Plastic balls cost more than tennis balls now.

those are not the most expensive yet.I read a article about butterfly 3 star being $10 for 3= $3.33 per ball.More than nittaku premium.

I wanna be a wannabe TT equipment manufacturer...

Anyone else have trouble getting status updates to take effect?

I'd much prefer that we go back to the 38mm ball and restrict the bats in order to slow the game.
But it's early days with the plastic balls. The manufacturers are trying to claw back their R&D and manufacturing equipment investment costs.
The experimentation will continue for another couple of years then in about 3-5 years all will settle down. The cost of balls to users will then be even cheaper than celluloid today.

Der_Echte said:

I wanna be a wannabe TT equipment manufacturer...

Anyone else have trouble getting status updates to take effect?

Click to expand...

Im having that problem.i did inform Dan about it,and he said he will sort it out.that was a week or 2 ago.

mahomedy13 said:

Im having that problem.i did inform Dan about it,and he said he will sort it out.that was a week or 2 ago.

Click to expand...

It was just before he left for sweden,so maybe he forgot.

XSF balls are not too bad in price and they are virtually indestructible. The Nittaku Japan 40+ is very expensive if you can even find it (I bought mine from Iruiru) and they are not very durable. These are the only two plastic balls that play decently.

Baal said:

XSF balls are not too bad in price and they are virtually indestructible. The Nittaku Japan 40+ is very expensive if you can even find it (I bought mine from Iruiru) and they are not very durable. These are the only two plastic balls that play decently.

Click to expand...

I second this
XSF balls as well as a few other seamless (suppposing made by XSF) seems pretty decent too.
I think some guys just stick with brands they know (ie Butterfly, Stiga, Tibhar, Donic), but they don't know that those guys "don't" make they own balls

Der_Echte said:

I wanna be a wannabe TT equipment manufacturer...

Anyone else have trouble getting status updates to take effect?

Click to expand...

Hi Der_Echte yes your right status update is down.

mahomedy13 said:

Im having that problem.i did inform Dan about it,and he said he will sort it out.that was a week or 2 ago.

Click to expand...

Hi guys thanks for letting me know we are working on a fix

The prices are pretty ridiculous. Looking at the more complex maunufactoring process I expected an increase in the price, but didn't expect that much honestly.
I think you can expect small clubs to fiind themselves in a financially pretty uncomfortable position soon.

DDF2 said:

The prices are pretty ridiculous. Looking at the more complex maunufactoring process I expected an increase in the price, but didn't expect that much honestly.
I think you can expect small clubs to fiind themselves in a financially pretty uncomfortable position soon.

Click to expand...

In Korea, Nexy / TAK9.com sells a 6 pack of nice good 40+ Poly Balls from (supposedly) XSF factory for 14,000 Won, or $13 USD or so. Those are excellent balls.

Nexy / TAK9.com also has a 100 ball box of 2 star ** 40+ training balls for 60,000 won or a little over $50, but don't be fooled, the 2 star 40+ Poly Balls anyone is selling right now are not that great quality and will disappoint you for training. Until better quality hits the 2 star class, many clubs will keep driving on with what they use... 2 star consistent celluloid balls.

The price increase for the quality 40+ Poly Balls Ney is selling to the Korean market isn't too bad for price. When you factor in the new ball could last longer, then the price gets even better a value or at least break even. The default ball used by most Koreans is Peace *** celluloid and those have always run 10,000 a box of 6 and BTY has always run much higher, if a Korean clubmate didn't "accidently" step on every one the first minute of warmup.

The only cost clubs had for balls in Korea was the training balls which break more often from players stepping on them in multi-ball / Single-Ball drills than anything else. Clubs buy balls for re-sale, but the players pay the price and a small profit for the club owner.

Maybe with time these Poly Balls get better and better, but right now, the dominant companies are milking the market projecting an image of premium when many of their product is hot garbage. Business is the art of enticing someone to WANT buy what they do not need, and there are many successful businessmen in the industry.

I will be blunt. I think TT players are being screwed by the ITTF. I see no benefit in changing to the plastic balls.
Can any body name one benefit?
What gets me is that you all are following along like sheep.
I wonder what would happen if everyone decided to only play with celluloid balls.

The price you get seesm too overpriced. The nitakku sha over here only 6 sgd, the other forget which brand is 5 sgd. But the the tsp celluloid ball is 7 sgd, which is one of my favorite

I would say the biggest thing that makes them way overpriced at any price. Every match I have played with a plastic ball, except one, the ball has broken. In twelve or thirteen matches at least, I have broken the ball, or my opponent has, in the middle of a rally in a match. And they break like packman, split open.

Carl I confirm that and last week i didn't play because i run out of balls too fast..

In my opinion the XSF ball, and the others made by them, are actually better than celluloid. (This includes some ITTF approved balls from YinHe, Stag, and Nexy). I know it is a bit heretical, but murmurs of this are slowly being heard, and not just from me. Again, they are better than celluloid. They are rounder, can now be bought for less, and they are almost impossible to break. They play great, adjustment is very very easy. They meet all of the ITTF standards that will be in place in January 2016 right now.

NP40+ is a decent ball to play with, quite round, nice bounce, feels a lot like celluloid, but fragile and way too expensive. For these reasons they are not as good as XSF or celluloid. Today my partner and I had some NP40+ and some XSF. We actually both agreed to use the XSF, and this after I had spent quite a bit of money getting my very rare and hard to find NP40+ from Iruiru.

All other plastic balls are worthless and I beg tournament directors and league administrators to not use them. If you have tried plastic 40+ balls and hate them, and the only ones you have tried are DHS, TSP, Joola, Andro, Butterfly, Stiga, DF, etc. -- any plastic ball with a seam made in China -- that means you are a normal person with reasonably well-honed skills and can seen and feel the problems. Those balls are terrible. They are not round, they break like crazy, their bounce is way too low, they do not meet ITTF standards for weight in 2016 and did I mention that they are not round? They should be recycled to make something else.

However, do not assume that all plastic balls are that bad. There are at least two factories that make a decent ball, and we need to put pressure on tournament and league directors to not use the bad ones.

Cole tossed in a Yinhe ball weeks ago in an order and I never got around to hitting with it until today, but it was only serving at the rec center table.

This ball seems to be just like the Nexy ball I got sent, solid bounce, no weird sound, just consistent. I could ghost it back to the net, but for sure, there was a little less spin on it.

mahomedy13 said:

those are not the most expensive yet.I read a article about butterfly 3 star being $10 for 3= $3.33 per ball.More than nittaku premium.

Click to expand...

That doesn't surprise me, Butterfly is always to expensive..

Baal said:

In my opinion the XSF ball, and the others made by them, are actually better than celluloid.

Click to expand...

What if the celluloid balls were made so they didn't have a seam?

I have no idea what would be like. Part of what makes XSF good is durability.