Are ZLC blades even popular?

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I wasn't talking about some pro's who use it. I was talking of real life people or club members you know using it.
Right now Butterfly has 15 ZLC or SZLC blades in their catalog and more on the way.

Which seem really disproportional to their popularity among players.
Because Yes, a 350 Euro SZLC blade seems an expensive gamble compared to 120-150 Euro ALC alternative.

I don't know why you are equating SZLC to ZLC, which is only around 200 Euro. But that being said, ZLC is popular amongst the amateur ranks as well. Maybe more so in areas where people have the money to spend that sort of amount on a table tennis blade and not blink an eye.
 
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Well. The number of blades manufactured/sold (volume) have low correlation with the number of labels on them, let alone the fact that ZLC obviously has much higher profit margin.

In term of popularity, totally agree with Sofachamp. There isn’t much difference between ZLC and ALC in the end of the day and people are too used too ALC anw. ALC had been very very popular before ZLC came along.
 
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Well. Price premium exists for a reason. :D
In the end of the day, I don’t even bother if it’s ALC, ZLC, ZXC, ZC, ArCarc, KevC... I just got a limba-inner soft carbon, well built and cheap. Honestly speaking, I actually care more about the colour of the handle than difference between Zxion and Zylon. I can certainly feel the colour.

Am I starting an equipment-war Butterfly vs the world again? ;)
 
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From the standpoint of feeling, with Inner Carbon I think ZLC feels fine and works fine. With outer carbon, I like the way ALC feels better because Arylate is a slightly softer material than Zylon.

The Mizutani Jun ZLC works fine. The softer Limba top ply with the not as soft Zylon/Carbon weave feels fine. I still like the inner fiber ZLCs better.

But I don't think any of it matters. And I am happy with my all wood blade. :)

BTW: Zylon, Arylate....they can make either any color that they want. If you have ever seen a Timo Boll Spark, they made those with Arylate (no carbon) and the Arylate ply was red. :) The iPhone chords I use are from a brand called Anker. The chords use Arylate in the outer casing to make it stronger. They make them in red, blue, green, black, grey, white......etc. But Butterfly has standardized that they use Zylon colored yellow and now they use Arylate colored blue.
 
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I don't know why you are equating SZLC to ZLC, which is only around 200 Euro. But that being said, ZLC is popular amongst the amateur ranks as well. Maybe more so in areas where people have the money to spend that sort of amount on a table tennis blade and not blink an eye.[/QU

Since we are talking about the cost of ZLC blades, as a fan of MIT PP blades, I can't resist putting in a plug for the Agon-X SZLC blade, for only $110. It has a koto/SZLC/ayous/kiri/ayous/SZLC/koto composition. Being a former OEM for BTY black tag blades, the blade quality made by MIT PP is very high, possibly even better than the current BTY blades made in China. See http://ww3.ping-pong.tw/product_info.php?cPath=24_127&products_id=5510
 
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BTW: Zylon, Arylate....they can make either any color that they want. If you have ever seen a Timo Boll Spark, they made those with Arylate (no carbon) and the Arylate ply was red. :) The Phone chords I use are from a brand called Anker. The chords use Arylate in the outer casing to make it stronger. They make them in red, blue, green, black, grey, white......etc. But Butterfly has standardized that they use Zylon colored yellow and now they use Arylate colored blue.

This makes perfect sense for me. They make the handles clearly distinguishable by yellow and blue. But maybe because of the original colours of those things ;)

Regarding the feel. I tried ALC on Viscaria and Yasaka Reinforce but they are both koto so I’m not sure the difference is from koto or ALC. But the Yasaka Reinforce (another innerforce blade) is sharper, noisier, lower tone (i.e. drum vs string like sound), requires less dwell for spin, more like proper carbon. So at least I come to the conclusion that the outer wood has bigger impact than ALC-ZLC if ZLC is supposed to be sharper.


Ah... I forgot one thing. They are AcrylC vs ZxionC to be precise :rolleyes:
 
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Some trivial facts.

Zxion is not Zylon.

Commercially available since 2010, Zxion is an original synthetic fiber produced by KB Seiren, a Japanese joint venture of Kanebo and Seiren. Kanebo almost folded up and was bought out by Seiren in 2005.

Zxion is actually closer to Arylate(Vectran) as they are both polyarylate/LCP fibers, as opposed to Zylon which is a PBO Fiber. It has the vibration damping property similar to Arylate and the specs used by Victas and Butterfly are comparable.

According to Kuraray, different colors of Arylate are used to differentiate the products and specs in which they are used. Red color Arylate is specifically for table tennis blades, and blue color Arylate is for volleyball and tennis net cables. The red ones have a higher linear density than the blue ones.
 
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Wow. So I ended up the victim of marketing tricks? Never mind. The blade still way cheaper than IF ALC, looks a lot more understated and I’m incredibly happy with the feel. Bonus, I won’t have the urge to try IF ALC ;)
 
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Some trivial facts.

Zxion is not Zylon.

Commercially available since 2010, Zxion is an original synthetic fiber produced by KB Seiren, a Japanese joint venture of Kanebo and Seiren. Kanebo almost folded up and was bought out by Seiren in 2005.

Zxion is actually closer to Arylate(Vectran) as they are both polyarylate/LCP fibers, as opposed to Zylon which is a PBO Fiber. It has the vibration damping property similar to Arylate and the specs used by Victas and Butterfly are comparable.

According to Kuraray, different colors of Arylate are used to differentiate the products and specs in which they are used. Red color Arylate is specifically for table tennis blades, and blue color Arylate is for volleyball and tennis net cables. The red ones have a higher linear density than the blue ones.

That's a wealthy of knowledge - thanks! Do you happen to have a good sense of the fiber weights that many of these companies use?
 
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yup I wrote that Shang kun hybrid AC is very similiar to ZXin so I wrote real knowledge here too but no one cares until someone famous with better english show you that you make mistake, so thank you zeio.

Are you rampa?
 
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It seems a bit odd that they have so many flavours (more then 15)of ZLC while maybe 1 or 2% of the players actually buy ZLC blades.

I am sure that among the club and tournament crowd, there is way more than 1 or 2% buying ZLC type blades.
 
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