Blade arrived. Finishing is not bad but not on par with Butterfly, Andro and the likes.
Edges on the side of the blade aren't as well finished as on other brands, for instance on BTY you can easily distinguish the pattern of the Arylate and Carbon weave but not on this blade. Speaking of Weave. Compared to my HT SALC the weave is not as dense, it looks like a normal ALC and not "Super".
Apart from that, that i consider cosmetic, the blade is nice feeling and pretty well sanded.
I bought the flared handle, and to me it's too slim. Not that it doesnt feel good because i never felt the blade slipping away, but its too slim neverthless.
Now to the actual play. After gluing the rubbers (Xiom Vega Korea, Dignics 80 and Stiga Mantra Pro H) and just trying to spin the ball on the blade i felt that the feedback was somewhat muted. I do like some vibration on my blades but this one was more muted than im used to.
This feeling translated to the table as well. Just doing the normal warmup, the blade didnt give much feedback on slow and medium shots, it was just when i was looping that the feedback came to me. The feeling was similar to my Harimoto ALC, and not so similar to the SALC, and that's not a bad thing. I was expecting/wishing it to be more similar to the SALC but that's my fault. In terms of speed it felt a little bit faster than the ALC but not by much.
One thing that struck me and i wasnt expecting is the throw angle. I felt that this blade could throw the ball with a more pronounced arc than both of my Harimoto and that was actually pretty surprising. The speed of the blade and that high arc made the blade fun to play because the ball "always" landed on the table.
In the end its a good blade, and for the price it's an awesome deal, however, to me it's too similar to the Harimoto ALC. Since i like more feedback and actually like the handle of the Harimoto ALC ill have to let this one go. In my opinion if you want the feel of the SALC you still have to go the Butterfly route.
