How do you actually measure the top-sheet hardness ????
By feel ???
You can measure the rubbers hardness with durometer but you would have to shave the pimples.
Now don't be rude, give Latej a chance to say his thing 😂
but then again, "shaving pimples " sounds great, just say where and when 😁
Yes, totally subjectively. By how the rubber grips the ball in slow spins, basically how I can loop those short backspin balls, where it is not possible to apply more force, because it is too short. As I mentioned, the B2 H39, for me subjectively it didn't sometimes get it over the net. I blamed it on the top-sheet. Was it "real", I don't know, it was real for me, punkt, basta. For me, on my level, it makes sense to try to feel the difference in top-sheets only in rubbers which are similar in sponge and tackiness. Comparing top-sheets of unrelated rubbers, that is spanish.
Last Christmass I bought a Type O Durometer on Ali, so that I too have something under the Christmass tree. I planned to measure all the rubbers in my vicinity, but I soon realized the futility. I'll post couple of measurements now, but only because it is a prime example of something objective yet totally useless. As Kuba mentions, by measuring with it, I measure "something", which is neither just the top-sheet hardness, nor the sponge hardness, and it says very very little about how the rubber behaves.
H3 prov BS H41 2.15 | B | 46-48 |
H3Neo prov H37 2.1 | R | 42-44 |
H3 comm OS H41 | B | 44 |
H3 comm OS H37 | R | 40 |
Yasaka Rakza Z | B | 44-45 |
Yasaka Rakza X | R | 45-46 |
Donic Bluegrip C1 | B | 49 |
Donic Bluegrip C2 | R | 46 |
Fr729 Battle II H39 | B | 43-44 |
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Well, an interesting thingee there nevertheless is the Rakza X. On paper it is supposed to be softer than Rakza Z. It is significantly bouncier, I tend to believe the sponge is a bit softer, so the top-sheet compensates (is a bit harder perhaps than RZ). It is high quality rubber, which I don't like anyway. I thought I will like it, and was trying to find the reason. It has lower throw than RZ, is faster, too fast for me, yet slower than R9, nice grippy top-sheet. Player from team produces nice rotations with it. Hmm, I bet some people really like it.
Edit: The H3 comm rubbers were boosted/glued 3x, that adds to the result that they are quite softer than their prov counter-parts. Just in case you wondered.