Which poly ball should you choose?

[AndySmith]

There was a ball update at the start of the month:

TSP - SL-Premium 40+ - Seamless - White - Made in China

Also, bit of minor news. Xiom say via facebook that they have an "Elite" training ball, 1 star, made in germany.

 

[Baal]

I am now a big fan of the new ABS balls sold by DHS (D40+). They are pretty much as good as Nittaku Premium.

 

[Der_Echte]

That says a LOT, if anyone has known Baal's heartfelt/battle-tested opinions on seamed Poly balls.

 

[rokphish]

I still put Nittaku Premium at the top of the list, seconded by Yinhe Red.

 

[yogi_bear]

Stay away from donic polyballs. They suck big time and they feel weird. Xsf, nexy and yinhe polyballs are very good.

 

[Tinykin]

Yogi, your memory is short.
XSF Yinhe balls are no more than passable, never very good. If it wasn't for the fact that we buy our balls online, I would return at least 2 balls in every 6pack. In fact if a more sensitive player than me were to check the balls, that average would probably be over 50%.
In the recent old days of 40mm balls we rarely had that problem.

 

[Tinykin]

I am now a big fan of the new ABS balls sold by DHS (D40+). They are pretty much as good as Nittaku Premium.

Good to hear.

 

[yogi_bear]

I am using yinhe and nexy as of the moment although both of them are made by xsf too. Donic balls feel really weird. I would rather use xsf than donic.

 

[AndySmith]

I have a suspicion that the seamless factory has been pushing a more "premium" service approach recently. I really like Nexy and Xiom seamless balls - they feel harder than XSF and have fewer eggs per box, but they're much more expensive. So maybe the best balls are being skimmed off the top for those who want to pay a premium for "selection", leaving on average a worse selection for everyone else. Which might explain why XSF seem to have gone downhill in recent batches.

 

[NextLevel]

I have a suspicion that the seamless factory has been pushing a more "premium" service approach recently. I really like Nexy and Xiom seamless balls - they feel harder than XSF and have fewer eggs per box, but they're much more expensive. So maybe the best balls are being skimmed off the top for those who want to pay a premium for "selection", leaving on average a worse selection for everyone else. Which might explain why XSF seem to have gone downhill in recent batches.

They always have - the Nexy balls have always been slightly harder and better, but not so much more than the best Yinhe or XSF balls.

The DHS D40+ balls are uniformly excellently.

 

[Baal]

I still have boxes of XSF from the very beginning. Hard and round. When seamless balls first came out they were all the same. I checked quite closely. I haven't revisited that in awhile, and I probably won't, given availability of ABS balls, which I like better.

One thing that I noticed yesterday perusing the latest list of ITTF approved balls http://www.old.ittf.com/stories/Pictures/Balls_03_2017.pdf was how many different brands of seamless balls are now being sold. This must mean that there has been a pretty big increase in production capacity in last two years to meet that demand. How was that actually accomplished? I have no insight into that. (Increased throughput at one plant vs. increased number of manufacturing facilities). However it was done, the total number of substandard balls in existence also increased, even if those remain the same percentage of the total balls produced (and we can't exclude that with increased total production the percentage of bad balls increased). At the beginning, XSH and Palio would probably not sell those. And now, maybe, there are some companies who would be willing to put their name on them to meet the market demand, and maybe others that wouldn't. Nexy has never been shy about putting high prices on their stuff, so I doubt it means they were getting better balls. As for Yinhe, there seem to be a lot of those floating around my club these days, some of the coaches here use them (these all have blue labels). I can't see they are better than XSF.

 

[JHB]

I'm sure I already said this somewhere else on the forums, but the club I sometimes play for in the league use Kingnik 3-star balls for matches. These are seamless so they're presumably an XSF clone; they've been excellent, or at least the ones which I've played with, and they also seem to stay bright white no matter how much crud they land in

 

[Baal]

Kingnik sells two grades of seamless. The more expensive ones I have tried are perfectly good seamless balls, like you say. I heven't tried their cheaper ones.

 

[Zaid323918]

Kingnik sells two grades of seamless. The more expensive ones I have tried are perfectly good seamless balls, like you say. I heven't tried their cheaper ones.

Are the more expensive ones the ones that are sold at TT11?

 

[Baal]

Yes. The cheap ones you have to buy directly from Minkow. But it looks like only the ones sold at TT11 are ITTF approved, since their list only includes the one with that label.

 

[watcher]

I'm sure I already said this somewhere else on the forums, but the club I sometimes play for in the league use Kingnik 3-star balls for matches. These are seamless so they're presumably an XSF clone; they've been excellent, or at least the ones which I've played with, and they also seem to stay bright white no matter how much crud they land in

in my experience, kingnik and xsf play almost the same. i find the nittaku premium just a slightest bit bouncier, in a good way. given bang for buck, kingnik is a pretty strong option. i ordered some dhs d40+ to see what all the fuss is about. it got shipped today, so maybe i can get it by the end of the week

 

[Shifu]

played today with the D40+ and the NP and I couldn't tell the difference. Only the feel in the hand during serve was a bit different, the D40+ was a bit grippier after a while.

 

[Baal]

I can tell the difference now but it is very slight and doesn't really matter.

 

[AndySmith]

Ball update, 23rd March. Added:

Stiga Perform 40+ - White - Seamed - Made in China.

With the original Stiga 40+ being a rebranded DHS ball, what's the betting that this is a rebranded D40+?

 

[JHB]

in my experience, kingnik and xsf play almost the same. i find the nittaku premium just a slightest bit bouncier, in a good way. given bang for buck, kingnik is a pretty strong option. i ordered some dhs d40+ to see what all the fuss is about. it got shipped today, so maybe i can get it by the end of the week

I'll be interested to lay hands on some DHS D40+ when they're available in the UK market. Meanwhile the club I practise/play socially in, although they still haven't run out of their seemingly limitless supply of Nittaku Premium 40 celluloid, have finally invested in some Nittaku Premium 40+ in an effort to move with the times. One obvious issue has come to light, and that is the speed with which the NP 40+ go smooth and shiny - this seems to lead players to believe the balls won't spin, although experience indicates otherwise - very off-putting though, especially when the logos seem to wear and become faint too.

On a different tack I had the rare opportunity this morning to play on a brand-new table top - all of a sudden ghost serves and major deviations after bouncing became stupidly easy to achieve. It was like facing Shane Warne in his prime, or Derek Underwood on a wet wicket !! Thankfully the customary layer of sweat and other crap will soon be in place.....