but it was a always a valuable experience.
Indeed. I only needed to buy 1 BTY Innerforce, a beautifully crafted blade.
It was enough for me to confirm that no blade in the world is going to make me a better player and that is when I also learned that other blades will do the same job for half the money.
After acquiring a W968 National, I don't consider most commercial blades including Butterfly's to be necessarily beautifully crafted, I'd say they're well made in really large quantities. Butterfly blades have an especially nice finish for exemple, they're shiny, but in terms of quality, Stiga, Yasaka, DHS or Yinhe and some of the others aren't far off at all. Nittaku's quality and consistency for the Acoustic models seems higher to me. The 968 doesn't necessarily appear to be well crafted either, but the balance of the materials used still baffles me. I think to get something actually beautifully crafted, you gotta get a blade made by some of the few really good artisans who really know their stuff like Sergio / SDC, Nate or Gerry for exemple. But the real point I want to make is that, any decent blade is good enough and a beautifully crafted blade is obviously not needed to play the game well or not. Ideally you'd want something that suits your needs in terms of speed vs. control, add feel to that if you're picky like me.
I gained a lot of knowledge and have fun trying equipment and I can pass my findings to other players, not that this is a necessary journey at all, but not a futile one either. I mostly stuck with my IF ZLC which felt more than good enough for the past 3 years, I knew it didn't feel perfect, I've come across quite a few blades and rubbers I like or really like along the way at various price points, and didn't necessarily think I could find the elusive "perfect blade for me" and stopped searching for that, until I bought the W968 which shouldn't be so expensive, but I guess they don't make so many of them, they're only sold to select distributors in Asia and mostly in China, and the recipe is something special and the QA is high. Yet maybe people will prefer a much cheaper commercial Viscaria or the likes because it suits them better, or a $40 blade for the same reasons. You don't have to be picky, and I don't believe in "you get what you pay for" (ask Salt Bae how much the thin layer of gold he puts on top of his meet costs vs. the upcharge) when I felt how good some of the cheapest blades are.
One last point, I do think that rubbers like Tenergy, H3 Provincial and National, Fastarcs and Rakzas and a few others as well maybe even beautifully crafted, rubbers are easier to reproduce, and while I'm not a big fan of German brands' ESN's, people like of even love them and they sure get the job done! And Michael's list of his favorite Chinese rubbers under $20 also has a ton of value.
