Grabbing the ball to RElease it at higher point doesn't mean that the "rubber" has a higher through angle, no matter the hardness of the rubber. It's a matter of style and experience, and the resulting stroke may have a well expressed arc, or it may not, it will depend on the particular stroke mechanics.
Hi langel, thanks for the reply. I'm trying to find self-consistent understanding of it
Think about that - many players like to use softer rubbers on their BH, because it is better for blocks and it's faster with softer hits. Softer rubbers are better for more passive play over the table and at close distance, easier to control and with more precise direction and placement. All that is because the softer rubber provides tighter ball rebound angle. In fact this rebound angle is what we call "low or high through angle".. Harder rubbers provide wider rebound angle and that's "higher through angle". And I've said that there are some other factors, that may change the result - sponge/top sheet hardness combination, springiness, player's style and experience.
I understand what you are saying. Basically what I need is to know "why" and "how" it happens that tha ball rebounds from the softer rubber with tighter angle. And thank to all your (and Carl's and BB's) posts now I think this: as the ball with rotation (from Carl's recent example) penetrates deeper to the softer rubber, and stops and then rebounds, the deeper decompression from the softer rubber makes it shoot straighter than the shallower decompression from the harder rubber. Is that so?
Some examples - in the Xiom Omega family the Omega 5 Asia is with the highest through angle, it's with hard sponge and hard top sheet. And it's best for real looping, not so good for blocks and not very precise on spikes. Omega 7 Asia is with harder sponge, but with softer top sheet and this combo makes it with almost the same through angle, but much better for blocking and smashing /Omega 5 Tour has the same quality of blocking and smashing, but has a lower through angle/. Omega 7 Tour is very hard, harder than Omega 7 Asia, also with soft top sheet, but it's more springy than the Omega 7 Asia and it makes it with lower through angle, though not much, a bit higher than the Omega 5 Tour. Best for very aggressive and "nervous" players like Hugo, but difficult to control for lower expertise players. Such players will hit the ball to the ceiling or to land on the next table and would say "what a high through angle".
I only played with Omega 5 Euro for a short while, but I believe your analysis of Omega rubbers. It is valuable of itself, but here we are after the principle, why/how, the mechanism, transferable to other rubbers.
If you are evaluating equipment you need to remove the human factor. Style and experience does not affect the equipment.
You are implying the throw angle changes as a function of the player.
BB, I agree, the throw angle is independent of human. I think langel didn't mean that throw angle changes from player to player, I think he meant that in relation to the grabbing/releasing the ball.
I am suggesting that, most people don't really think about what they mean by throw angle and so you could have 20 different people with 20 different definitions. And everyone thinks everyone else means what they mean by throw angle. But....most people are not thinking about what they actually mean.
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But I think if people looked at the Spin to Speed ratio, then that may be what they actually mean by the throw angle. A rubber that is faster, but less spinny, will often get called a low throw angle rubber. The ball will have a flatter trajectory as a result of the added speed and reduced spin....both those qualities cause a ball's trajectory to be flatter: less arc, or curve, or magnus effect, how ever you want to describe it.
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A rubber with higher spin and not quite as much speed will create a ball with more arc and the added grab from the rubber will cause the ball to leave the racket at a higher angle.
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I could be wrong. But, on those faster, flatter shots, the ball would have to leave the racket at a lower angle or it would not land on the table. If the ball was hit higher, the flattened arc would not cause the ball to arc town to the table so the ball would go long. When the ball has more spin, the ball can leave the racket at a higher angle and still arc down onto the table.
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So, since everybody seems to define throw angle differently, I would recommend people think more about the speed/spin ratio of rubbers. It may give clearer information. And they may not actually be different even if people don't realize that what they actually mean when they talk about throw angle is the amount of spin relative to the amount of speed created when using the rubber.
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Think about it, a rubber that has more grip and gives you more spin, if you had the bat oriented vertically and hit the racket with shot that had heavy topspin, the ball would bounce up and it would bounce up pretty high on rebound. A rubber with less grip that creates less spin, if it was hit with the same exact shot, the ball might still bounce up, but it would not go up as high.
Carl, thank you, what you write is very well-arranged and easy to follow.
So, would boosting cause the rubber to create more speed? Would boosting cause the rubber to create more spin? If you say yes to both, which would be increased more? Would it increase or decrease the spin to speed ratio?
Great question! Boosting imho increases both a bit. Which more, it is kind of hard to answer. It depends on the stroke I'm trying to do. So for example when trying to loop a serve which goes over the side-edge, or when a bit jammed and trying to FH loop underspin ball, when you can't use full power, then when the rubber is un-boosted (or booster weared off) there is less tolerance for error, it is easier for me with boosted rubber. On full power shoots there is not so much difference, just a bit, perhaps on maximum full power where you really have to pre-rotate the hips like when doing
gyaku-tsuki (I was meaning to write this, it just feels identical in hips
perhaps the un-boosted rubber could reward more, but not much. Still the difference between the two in H3 case, is much less then difference to rubbers with slightly bigger bubbles (still small) like BlueGrip C1/C2, and even more to hybrid with yet bigger bubbles like RZ, and even more to "standard" rubbers. I am digressing now. I do not have precise answer.