but not on the ESN scale And yes mine too, I found LAC almost impossible to play without boosting, same for you @belllfador ?

I don't like it with or without a boost. High throw, mediocre grip, fragile sponge with limited range of gears. G09C is similar but much better.

 

[jk1980]

40 degrees ESN is very soft rubber. I have durometer in shore o and is accurate for 4mm rubbers - G1 48 degrees, old T05 47, Mantra Pro XH 52. My green LAC was 50 degrees before boosting, that is around 38 shore a.

the question here is if the manufacturer description says that they specify overall rubber hardness or only sponge hardness.

 

[jk1980]

Thanks so much for sharing @jk1980 !!!

Very interesting indeed. And how about your own personal feeling? What your hand and brain were telling you as you hit those balls? Also, do let us know about actual gameplay! I really struggled with the 8-80 power on the backhand opening loops for example!

I think i will definitely try this on forehand first, even though the soft sponge would not be something that i like there.
What i did notice at the robot was that there was significantly less speed/acceleration needed to loop the underspin ball, so a lazy swing was enough. I don't think that i would need that on the forehand though. With the forehand i go rather gung ho and have a developed a nice feeling for looping either soft or hard with different trajectories when using RZEH.

was even suprised that i was easily able to switch to the w968 with NH3TB from one training match to the other and did not need to consciously adjust my swing path for loops to land properly. Of course there was a little less height on the loops, but iirc they all cleared the net properly.

I am not really searching for a backhand rubber, but if the power type really "helps" me with my more lazy backhand, perhaps its gonna end up in there, but i can only test that in 2 weeks time, because my last match of the league is going to be in about 10 days, after that i can test around without fear of adjusting to a too different material.