New era with DHS D40+ 3 Star Balls

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Spins less than seamless? Doesn't seem entirely positive to me. Oh well.
 
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Do you know anything about the 2 star D40s TT11 is selling? How are they compared to the 1 star etc.?

No. Haven't seen any. I have ordered some 3-star ones, though. I didn't enjoy playing with the 1-star ones, but they are, after all, 1-star.
 
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Spins less than seamless? Doesn't seem entirely positive to me. Oh well.

I take that with a pinch of salt. I know someone who swears blind that they get more spin with seamless than with Nittaku Premium, and he's one of the best players in the top division of my local league. And I agree with him! But many don't, and you know yourself how hard it is to measure. Is it movement through the air, or how often your opponent blocks off, or what? Anyway, thus far I'm just happy to hear that the bounce is better, roundness is OK, price is mega-cheap and so on.
 
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Spins less than seamless? Doesn't seem entirely positive to me. Oh well.

LGL had commented about the new ABS (D40+) ball after the Chinese Trials. Don't know how it compare to seamless but certainly less spin than old 40+ from his words.

"We have tested the new ball for a while. The difference is quite significant, mainly with less spin and more speed. It is better for game play and rallies. From these matches we see lots of strong top spin counters. Especially on the strong BH exchange and balance between BH and FH. It gives more advantage to fierce attacking style players like FZD, LJK and Xu Chenhao. On the other hand players that depends on control and soft touch will suffer.


Now players may feel the change and difference in spin is big. But I believe when giving enough time, especially after WTTC, they will find the feeling of the new ball. After increasing the power, the spin will come back. The playing standard should return to normal. It may cause some shaking in the beginning, but all will go back as usual and the new ball won't change the scene of TT. " said LGL.


FZD said that his first task is to adapt to the new ball fast. Don't know how much it has affect his performance in Qatar as I believe they still use the old 40+ there and FZD had competed with the new D40+ but ML did not. Will see the Third Stage of Trials action begin tomorrow.
 
My DHC D40+ *** balls arrived today. I opened the package to inspect them.


Some quick notes:
The color is a nice egg shell (very close to Nittaku 40+ balls)
The surface has a surface similar to the Nittaku 40+ balls
Holding one up to the light, the shell is thinner than Nittaku 40+ balls
Also holding up to the light, the seam is huge (4X) of the Nittaku 40+ balls.

I'll find out Saturday how they play at the club. I normally play Thursday nights, however, am traveling on a business trip to Washington DC.

Here's a quick photo:
DSC_0019.jpg
 
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Sounds pretty positive so far! Any breakages yet?

Hope you don't mind me asking - where did you order this lovely haul from?


I have been playing with this ball three hours per day for three days, so I can't check durability yet.
I ordered these from 'Luciferchen' in Taobao. He has about 17 counselors, so he immediately replies to the inquiries on Taobao messenger. One sad thing is that his counselors speak Chinese only, so I have to ask them in Chinese.
I verified the authenticity on DHS website, so I believe he sells authentic products.
 
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I think it is 'slightly'(not noticeably) bouncier, but I am not sure with spin because I am not in the top division in Korea. It's just my opinion so don't trust me too much:)

OK, but I do trust LGL, and also, I kind of got that impression from the 1* ones also, even thought they are probably 1* for a reasons.
 
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I brought a box to the club and shared them with the top players 1800+ USATT. All commented that the balls were very round. Not one egg.

Feedback I received: spins well, easy to read (large lettering), plays fast. One player mentioned it was 'slow to launch' and at first i didn't understand him.

Then it was my turn to play (disclosure: i am a lower rated player). The surface grips well (spinning impacts on the table take effect. And i came to realize what one player meant ('slow to launch') in that when starting a new ball, it's slower the first minute until a few hits, then it it's normal (sounds weird, however, 2 people noticed this).

5 balls from one lot doesn't mean instant success. It is in the right direction.

I'd like to read other's experience with them.

Chuck
 
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Thanks to a tip from Chuck Jordan I was able to buy two boxes of the new DHS 3* D40+ balls from this place:

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Excl...-Seamed-New-Material-Plastic/32793435592.html

I received them in about 10 days and I played with them this evening. I paid $15 for 12 balls. Note that these are the ones that come in a box with Ding Ning's picture on it. The ones with Ma Long on the box are the crappy old ones. Here is my review:

I already believe that this is the best plastic ball in table tennis right now when everything is considered
.

From a playing perspective I actually like them slightly better than the Nittaku Premium!! I never thought I would say that about a Chinese plastic ball!

Surface of the ball looks exactly like Nittaku Premium. The seams are a little larger, though, more like earlier seamed balls from China.

They are absolutely perfectly round.

The static bounce is exactly the same height as Nittaku Premium. If you let the bounces die out on the table, they stop bouncing at exactly the same time the Nittaku does. This is a huge improvement for DHS. None of their earlier plastic balls bounced for crap.

The D40+ have a normal sound on bouncing (this is different from the 1* version).

Spin and speed is very similar to the Nittaku, but the DHS feels a little more solid. My practice partner could not tell the difference from the Nittaku Premium when I switched up on him. More significantly, coach Li Kewai (~2700 player) could tell a slight difference and his opinion is that he preferred the DHS D40+ to the Nittaku Premium, and I shared that opinion, although the difference is very very slight. I think the DHS might be very slightly heavier. There is no accounting for tastes, but I would be really surprised if very many people conclude that the D40+ is significantly worse to play with than Nittaku Premium.

On top of all that, the DHS40+ is cheaper. Also, as DHS stops the production of their previously horrible awful terrible miserable plastic balls, these will probably become the standard, and hopefully other companies will be putting their brands on this ball. It would be a major improvement for the sport. The key will be if DHS can make enough of these D40+ balls to meet the demand and still maintain this level of quality.

This is the best news I have been able to report in a really long time. As for my expertise on this, I think it is extensive. I know the plastic ball situation in detail (more than I know about most other equipment issues). Very early on I completely stopped playing with celluloid balls, and I have tried about every 40+ ball made, and I was the first one on English language TT forums to really push the idea that the seamless balls are decent, and not as bad as the prototypes floating around for awhile might have led us to believe. (At the time the expectation was that they would be really bad). Seamless balls actually have a lot of good properties, especially durability, but I think these new balls by DHS will probably be very bad news for the makers of seamless balls. I doubt once people get their hands on these, especially given the price, that people will want to use seamless very much. The playing properties are superior (by which I mean a lot closer to celluloid) and they are cheaper.

The likelihood as a result is that in the foreseeable future we will have a lot more uniformity of balls, which for the last few years has been a big problem for our sport. If in the future the dominant balls become the D40+ ones made by DHS (possibly sold by many companies) and the Nittaku Premium, we will have returned to a situation where the brand of ball doesn't matter very much (as in celluloid era).
 
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