@NextLevel: I think the quote by quote way Pnachtwey responded to you was fine because the then we can tell exactly which point he is responding to. You also handled your response to him just fine as well. Pnachtwey obviously likes to debate.
Wow, what you are saying is that the player's style makes a difference. That nullifies any rating of the rubber on its own.
Of course different players, different abilities and contact, are going to feel and get different things from the same equipment.
Several years ago, a friend had two rackets he was having people try. One was a 5 ply Hinoki blade. The other was a 5 ply Hinoki combination blade with these plies: Hinoki-Limba-Ayous-Limba-Hinoki. He was saying that the all Hinoki blade was faster. I tried and I felt the Combination blade was faster. He was a better player (still is) and he was looping. I was really driving the ball at the time and did not have the ability to make loop contact consistently. I felt the Hinoki blade was slow and dull. I liked the Combination blade and thought it was fast enough with good control. A friend who was a pro tried the blades and said she liked the Hinoki blade. That it was good and a decent speed. She said the Combination blade had bad control and was too slow to be worth using since it didn't have better control.
My friend still plays with the all Hinoki blade (Jonyer-H). And now when I use it I realize that blade feels amazing when you loop. And when you loop it is pretty fast. But back then I could not feel it. And it still does not feel good for driving.
So of course different players and play styles will get different results from the same blade.
And who ever said that those ratings from the companies are worth paying attention to?
We all want to make fast top spins.
Not really. Fast topspin is easy for me with any racket. I played baseball as a kid. I value controlled topspin and good placement much more. And any time I see someone back up a bit further than they should have, I give them short, slow, spinny loops aiming to get the ball to bounce right in front of the net with a second bounce as close to handbreaker length as possible to bring them back in so my next shot can catch them out of position (if they get the shorter shot back).
Can't you achieve a "short trajectory" by not hitting the ball as hard?
BTW, one can achieve the same trajectory with any rubber. It may require a different stroke.
This is mostly right. You can get a ball to leave a racket with the same angle from the ground (higher angle or lower angle). Within reason you can get the ball to go a similar pace. With a slower racket you would have to swing harder for a faster shot. But a rubber that doesn't let you grab the ball as much won't get as much spin and therefore the arc (which I would say is part of the trajectory) would be different.
Also, if you want a short spinny shot you have to do something different than just hitting softer whether that is short heavy topspin or a short heavy push. You still need the racket speed for the spin.
Now if I take one of those $5.00-10.00 premade rackets you find in toy stores, like a Halex, you have to swing pretty high to get the ball over the net. To get the ball to go fast, you have to swing pretty darn hard because those things are really slow and the rubber is very close to anti-spin. But you can do it. I can loop with one of those things. But I won't get as much spin and therefore the ball won't arc down towards the table to the same extent. And I have seen Tahl Leibovitz actually loop with a sandpaper racket.
I personally like those loops that, a foot away from the end look like they are going out and then they drop fast like a good curveball, and when they kick, they kick forward and down so the other person often misses by swinging a foot too high because of how much the ball drops after the bounce. And you are not going to get that with a Halex or Sandpaper.
Personal opinion is not worth much because it depends on your stroke.
As NextLevel says, it does actually depend on whose personal opinion. Someone who has more experience in a field has seen more different scenarios and will have a more valuable personal opinion.
My business is motion control. Too often what my customers think they see is not what is really happening. That is why we have made it possible to record motion at 4KHz. The truth is revealed by high speed video or recording devices.
Woe, slow down, that sounds downright metaphysical. You should talk to the Ancient Greek Philosophers a little about what truth means. LOL.
Joking aside. You are making a good point. Sometimes what we see and what we interpret are very different.
I watched some hardbat to compare it to sponge play. The ball does not go very fast with hardbat. It goes way faster with sponge. But the hardbat guys are taking very constrained, controlled swings. Unless they get a highball that they can crush. Then the ball goes faster than most sponge play (not all, but definitely faster than the loops).
And the sponge players are able to take gigantic swings because their ball will arc onto the table. So the spin potential of the sponge allows for much more powerful strokes on a consistent basis.
The problem I find with the insistence on tests and high speed video is that I am not sure we have the tools to make the right tests.
Could you get a racket to move at the rate of speed and acceleration of a particular loop stroke, get the contact to be the same and hit a ball coming from a robot at the same speed and placement and then do the test with several different blades and rubbers?
If the test only measures the flight of a ball from a stationary racket it will tell us about blocking with a particular blade or rubber. But it won't show much about looping.
I could be wrong but I don't think you could get a mechanical arm to move in a way where it duplicated the stroke of a loop, the speed on contact, and, most importantly, the contact of both brushing and digging in where you get the rubber to make that corking sound that characterizes high quality loop contact for a fast loop.
If you could get a mechanical arm, swinging at the same speed every time, hitting a ball coming from a robot with the same speed and spin every time and show high speed video of that mechanical arm looping with many different blades and rubbers, that would be interesting stuff to watch. If you do have that on video, I would love to see it.
To test the speed of a blade or rubber for looping, you have to test it while it is looping. Because a blade that hits fast doesn't always loop fast. And same thing with rubbers.
But it would be important to note that you would need to measure speed and speed after the bounce. High level players don't have so much trouble with balls that are hit flat because of how they slow down after the bounce. Whereas, high spin loops which accelerate and drop after the bounce cause you to have to take the ball while it is still going fast.
As I improve I know that rubbers make less difference than the technique. One can generate the same impulse with any inverted rubber within reason. It is all a matter of preference.
For the most part, within reason, this is true. If you are using one high end rubber and you switch to another, and your technique is good, either will work even if you like one more than the other.
But the question, the real question is: "why do you like to argue so much?"
LOL. I guess it's all for the LULZ.
I think both of you make many good points. But the subject is a big one. And I am still wondering what the guy who started this thread is thinking about the discussion when all he wanted to know was, "what are the relative benefits of higher and lower throw rubbers."
Pnachtwey: are there any?
How about you NextLevel: what do you think are the benefits of high throw and low throw rubbers.
Are there any? Who would be better off with high throw rubbers? Who would be better off with low? (See Pnachtwey, I just said "low" without the word "throw" and I bet you knew what I meant.)
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