why P balls are about twice as expensive ?

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Der_echte , may be Nexy has put its own quality control clauses on top of XSF and thats the reason you are getting the better XSF balls ...
Baal hit the head of the nail with a 16lb sledge hammer.

Seamless training balls for the most part are garbage. XSF makes our poly ball, but we wont sell the one star version, the QC is horrendous on those. One star poly ball equals MINUS 6 stars for real.
 
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XSF has a true bounce? We must have different batches or something.
The only P-ball with a true bounce or bounce that is consistent similar to the C-ball is the Nittaku premium.
Every other ball that I have tried has a relatively inconsistent bounce.

I have had many batches of XSF, in fact I was possibly the first person on English language table tennis forums to strongly advocate for their use (against considerable skepticism). Some recent batches if XSF balls have had some complaints about roundness. This was not a problem with XSF balls made in the first half of 2015. However, I have not heard a complaint about any other brand of seamless ball. My impression is that there is a QC issue in which XSF has accepted some substandard balls lately (late 2015 and early 2016) and decided to sell them as 3-star. Greed. Shame on them.

However, I have not heard or experienced anything like that from one of other brands of seamless balls.

So if you are in doubt, avoid XSF and simply buy one of the many other versions of seamless balls, like Xiom, Nexy, Kingnik, Joola, Yinhe, etc. etc. There are now many brands to choose from. I suspect each company can set their own QC specifications with the factory that makes them. For a variety of reasons too obscure to go into here, I have some reason to believe that there now may be two different factories making the seamless balls.

Seamless does not bounce or fly through the air exactly like celluloid or like Nittaku Premium. There is no question about that. (Actually it bounces a touch higher and seems to me to play a bit slower). But it wears substantially longer (on average) and is quite a bit cheaper.

Personally, I prefer playing with the Nittaku balls BUT if price is an issue, the question then becomes what is the best overall price/quality ratio. If you look at that, and consider average durability as important, then good seamless balls win hands down. Bear in mind, you have to buy the three-star versions. The "training ball" versions are awful.

I use XSF balls for training out of a bucket. I play matches and free play with the Nittaku.
 
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Thanks Baal for the clear and concise write up , this should settle the debate with conviction once and for all ...
I have had many batches of XSF, in fact I was possibly the first person on English language table tennis forums to strongly advocate for their use (against considerable skepticism). Some recent batches if XSF balls have had some complaints about roundness. This was not a problem with XSF balls made in the first half of 2015. However, I have not heard a complaint about any other brand of seamless ball. My impression is that there is a QC issue in which XSF has accepted some substandard balls lately (late 2015 and early 2016) and decided to sell them as 3-star. Greed. Shame on them.

However, I have not heard or experienced anything like that from one of other brands of seamless balls.

So if you are in doubt, avoid XSF and simply buy one of the many other versions of seamless balls, like Xiom, Nexy, Kingnik, Joola, Yinhe, etc. etc. There are now many brands to choose from. I suspect each company can set their own QC specifications with the factory that makes them. For a variety of reasons too obscure to go into here, I have some reason to believe that there now may be two different factories making the seamless balls.

Seamless does not bounce or fly through the air exactly like celluloid or like Nittaku Premium. There is no question about that. (Actually it bounces a touch higher and seems to me to play a bit slower). But it wears substantially longer (on average) and is quite a bit cheaper.

Personally, I prefer playing with the Nittaku balls BUT if price is an issue, the question then becomes what is the best overall price/quality ratio. If you look at that, and consider average durability as important, then good seamless balls win hands down. Bear in mind, you have to buy the three-star versions. The "training ball" versions are awful.

I use XSF balls for training out of a bucket. I play matches and free play with the Nittaku.
 
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As I understand it, At your clubs, you play only 3 stars balls at training ?

In France, we use a lot of ball for training, it's impossible to get only 3 stars balls ! For example, at my club, we used about 3000 balls for a year ...

I hope trainings ball will improve a lot in future, otherwise table tennis will decline thanks to that decision from ittf

I play in competition, I am number 3 in my departement with my category "vétéran 2" ( I am 57), in France there is about 100.000 players doing competitions
 
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At my club we typically use 3-star for training, but the club doesn't supply them. We supply our own balls (which I think is pretty common in North America).

I think you might be better off using celluloid than trying to train with the 1-star seamless.

I found the Nittaku 2-star Japan training balls to be ok, but they are not all that cheap.
 
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My conspiracy theory: they have the technology to make better training balls.

But why release them when they have so much overstock of the crap ones still.

Yes. Probably true.
 
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Okay after quite a bit of research I've yet to find any information on the MASTER QUALITY BALL G40+ has anyone tried them or found a review of them? Or must I be the first to buy a batch.

After the first batch I bought, I have no interest in buying something that is now suddently "Master Quality". At that price, the first batch should have been.

So you go first! :D
 
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I'll buy them. We hate the poly balls my coach uses anyway. Just waiting on butterfly to email me back about my discount. Since they're guaranteed to price match anywhere that a legitimate butterfly product is sold, and then give an additional 10% on that difference.

I'm lucky enough to have access to a site like this...


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I bought a bunch of 3-star XSF balls for my bucket about 8 months ago, 144 balls. I occasionally step on one or lose one. And I buy Nittaku as needed. Several other people at my club bought balls for their buckets also. Most people are using seamless for that, one poor soul bought Joola seamed balls.
 
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thanks baal,

I am still hesitant, according to that price increase,

I should have thus to spend 240 € instead of about 40 € for 144 celluloid balls for training ...

It will be a big anarchy in september in France during competitions (decision has just released, a lot of players are in holidays on the side of table tennis and don't know about it and will learn it in septembre, just before recovery)
 
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has anybody tried those balls : http://www.wacksport.fr/catalogue/?todo=aff_items&grp=510706

"DONIC COACH" I am searching for training balls and on the french forum, there are many players who are doing the same thing ...

yes baal; I am still hesitant between plastic and celluloid for training balls, I have heard about rebound very different
 
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I played a summer league team match last night using XSF balls. We changed the match ball twice before we found one that had any sort of decent bounce. I think that Nexy must have some arrangement with XSF to get balls manufactured with stricter QC. The fact that we got one that was way better than the first 2 shows that XSF can supply better quality balls if it wants to.
 
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