Worst "Technologies" and Gimmicks in TT

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Now don't get me wrong. I love Stiga and have owned about 5 of their blades myself but with the constant need to reinvent blades they've come up with some laughable ones.

- Crystal Tech - hardening the surface of the outermost ply with some lacquer. It's fine except it achieves the same thing as their old "CR" tech except hardening the entire surface of the blade instead of just the contact area.
- Tube - punching tiny holes in the innermost ply and filling it with glue with tiny particles of carbon, titanium, kevlar....
- WRB: Ok Stiga probably patented the term "WRB" but every company is guilty of this; hollowing out the blade at the handle area for a little bit of head heaviness to give the illusion that you're "producing more spin" by making you have to work a little harder to complete your stroke. Even Donic does it arguably worse by hollowing out the handle pieces themselves giving you that hollow feedback in strokes but I guess the pros of that is that the empty space is easily accessible allowing you to fill it with putty or epoxy.
- Donic's precut Bluefire rubber. I know the intention was probably good (to produce less waste) but it doesn't consider the odd blade shapes from Oversize to the modern ergonomic blade designs. (tbh I think we should be applauding them for this)

I can only speak for blades I've owned and it just so happens I owned more blades from Stiga than any other company.
I will probably be getting another blade from them but it'll be either another Clipper and/or a blade from their hard wood series.

What about you? What gimmicks from other companies have you bought into?
 
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In before hard-headed engineer. 😩
Yep, Zeio and Yogi expected my reply.
So!?
You know it is all marketing. So what is new? Nothing has changed.
I have posted a video of me playing c-pen. I am using an all wood blade, a Yasaka extra offensive. ( YEO ).
My YEO loops nicely. I can post my video again if necessary.
The equipment is not near as important as the skill of of the player.
All the TT manufacturers want the noobs to believe they have the answer to cure their deficiencies.

I also have two old Samsonov Alphas, all wood, that are good for looping. There is nothing tricky with these blades.
My Donic Defplay is is a thin defensive blade, all wood, that is also good for looping. It does have a hollow handle. The blade does feel head heavy if inverted rubber is placed on both sides of the paddle. I like to chop but I don't claim to be a chopper. However if one wants to practice returning chopped balls I am your man.

The TT manufacturers monitor these forum and take advantage of the ignorance of the forums in their marketing. There is A LOT of ignorance on TT forums. One needs to know when to call BS on a technology.
The COR have a limited range from 0 to 1 with most being in the 0.6 to 0.7 range. It would take a lot to convince me that there aren't a lot of rubbers that aren't almost the same and in reality there is nothing new but marketing.

Rubbers are over priced.
I can understand blade prices to some extent because I am familiar with peeling wood and get clears ( wood with out defects ). My YEO and Defplay cost about $50 US. The same goes for my two DR Neubauer Firewall Pluses. Only my Butterfly TBS and TB ALC cost more. $50-$60 will buy one a "keeper" blade. I wouldn't spend less. Spending more will not help.



.

 
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I've heard of these rubbers that DO NOT produce spin and supposedly allow lower skilled players to return difficult serves but not sure if that's just a myth...
 
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I guess if it is all just marketing and almost people are ignorant here except someone here, high level players will just use pan asia ready made rackets.

The feel and control of an equipment are the most important things in choosing equipment, skills are given. The variables are too many due too many combinations that we cannot say one variable is enough. If you are not even in a level where your feel of the equipment cannot make you distinguish the properties like spin generation and speed then you should keep our silly ideas yourself. Making a lousy loop nor not having the proper contact on loops does not make you know everything about equipment and playing tt already. This happens on different levels. I have seen as early as semi beginners have this feel of equipment difference. If you cannot tell the difference on how tackiness affects the amount of spin on loops, i suggest you go back and practice your loops, try to develop your "touchy feel".
 
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Vladamir Shapiro in Boston plays 2300 with a hard bat vs loopers... and that bad-azz Russian now American dude has got to be pushing 60. Jones Badd-Azzz Baldonado in Las Vegas plays 2300 level with hardbat vs inverted. Those are just two table tennis terrorists I can think of from the top of my head. Likely a couple more at that level.

Skill is skill... and gotta agree - Skill counts for a lot in this sport.
 
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Der, Jones baldonado is a friend of mine. He has the skill and feel of a high level player. He is a defensive player but he can loop and everything
Our country's top player is a chopper. He is a good hardbat, sandpaper and normal racket player. Does he loop and do other strokes? Of course he does!! Even JSH and Waldner played hard bat. what does it prove that you cannot tell the difference between the spin and speed of rubbers or equipment? It is funny people will make examples that are ridiculous to prove their point. Let us go back to the basic here, the skilled people mentioned are people who can tell the difference in performance of equipment are because they have diveloped feel aside from their obvious skill. Again, if you have a lousy stroke and feel and cannot tell the difference between equipment performance, go back practicing instead of pushing wild ideas that are a waste of time for serious players. Some ideas are for equipment manufacturing but do not push far off ideas in terms of playing when you yourself do not even know the correct strokes (not you Der).
​​
 
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Donic Dotec blades.
Funny thing is that I have faced 2 players that hold their Dotec bats completely opposite to what the designer intended.
However, the grip is really good especially for players with injury prone wrists.
Not a gimmick but thought that I'd mention it
I’ve have 4 of the Dotec blades now, very comfortable once you get use to them.
recently I’ve been using them quite a lot, picked my my Primorac with the Tau 2 on it this weekend. just as a reference for how the Tau 2 played. I found that the shoulders felt sharp and were verging on being very annoying!! Sandpaper was found and the edges of the blade shoulders sanded down a little, this helped !!! But the shoulder still felt thin.



As you can see the Dotec handle follows the shoulders of the blade, rather than going straight on in the conventional manner, exposing the blade plies at the shoulders, which can give that sharp edge feeling.
After following Der’s blade making challenge, I’ve been thinking about having a blade made by one of the excellent blade makers that post on TTD.
My handle spec would be for a standard concave style handle but with the neck and shoulder as the pictured Dotec blade. 😀

 
I’ve have 4 of the Dotec blades now, very comfortable once you get use to them.
recently I’ve been using them quite a lot, picked my my Primorac with the Tau 2 on it this weekend. just as a reference for how the Tau 2 played. I found that the shoulders felt sharp and were verging on being very annoying!! Sandpaper was found and the edges of the blade shoulders sanded down a little, this helped !!! But the shoulder still felt thin.



As you can see the Dotec handle follows the shoulders of the blade, rather than going straight on in the conventional manner, exposing the blade plies at the shoulders, which can give that sharp edge feeling.
After following Der’s blade making challenge, I’ve been thinking about having a blade made by one of the excellent blade makers that post on TTD.
My handle spec would be for a standard concave style handle but with the neck and shoulder as the pictured Dotec blade. 😀

The dotec handles are very comfy but my only issue against them is when your hands sweat a lot.

 
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The dotec handles are very comfy but my only issue against them is when your hands sweat a lot.

I generally sweat buckets!!! But luckily I don’t suffer with sweaty hands!!! But I agree that the handles do have a slightly less ‘grippy’ feel, haven’t had one fly out of my grip, yet!!!!

 
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When Jones plays with his hardbat vs 2x inverted players (He plays other bats too, like inverted/LP) he is mostly 50/50 retrieving and chopping with some occasional FH counterhitting or pick hitting. His main skills using hardbat are to stay in the point and entice opponent to misread the ball and go for shots they have less percentage of landing it. That is a skill that deserves respect, even if it is... ""but those are the WRONG kind of skills" as Greg Letts shows in his hillarious vid mocking the crybaby 2x inverted player.

I purposely left out some even higher level hard bat players in USA, waiting for @UsidedownCarl to chime in.
 
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... and yes yogi, it was very obvious from what you were saying and how you were saying it that you are discussing a type of player or a type of person (which class does not have the basic skills of disernment, because they do not yet enough fundamental skill and feel to know what does what), not a particular individual... but it is always good to be clear and clarify like you did.
 
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Der, Jones baldonado is a friend of mine. He has the skill and feel of a high level player. He is a defensive player but he can loop and everything
Our country's top player is a chopper. He is a good hardbat, sandpaper and normal racket player. Does he loop and do other strokes? Of course he does!! Even JSH and Waldner played hard bat. what does it prove that you cannot tell the difference between the spin and speed of rubbers or equipment? It is funny people will make examples that are ridiculous to prove their point. Let us go back to the basic here, the skilled people mentioned are people who can tell the difference in performance of equipment are because they have diveloped feel aside from their obvious skill. Again, if you have a lousy stroke and feel and cannot tell the difference between equipment performance, go back practicing instead of pushing wild ideas that are a waste of time for serious players. Some ideas are for equipment manufacturing but do not push far off ideas in terms of playing when you yourself do not even know the correct strokes (not you Der).
​​

Do you mean Richard Gonzales, Yogi? Our 2015 SEA medalist? But I agree, its mostly about skill and what feels good to you. A lot are mostly advertising.

 

Do you mean Richard Gonzales, Yogi? Our 2015 SEA medalist? But I agree, its mostly about skill and what feels good to you. A lot are mostly advertising.

Yes I am talking about Pugoy but my point is that these players have the skill and feel to tell the difference about equipment. It is not all about marketing. A lot of good stuff has come out over the years especially German rubbers and some even Chinese rubbers. With the change of the ball, companies were forced to develop new rubbers. Sure there are bad ones, i never deny that but to say that these are just all marketing gimmicks with no difference in performance is purely cases of uninformed and inexperienced people.

 
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With the change of the ball, companies were forced to develop new rubbers.
It IS all about marketing.
Just look at the "Made for me, made for you Rasanter add" to the right. Nonsense.

Explain to us, what can all these slight differences in rubbers or blades do that another cannot?

In the case of hard bats vs double inverted it is easy to see that it is easier to generate more spin and the difference is significant.
I have played with enough different types of rubber, LPs, MPs, SPs and inverted to know the differences and that not all LPs are a like. The same goes for other rubbers. I definitely have my preferences depending on my mood for the day. However, most of the hype and spent is on inverted rubbers. Are there differences? Yes of course but there is little I can do with one inverted rubber that I can't do with another inverted rubber.

All those adds that talk about control are false. People have control, not equipment.
All those adds that talk about power are false. People generate the power. The equipment just transfers energy.
 
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