Fancy blades are just not worth it

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This thread made me want to test Sanwei HC-1S, so I ordered it. What's its composition ? Honoki - ?? - ALC - Ayous. And what's the difference with the HC-5S ?

I had trouble finding the 1S on AliExpress, why is that ?

To be more consistent with the topic, I never had what you might call a fancy blade. Mines have always been mid range in term of pricing (Waldner Dicon for 10 years, and now Yinhe/Loki/Stuor blades). But what defines fancy ? Is a Yinhe Pro 05 at 55$ fancy ? Kind of, I would say.

In my little club, nobody has the fanciest blades, except a very few low ranked players (one has Viscaria, the other one a FZD ZLC, they both lose to me 11-0 regularly). Most players play with very mid range blade.

Hinoki - Koto -ALC - Ayos.

HC series have similar structure, the only difference is carbon type. HC-5S has soft carbon (fleece) instead of ALC and therefore is slower but also quite spinny (an amazing blade for beginners/lower intermediates in my opinion).

I guess they borrowed the wood structure from the ever popular Joola Rossi Emotion and tried it with different carbon layers.

Re fancy blades: to me a fancy blade is something like Nittaku Eto, which is made primarily for collectors, or some unique blade made to order.

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Not having read the full thread, I'd say there are some slight differences, however I have never bought a 100 euro+ blade before.

Sub 20 euro tier, you notice a lack of quality control and finish. Not (sufficiently) sanded, sharp edges, uncomfortable handles etc. All of the blades in this price point that I have tried I had to sand down and/or modify to make them comfortable.

In the 20-50 euro tier, you gain this finishing and quality. Materials a notch better, handles have better finishing. One of the reasons I like Stuor blades for example.

In the 50-100 euro tier you mainly find entry level main brand blades, with the quality and finish you may expect from them. The jump is not that big as between the previous tiers and obviously you have to factor in some brand and import to (or manufactured in) EU mark-up. I have one BTY, one Andro and one Dr Neubauer blade in this tier and they all have similar finishing and quality. Arguably the BTY is the least quality of the three, it also being the cheapest and having a soft Balsa core and softer outer plies.

For me personally, I wont be buying or recommending sub 20 euro blades anymore, unless someone has a really strict budget.
 
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Having recently acquired my first 100+ blade, I have to say the finishing, as well as the consistency in the way the wood looks very even, is far superior to anything I've held before.
Whether that's worth it... Well maybe it does give an edge to have a little more uniform playing experience. Plus it looks and feels gorgeous which inspires confidence and pride.
But surely you can play 95% as well with a bit less quality
 
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I don't think there is a correlation between price and "how good a blade is" per se. It is about finding what blade fits and feels the best to you. My go-to blade is the ~$50 Tibhar Samsonov Force Pro BE but also like Szocs 1 ($50), Rosewood NCT VII (~$150), Viscaria ($150), Viscaria SALC (~$200) and Xiom AJH TMXi ($200), but really dislike many >$150 blades. There are many excellent blades in the $40-$80 range.
 
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I'm not using an expensive blade either but when you are not EJing table tennis isn't that expensive anyway compared to other leisure activities.

So when you want to buy a 200 dollar butterfly and play it for 5 years it really isn't that expensive. On the other hand when you try a new setup every month it can get quite expensive even with cheaper blades and rubbers.
 
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Sure, there will be expensive blades you do like, cheap ones you don't and vice versa. A higher price point doesn't make a blade fit for everyone.
Also, some brands really focus on the higher priced segment, others like to generate a lot of affordable volume with decent quality.

Put shortly, there's probably a blade you like in the sub-100 segment, with decent enough quality to last more than two seasons. Once you get to highly specialized equipment, super consistent quality or simply expensive materials, you can fill that other 5% in.

Is that worth it? That all depends on how much €100 is to you, and how important it is to invest in your sport
 
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Sure, there will be expensive blades you do like, cheap ones you don't and vice versa. A higher price point doesn't make a blade fit for everyone.
Also, some brands really focus on the higher priced segment, others like to generate a lot of affordable volume with decent quality.

Put shortly, there's probably a blade you like in the sub-100 segment, with decent enough quality to last more than two seasons. Once you get to highly specialized equipment, super consistent quality or simply expensive materials, you can fill that other 5% in.

Is that worth it? That all depends on how much €100 is to you, and how important it is to invest in your sport

I am sure that something like a Joola Rossi Emotion (which is as good as any 100+ blade in my humble opinion, and which you can pick up for $65 on sale) can last a lifetime (bar unfortunate accidents) and serve you extremely well throughout your career, whether you are an amateur or a pro.

A huge number of blades and a wide price range have nothing to do with sport itself, it's just business. And it has little to do with the actual cost of carbon, or wood, or the manufacturing process. It's just branding, marketing and volumes. It's all about the simple law of supply and demand, whether it's cheese, shoes, toothbrushes, backpacks or table tennis blades.

As for the "fancy" a.k.a. expensive, as an EJ who squandered an obnoxious amount of $$$$ building a decent hi-end music system, I just laugh when someone complains about the cost of a tennis table blade :D. Consider yourself lucky guys. You might have just as well lived in a mad world where a decent hi-end piece of wire connecting a pre- to a power amplifier can easily cost more than a brand new W968 National.;) Everything perceived in comparison.
 
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Sure, there will be expensive blades you do like, cheap ones you don't and vice versa. A higher price point doesn't make a blade fit for everyone.
Also, some brands really focus on the higher priced segment, others like to generate a lot of affordable volume with decent quality.

Put shortly, there's probably a blade you like in the sub-100 segment, with decent enough quality to last more than two seasons. Once you get to highly specialized equipment, super consistent quality or simply expensive materials, you can fill that other 5% in.

Is that worth it? That all depends on how much €100 is to you, and how important it is to invest in your sport

Two seasons = two years? Pros change every 3 to 4 months 1) or so because the blades become softer/lose performance. I'm not a pro but usually change once or twice a year because of this (+ some EJing ;)).

Otherwise I agree mostly. There are a lot of cheap(er) blades with more than decent quality and performance. What would I use if only expensive blades were on the market? Probably a Viscaria or FZD ALC or maybe a Hurricane Long 5A but do these blades have a 2x, 4x or 10x higher/better performance, feeling or durability? Definitely not. Not even two Viscarias play the same and they too vary a lot by weight and need to be selected.

1) https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/how-often-do-pros-change-their-equipment.27526/
 
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Two seasons = two years? Pros change every 3 to 4 months 1) or so because the blades become softer/lose performance. I'm not a pro but usually change once or twice a year because of this (+ some EJing ;)).

Otherwise I agree mostly. There are a lot of cheap(er) blades with more than decent quality and performance. What would I use if only expensive blades were on the market? Probably a Viscaria or FZD ALC or maybe a Hurricane Long 5A but do these blades have a 2x, 4x or 10x higher/better performance, feeling or durability? Definitely not. Not even two Viscarias play the same and they too vary a lot by weight and need to be selected.

1) https://www.tabletennisdaily.com/forum/topics/how-often-do-pros-change-their-equipment.27526/
Pro change blade every quarter?

I knew my former coach uses his for the past 30 year or so. I too intend to use mine Gozo blade for a very long time. Are one ply a completely different beast altogether? Many veteran in my club are one ply user too ( Butterfly JPen Senkoh / G-max Cypress etc ), they are from the 38mm era and their blades are like twenty / thirty years old too.
 
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I think it's to do with the ayous center ply.
Some pros like ML change their blade every few months, but then there's the opposite end like ZJK who still has his trusty viscaria from xxxx.

1 ply is definitely different. I know someone that still swears by his RSM Athena
 
Well, the answer depends on too many factors in my view. I will consider the following, most of you guys will fall in any of those:
- EJ vs Cheapo: If you fall between those you are EJ if you like to spend your money trying new equipment, motivations can be many, but most of the time because you are not happy with your equipment until it becomes a Casino addiction and you just keep trying new models and spending way too much money, or Cheapo the guy that want to optimize his money and don't like to spend lot of money in table tennis equipment, those guys like to use all kind of excuses to not spend over their imaginary budget blade/rubber, motivations can be "i prefer to spend this money on coaching", "i prefer to train on my skills", the dumb Cheapo will say "it's just a piece of wood".
- People that play already with a blade and feels that it needs something else to be better then buy the premium version: Examples are people playing Hurricane Long 3 all wood that want to upgrade to Hurricane Long 5 because is too slow this was my personal reason, Long 5 to Long 5 Provincial this people feels that the Long 5 Provincial can be better and is better, Long 5 Provincial to W968 needs no explanation. Viscaria: the regular one is too kicky the dwell time is too short, the Viscaria Gold is tuned to fix those issues i believe with a harder core, the dwell time is better and the blade is less bendy which make the fault tolerance better at expense of speed(Its slower).
- People that want the best: Those guys just want to buy the best to stop right away the searching for the right equipment they don't care about price, they understand there is a correlation between price and quality for most equipment, though some people can find a cheap blade that fit them super good they know this is a very difficult and long take that can be more expensive, for this reason the people that want the best just go for it, some of them say i don't want to buy any blade less than $200, others just go for the reputation of the blade, others because that is the blade that their favorite player use, others because they want to play like their favorite player.
- People that are very sensitive: For example i have 2 HL 5 Provincial 5.93 thickness i like one of them more because the handle is thicker and it has more control for that reason i bought another 5.93 thickness again, i have 2 Provincials 5.98 thickness that i use for all around games strategy while 5.93 for short games strategy and my two W968s that i use for fast attack strategy only. So, in my case 5.93 is perfect for short/attack with all short game strategy, 5.98 for all around strategy, the W968s 5.98s for unrelenting attack strategy the W968 is too kicky and i will loose some points with it(Maybe 2 or 3 but i will loose the entire game for those points and that bothers me), for that reason i use instead the provincial 5.98 for all around game strategy by default, short game 5.93, all attack game W968s. People that are sensitive will feel an enormous difference in blades thickness even glue layers.
- People that are not sensitive: They cannot feel the difference in thickness, and brands with the same structure, they cannot even feel the difference in composition, for those people changing their equipment does not make sense.
- Recreational, occasional, players no serious vs serious about their development: for most of them its not worth buying an expensive equipment and almost all of them feel in this way, but there are exceptions the ones that like to flex blades and the people that only buy the best stuff in everything they buy.
- People that are not refined: There are people that are just not refined even in the way they dress, talk or like living, usually they have a wacky style of table tennis so they don't even think about buying a Premium version equipment they suck anyways, typically you will see those guys sticking with their same paddles for 50 years, it will be severely damaged, the handle severely worn out and the edges all broken due to too many hits on the table, but they won't change it, they don't even think about it because that does not bother them.

Having all this in consideration: Fancy blades means different things for many people.
 
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The best way to save money is to stop EJing. Even a 50 bucks setup is expensive when you try a new one every month.

Most high level players very rarely change their setup, they pick something and stick with it for a long time.
 
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