New era with DHS D40+ 3 Star Balls

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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).

Baal, this is the best news I have heard about TT in a very long time. Thanks for this great write up.


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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).

That sounds almost too good to be true. Very very cool.
Really appreciate your expertise. Guess i have to order a few.

Had to laugh about this part though

Baal said:
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...
Sorry, Mr. Sharara
[EMOJI12]
 
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says Spin and more spin.
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Had to laugh about this part though

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...

Sorry, Mr. Sharara
[EMOJI12]

Hahahahaha. That is a good one.


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As I read through my review I realized there is something I need to clarify. I don't actually have any information or knowledge that says that DHS is going to discontinue the crappy awful terrible and unacceptable 40+ balls they have been selling for the last few years (the ones with the Ma Long box). I would hope that in time they will just stop selling those and that all the companies they have been supplying with those same crappy balls will in time adopt the new D40+ ones. I would hope that ITTF will eventually make their approval process sufficiently stringent that the crappy ones won't be able to be sold anymore. But I have no information on what DHS and other companies are planning to do.

The thing that may delay the more general adoption of these balls is how quickly DHS can increase the production capacity of the D40+ to meet the demand. It took Nittaku some time to do this, and it the availability of these D40+ balls to regular people (as opposed to the CNT) has been delayed by almost a year and you still can't buy them from places like TT11.

I have no information on any of that. All I can say is that the D40+ 3* is an outstanding ball and along with the Nittaku Premium should become the standard.
 
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As I read through my review I realized there is something I need to clarify. I don't actually have any information or knowledge that says that DHS is going to discontinue the crappy awful terrible and unacceptable 40+ balls they have been selling for the last few years (the ones with the Ma Long box). I would hope that in time they will just stop selling those and that all the companies they have been supplying with those same crappy balls will in time adopt the new D40+ ones. I would hope that ITTF will eventually make their approval process sufficiently stringent that the crappy ones won't be able to be sold anymore.

The thing that may delay that is how quickly they can increase the production capacity of the D40+ to meet the demand. It took Nittaku some time to do this, and it the appearance of these D40+ has been delayed by almost a year and you still can't buy they from places like TT11.

I have no information on any of that. All I can say is that the D40+ 3* is an outstanding ball.

So if I was interested in buying this ball I should only go with the 3 star version? (i.e. don't buy the one and two star versions) Plus how is the durability of this ball compared to the seamless ones?
 
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So if I was interested in buying this ball I should only go with the 3 star version? (i.e. don't buy the one and two star versions)

I don't know about the 2* version, I could never find it in stock. I didn't like the 1*.
 
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But they were never in stock on TT11 when I tried to buy them. So I have no info. The Nittaku J Top is a good training ball.
 
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I don't know yet. The 3* D40+ are cheap so less crucial.
 
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Finally got my shipment after a long delay waiting for the Gold Arc 5. As I love their 1 star D40+ a lot so my expectation of their 3 stars is always high. Will start playing with it tomorrow and see how good it is. After reading so many positive feedbacks here I bet I won't be disappointed, except an overflow of Ding Ning in my head. :p

D40 plus.jpg
 
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I got my shipment yesterday. I lent a ball to two different clubmates and then used the ball briefly after they were done. TT is going to be fun again. I also liked the way this ball aged vs the Nittaku so far. Does not feel yet as if it is going to become a shiny fragile turd.

IT's really an awesome ball. 55 cents for this after the repeated $3 rapes by Nittaku is a big relief.
 
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I have not had one break. I don't think they spin less than seamless. I think judging how much a ball spins is very difficult for reasons I can go into if people are interested.
 
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I have not had one break. I don't think they spin less than seamless. I think judging how much a ball spins is very difficult for reasons I can go into if people are interested.

Most people who make the comparison are comparing them to the crappy DHS 40+ balls. That said, the spin effect of these balls is reasonably good. I don't see them being any worse than Nittaku but I will get more practice in today.
 
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Here is why it is hard to judge whether one 40+ ball has "more spin" than another.

Among different classes of 40+ balls, there are very marked differences in: (1) how high they bounce, (2) how much they weigh and the average outer diameter, (3) how smooth the outer surface is, which affects how they fly through the air and how they interact with the table, (4) the type of plastic they are made of, which affects hardness, durability, and how high they bounce, as well as sound, (5) presence or absence of a seam, which can affect ball rotation, more or less like a gyroscope.

Because of all of this, different types of 40+ balls can be annoyingly different, more than we ever dealt with in the days of 38 and 40 mm celluloids. A bad situation for sure.

For all those reasons, two different kinds of 40+ balls with the actual same amount of rotations per second (let's say an XSF vs a Nittaku premium, or maybe a previous DHS 40+) are going to behave differently as a result of that rotation. The differences in how they behave are usually the things we use to judge how much spin a ball has, since most of the time we can't see the rotation directly, as the ball is spinning too fast. We judge spin by arc on the ball, by feel, by what happens when the ball hits the table or our own or the opponent's racket. And some people may rely more on one thing than another, either because of their level, or how they play, or even the table they use and the lighting, etc. etc. That is why you see people here and elsewhere coming to pretty opposite conclusions about spin of a ball.

Personally I don't think the new D40+ spins appreciably less than seamless. (If anything I would say the reverse, but for reasons above, my impression may not be worth much).

Because D40+ bounces the same as a Nittaku Premium, and is made form the same kind of ABS plastic, I find it to play most similar to that ball. It is a little bit heavier. People might notice a slight difference because of that, but you can adjust in a few seconds from one to another.

Does the D40+ spin less than the earlier crappy DHS 40+ balls? I honestly don't know. Beyond all the reasons I just gave, there is another: those cellulose acetate 40+ balls are so crappy, so fragile, so egg-shaped, and so low-bouncing, that I refuse to play with them. LGL thinks the D40+ spins less, and that is good reason to think this might be real, but even he might be fooled unless they have analyzed this stuff with a high speed camera.
 
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Pretty dusty. Maybe not quite as much as Nittaki.
 
I have 15 hours (4 sessions) on 1 ball. The outer surface still has grip. I'm finding that the ball surface picks up paint chips off the Butterfly tables i play on.

The ball still spins great after these hours of use.

I lent out 3 DHS D40+ balls to others players in the club. Nobody wanted to return them........

Again, each ball was perfectly round. Bounced and played like a Nittaku 40+
 
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