Anyone play with the XVT ALC Dragon

Originally Posted by Michael Zhuang

Well xvt may not be bad, but if youre looking to clone the viscaria, xvt will be far off i think. The yinhe pro 01 will be very close I believe.

I'm not necessarily looking for a Viscaria clone. Just something similar to, but sightly slower than, the V14 Pro. I've read both the Viscaria and Pro-01 are just that because they both have a slightly thicker outer koto plies compared to the V14 Pro which has a really thin koto outer ply. The reason the XVT Dragon caught my eye was because it is an outer ALC blade with what appears to be a thicker koto outer ply AND is less than half the price of the Pro-01 and more than 7 times less than a Viscaria.
All that being said, I placed an order for an XVT Dragon this morning. Hopefully, it'll arrive within a month so I can see how good, or bad, these things are.

Cool, curious to see your findings. I couldn't get over the Koto-alc-koto construction.

I would love to have a Pro 01 as well, but I already have the V14 pro, which is probably close enough.

Yeah, the koto-alc-koto is a little different, however, when looking closely at the pictures, the third layer appears to be a different wood than the outer layer. Not sure what it could be, but it looks to be a different color and a lot more porous.

Yeah it may not be Koto. Sometimes the sellers just say random things when they don't know the real answer. But the only other time I tried the XVT blade, it was horribly stiff. But lets see what you find.

Something to consider. DHS 506X and PG6X are both viscaria structure blades from DHS.

PG6X is slower than 506X.

Originally Posted by ricospin

Something to consider. DHS 506X and PG6X are both viscaria structure blades from DHS.

PG6X is slower than 506X.

True but someone has to consider that these are DHS blades which usually have smaller handles. Especially the handle of the TG 506x is really small. If you have a bigger hand i could imagine this blade being pretty uncomfortable in your hand.
But overall it feels pretty similar to a Viscaria. Maybe a bit faster than the Pro 01 but a bit less feeling.
In terms of quality i would always stick to the Pro 01 actually, considering both being in the same price range. The finish of the Pro 01 is way better and it feels really nice in someones hand, though i even had to get used to a bigger handle considering my damn small hands.

I don't have huge hands by any stretch of the imagination, but I can't stand small grips. Guess that takes DHS off the table for me!

It's really not that small by any means. I think its pretty much just a normal grip to me.

Just found this close-up pic of the V14 Pro which has limba as the third layer. Going by the previous pic I posted, it looks to be the same type of wood the XVT Dragon uses as it's third layer.

Why not just save up and buy the real deal? Instead of trying to find something that’s close or similar just buy the real Viscaria? I get that it’s expensive, but what if you just save up and that just answers all the questions you have?

As I said in an earlier post, I'm looking for a blade similar to my V14 Pro but slightly slower which is what the Viscaria and Pro 01 are, but I never said I wanted a Viscaria specifically. I can EASILY afford to buy a Viscaria, but with all the really good Chinese blades out there, I don't see the point in spending $185 on a Viscaria, or ANY blade for that matter, if I can accomplish my goal by spending only $26. That's why I started this thread to see if anyone had played with XVT blades before I bought one. All but one review here were positive, so I decided to go ahead and get one. The follow-up posts about it were to try to clear up some confusion on it's layers of construction.

Hi,

Check-out the following links ..

https://playapingpong.aliexpress.com...265f2b6fJx6wK3

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32815772489.html

Originally Posted by JRW911

Just found this close-up pic of the V14 Pro which has limba as the third layer. Going by the previous pic I posted, it looks to be the same type of wood the XVT Dragon uses as it's third layer.

Maybe it is limba, but how can we ever know for sure. Oh well, I look forward to your review on how it is. I'm also tempted to get a Lemuria ALC because the overall construction looks very nice, and they claim to follow the Koto-ALC-Limba pattern.

This is a very nice photo of the V14 pro. Makes me want to pull out my v14 pro and play with it again. I have had it shelved for the past few months.

Originally Posted by Funk Fu Master

Hi,

Check-out the following links ..

https://playapingpong.aliexpress.com...265f2b6fJx6wK3

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32815772489.html

I've read some reviews about the Hueison alc. They say its overall a decent blade, but a notch lower quality than the Yinhe/Sanwei alc blades.

And I'm not quite sure exactly what those Playa blades are supposed to be. They apparently let you select the handle style.

Originally Posted by Michael Zhuang

Maybe it is limba, but how can we ever know for sure. Oh well, I look forward to your review on how it is. I'm also tempted to get a Lemuria ALC because the overall construction looks very nice, and they claim to follow the Koto-ALC-Limba pattern.

This is a very nice photo of the V14 pro. Makes me want to pull out my v14 pro and play with it again. I have had it shelved for the past few months.

I had the same feeling, so I took my V14 Pro out this morning 😂

Still a tad too fast for me. I much prefer my Pro 13S with the Sanwei V5 Pro coming in a close second. All are wearing Mercury 2 rubbers BTW.

I find the V14 Pro too slow! so I have been using the CC and Fang Bo Carbon recently.

Interesting! It's so funny how blades of the same model can play differently because my Sanwei CC is WAY slower than my V14 Pro. I usually use unboosted Mercury 2 on both sides, but I couldn't with my CC. I had to rip them off, put two layers of baby oil on them until they domed, then glue them back on. Now my CC is more playable but still not nearly as fast a my V14 Pro.

But don't you have 4 CC's? Are they all slower than your V14 Pro?

I dont think my V14 pro is slow, it seems faster than Viscaria. But I just think the CC has more rebound and elasticity when you play a little bit off the table.

How was the speed of the Huieson ALC?