Any new plastic ball recommendations ?

foz

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Hi,
I'm just looking at ordering some 40➕ Plastics, I have played the BTY and its a big no for me, ( see my review in balls section) I have also played the DHS which I find quite comfortable, nothing special but then again did nothing particularly wrong, apart from being a little slower than a cell, but I think that looks set to be the norm for all makes, so if anyone has any recommendations for a conventional Rev rubber game style, that would be great.
Also, I've heard that of all the name/makes of new ball, there is only a few actual manufacturers making most balls being the Same! Is there any truth in this?
 
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says Spin and more spin.
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Yep. All the seamed balls seem to come from a few factories. Most of them in China. I can't remember where they are.

All the seamless balls are from XSF.

The Nittaku Premium is by far the best seamed ball. None of the others compare. It is more durable and plays way better than any of the others. Not the Nittaku Sha ball. That one is from China and not so good. In my opinion all the seamed balls except the Nittaku Premium are basically junk. Even if they play okay, they break way to easily. In almost every match I have played with a seamed plastic ball, they have cracked at some point in the middle of the match. I have not seen any seamed plastic balls last more than 3 hard played matches.

The best bet is the seamless balls. They are pretty good. Almost as good as the Nittaku Premium and they are the sturdiest balls around. The durability is as good or better than the old celluloid balls. I would go with any brand of seamless 3-Star 40+ ball. Nexy sells good ones. So does Yinhe. I use the Nexy 40+.
 
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says Spin and more spin.
says Spin and more spin.
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Thanks USDC,
that all sounds like good advice, I will take a look at all seamless balls and take an educated guess depending on availability to UK!
Thanks again

Yep. That makes sense. Since all the seamless balls are really the same ball regardless of which brand, get the one that is most available and best price for your region.
 
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I agree, I can only find one non seamed ball in the UK , xushaofa / which I've never heard of. And why BTY balls made in China for petes sake? I'm confused with the whole situation! Ittf - what is going on, I'm not buying any more balls until this all becomes clearer with better quality stuff!

Yeah, I agree with you. This is really bad from ITTF. It is like if you were to buy a 'top class' football and every 1 in 3 would break easily or not perform well you would get your money back. This would simply not happen in football. Table Tennis manufacturers + ITTF must be racking in the money from the ball situation right now.
 
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My friend, a coach, asked me to buy stuff including poly balls, and he recommended or he chose to go with Nittaku, he asked to have 30 balls as one pack has 3 balls, so 10 packs, but the site didn't allow to have more than 5, so i ordered 5 from Nittaku, and 2 6balls-packs from DHS and 1 Yasaka of 3balls pack so he can try them all and see which is the best, but we were late about very slightly days as i saw XSF became available, so i added that one for next order, but once the first one first coming then i can order again, maybe i change my mind if i or the coach test the balls and give his review or impression about it.
 
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As USDC said, Nittaku Premium probably the best seamed ball on the market, Tibhar poly's also in good quality. The worst seamed ball that I've played was Butterfly.
But seamless balls, it's something absolutely different, they're so fast and so bouncy, that after playing with them i can't play with rest of the plastic's, feel some kind of slow motion... :)
 
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Some info on manufacturers:
China
XSF - seamless
DHS - seamed
Double Fish - seamed

Japan
Nittaku - seamed

Germany
Weener - seamed (nothing yet in the market)

So, all seamed balls made in China, are either from DHS or DF
All seamless balls in the market, are from XSF
All made in Japan balls (which there is only 1 in the market) is made by Nittaku
 

foz

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Thanks for all your input guys, it seems there is no clear way forward atm, still waiting to hear if my two local leagues are going with or without the new ball for the forthcoming season, if it's with, I'll order some xushaofa and see how it goes. The fact that there is no sign of a yellow/orange ball just lends me to believe that we are being used as guinipigs in a test of whether this ball actually works or not! Probably ending in the ball being scrapped if the current standard is anything to go by? ��
 
says Spin and more spin.
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Thanks for all your input guys, it seems there is no clear way forward atm, still waiting to hear if my two local leagues are going with or without the new ball for the forthcoming season, if it's with, I'll order some xushaofa and see how it goes. The fact that there is no sign of a yellow/orange ball just lends me to believe that we are being used as guinipigs in a test of whether this ball actually works or not! Probably ending in the ball being scrapped if the current standard is anything to go by? ��

Lets hope because the price of the balls, and then if you factor in how easily they break, unless they are seamless, ends up meaning a lot of money for anyone really wanting to play, especially clubs.
 
says Spin and more spin.
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And people should really know that they only Nittaku ball that is made in Japan is the Premium. The Sha ball is made in one of those two factories in China.

And regardless of what people say, all the seamless balls made in China are really low quality. They bounce funny. When it bounces on the seam it gives a noticeably different bounce than when it doesn't. And they break so easily. If you or the person you are playing against has good contact and hits hard, the ball will not last more than a handful of games.

The only seamed ball worth playing with is the Nittaku ball from Japan, the Premium. But, at almost $4.00 (USD) a ball, is it really worth it? The XoaShuFa balls are not cheap either. But they definitely don't break and they play well. They are not as fast as the Celluloid balls. They do not spin as much. But they are a consistent product that is hard to break and lasts a long time and they are not as expensive as the Premium balls. They are about $2.00 per ball.

The real problem with all this is Adham Sharara. Before he mandated the plastic ball, he made a deal with XaoShufa and got them to Patent their process for making seamless balls. Then he mandated a change to plastic, SEAMLESS BALLS. Because of the patent, this would have meant that all table tennis companies wanting to manufacture and sell plastic balls would have had to either pay XSF for the patent to use the process and produce the balls themselves or simply buy the balls from XSF.

The major companies fought this and made the ITTF allow them to develop seamed Poly Balls that "met" ITTF requirements. The companies won that battle. But the whole thing stinks of dirty politics.

Part of me doesn't want to use the XSF balls because of that. But there is nothing as good or as durable. And the whole plan, in its origin, was obviously to line the pockets of XSF and Adam Sharara, rather than for any other real reason.
 
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Regardless of their quality, the Nittaku Premium 40+ balls are in fact vapourware. None have been available in Europe so far this year and there doesn't appear to be any sign of this changing - Tabletennis11 says "coming soon" but I don't know how long that's been on the site. Why Nittaku can't produce enough to be able to sell outside Japan I have no idea, but whatever it is they're keeping quiet about it.

As regards orange/yellow balls, someone recently posted a picture of a box purporting to be DHS 3-star 40+ orange but that was just one post on one site and I've seen nothing since to back it up. Who knows !!
 
says Spin and more spin.
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You are right. The Nittaku Premiums are pretty hard to find, almost non-existent. Also, same experience with yellow Poly balls.

Given the fact that it is a decently long time since the Poly balls became the international standard for World Tour play, it seems crazy how badly this is going, how bad the balls are, how much they cost, how easy they break, how unavailable the good ones are!!!!!!!

This really should be seen as a bit of a nightmare for the sport and the ITTF, and someone should wake up and smell the coffee. If they can't produce enough balls to do this and they can't make decent balls that don't just break, it really does look bad for the sport from a professional standpoint. It really does look like ITTF are dropping the ball big time on this in so many ways. This can't really be good for the sport.

Because the material is so hard, when there is a seam, which is reinforced (thicker than the rest of the ball), it causes the ball to be less well balanced and the hardness also makes it easier to split right at the seam.

How many pro matches have you seen with the plastic ball where the ball flat out cracked and they replayed the point. That never happened, that I can remember, with the celluloid balls. Even when a celluloid ball breaks, you end up playing several rallies before you realize it is broken. These poly balls just split instantly.

There is one positive I see with the Poly balls: they are so much slower that the rallies the pros are having, now that they are used to the Poly balls, are definitely more competitive and going longer than they were with the celluloid balls.


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I posted 40+ DHS orange balls on my facebook, maybe some of you saw it on there.
DHS has plans to release it

ITTF article did note that orange is also an official ball colour for 40+, but obviously the focus currently is on white
 
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