Can somebody explain the history of ESN?

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Does anybody know the history of ESN? How did they get so big? They must be running a pretty attractive business, as they manufacture for every major table tennis brand. Correct me if im wrong, but I believe almost all popular rubbers are from ESN: Rakza, Rasanter, Bluefire, Acuda, Rhizer, Vega, Omega, MXP, Fastarc.

Why did brands stop making their own rubbers and outsource to ESN? Is it because ESN has better rubber performance? Or because brands want to simplify their operations and focus on marketing?

How did ESN start convincing all these brands to rely on them? Does ESN provide the same rubber to each of these companies that are subsequently marketed with their own brand, or do they design a specific rubber for each brand?
 
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Why did brands stop making their own rubbers and outsource to ESN?
I´m not even sure that except for Butterfly brands ever made their own rubbers.
There are two or three factories in Japan that still manufacture for a few brands, and of course all the Chinese stuff.
The overwhelming success is based on Tensor technology, when after the speed glue ban all other attempts to build rubbers with built in speed glue effect were inferior, and - again with the exception of Butterfly - have remained that way.
Take STIGA for example, they have had various product quality issues over the years with their made in Japan rubbers, so for example after the Calibra Tour and Airoc rubbers hardly anyone over here in Germany would even touch the, ironically very good, Mantra rubbers.
Big Japanese brands did not exactly deliver highlights, and other Made In Japan rubbers (once THE sign of quality) were a big letdown also (Tibhar Nianmor never caught on, TSP Agrit was nice to play but faded too quickly, etc.)
Bit by bit, everyone had to have an ESN manufactured rubber to remain competitive.
So I guess that, and the info linked above, should explain a good part of the whole thing.
 
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I´m not even sure that except for Butterfly brands ever made their own rubbers.
There are two or three factories in Japan that still manufacture for a few brands, and of course all the Chinese stuff.
The overwhelming success is based on Tensor technology, when after the speed glue ban all other attempts to build rubbers with built in speed glue effect were inferior, and - again with the exception of Butterfly - have remained that way.
Take STIGA for example, they have had various product quality issues over the years with their made in Japan rubbers, so for example after the Calibra Tour and Airoc rubbers hardly anyone over here in Germany would even touch the, ironically very good, Mantra rubbers.
Big Japanese brands did not exactly deliver highlights, and other Made In Japan rubbers (once THE sign of quality) were a big letdown also (Tibhar Nianmor never caught on, TSP Agrit was nice to play but faded too quickly, etc.)
Bit by bit, everyone had to have an ESN manufactured rubber to remain competitive.
So I guess that, and the info linked above, should explain a good part of the whole thing.

So all these brands like Nittaku, Stiga, Tibhar, they have been operating since before WW2. ESN started in 90's and didnt create tensor until 1998 according to their website. Why is it that this 3 man company was able to create rubber technology that all these other companies could not create? Nittaku, Donic, Joola, etc would have had decades of experience and R&D.

Are there any non-ESN rubbers out there today? Are they definitively inferior to ESN rubbers?

Also you mentioned 2 or 3 factories in Japan. Is their rubber on-par with ESN? Which rubbers are those?

 
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Years ago it was discussed on one of the forums.
I can't remember the exact details but the story was something like; ESN was setup/owned by the owner of Donic who actually led the team that created Tensor rubbers. That's why the first Tensor rubbers were Donic branded. So in effect, ESN rubbers were/are connected to Donic rather than being a fully independent entity. I will stand corrected by someone more knowledgeable.
 
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I think it is a cost factor. Developing and producing such products costs a lot of money and there is also not huge difference in those so it makes sense to use a company who already has the technology and production capacities.This is often the case when it comes to plastic polymers. I also do some fly fishing in the summer and there are also just 2 or 3 production sites for those. That doesn't mean all the fly lines are the same, the fly line companies all have slightly different tapers and compositions that they are telling to the producing companies but the general materials and technology is the same.I guess the different ESN brands do have slightly different standards but it still is cheaper and less risky to use a company who already has the know how and production capacities.
 
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Are there any non-ESN rubbers out there today? Are they definitively inferior to ESN rubbers?
Also you mentioned 2 or 3 factories in Japan. Is their rubber on-par with ESN? Which rubbers are those?

If you´re a fan of typical Chinese rubbers of course you wouldn´t find these inferior. It´s just that ESN catered better to the needs of most players after the speed ban glue and has established a pretty much unrivaled position, while Japanese manufacturers didn´t have much to offer in that respect.

As for "classic" rubbers, you can still buy Japanese rubbers like Mark V.

In Europe, there is no other rubber manufacturer that I know of.

As for Japanese rubbers, I think recently Mizuno has started developing and manufacturing their own. Victas have a few (although the Victas pro players mostly seem to use V15, a German made rubber).
Nexy have their new Etika rubber made in Japan, in the same factory that made Mantra for Stiga (and probably the other Stiga rubbers before).
These rubbers are typically a little different to the German rubbers. I liked Mantra because for me it resembled tenergy05, but over here it was a failure, too many "problematic" Stiga rubbers had gone before.
So whether something is on a par with the ESN stuff depends to a certain degree if you like its playing characteristics.

 
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Also in the past the process for manufacturing a sheet of rubber with sponge wasn't totally straightforward, depending on the company / brand most of the stages of manufacture were out sourced to other 'specialist' companies.
1 company to mix the formula for the top sheet, 1 for the vulcanization process, 1 to make the sponge, 1 to slice the sponge into the thicknesses required etc
ESN have probably pulled all this together into 1 factory, not totally sure about this though!!! perhaps they may 'out source' 1 part of the process?
 
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SUPERBALL American national craze from 1970s is the direct predecessor for German TENSOR rubbers
https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageN...1=3241834.PN.%26OS=PN/3241834%26RS=PN/3241834ESN had adopted this Royal Patent of 1966 as manufacturing guidance. Raw material is "buna" syntetic cautchuque supplied by SHELL GMbH Hamburg. TENSOR is trade name for ESN rubber formula listed by German patent office.

Be happy
ps// GD factory of China has mastered the tensor formula as well.
 
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