What about the foam?

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Sorry for the newbie question..but do custom blade/rubber combo's do away with the foam between the rubber and the paddle (like I see on my off the rack paddle)? Is there less cushion or what is lost or gained without this foam?
 
says Fair Play first
says Fair Play first
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YOUNG BLOOD NEED MORE SPEED.
Beefy youngsters will prefer springy sponged rubbers, and those infirm ones will seek to play hardbat game.
 
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The foam your premade bat has is attached to the rubber and is probably a thinner and softer version of what would come with a rubber bought separately.

The sponge sets the tone for the rubber by absorbing the incoming ball and rebounding it back out. Nearly all smooth surface rubbers these days will have a sponge, which can range from thin to super thick. As yogi bear said, thinner sponges give less speed while thicker sponges give more speed.

If you’re considering a new setup, probably best to replace both the blade (the wood part) and the rubbers, because detaching rubber from a premade bat can be a real pain.

You don’t need an expensive setup to start with. Several sites offer beginner setups that will work just fine for most of your development. I’d say check out Cole’s table tennis if you’re in the US


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Speed dependency is a very complicated question.
General theory and results from synthetic test can be very different from real life experience.
In real life speed depends on huge amount of factors. Its not only the energy loss of the rubber.
Its about the properties of the rubber-blade system, the dynamic of change of the parameters /usually non-linear, no matter how we feel it/ and the personal evaluation of the results, depending on players' style and preferences.
Some rubbers may be faster with max sponge and on stiffer blades, but not faster, or even slower on more vibrating and/or more flexy blades. And it will depend on the style too. Better top spin produce faster balls. Different players will feel differently with the different spin capabilities of thinner or thicker sponges.
Speed change, depending on the type and strength of the impact, is another factor. A thicker sponge of the same model may be more sringy with softer touches, or the opposite, and it may have faster "max" speed, or not, where "max" speed is very personal.
For me and my rubber-blade systems Xiom Omega V Asia and Tour do have greater max speed both with max thickness and softer touches, the Tour being sensibly more springy with max sponge on softer touches. Omega 7 Asia is more springy with max sponge on softer touches, but the "max" speed is not faster than the 2.0 sponge, though for me definitely the max sponge is more spiny.
So - different rubbers on different blades and in the hands of different players would give different results.
 
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There is always someone that wants to make things more complicated than what they really are. That is why these conversations have gone on for over 11 years.

What are you testing? The player? The blade? The rubber? If you are testing the rubber you mount it on something hard and heavy that will not absorb energy. I used a heaving cutting board. Pathfinderpro used a piece of plexiglass.

The properties of the rubber do not magically change because it is mounted on different blades or by who is holding the paddle. The results will, no doubt, depending on the combination ,but if you want to test a rubber with sponge and no sponge or even different thickness of sponge then mount the them on a solid block and shoot balls at it with a robot or similar then compute a COR.

Pathfinderpro did something like this a long time ago.

So the question is will a TT ball's speed after impact/COR be higher with or without sponge?
 
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