BH review : Palio Thors vs Renanos Hold

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Prelude: I know i can execute any shot with any rubber with
good skill. But its also true that i can execute certain shots with certain rubbers
even with poor skill. 

Introduction

I have come a long way trying out different BH rubbers, on different blades.
And sometimes gone back and forth with different rubbers. There are so many
finer variables like gluing, humidity, blade, color, nature of opponents game,
etc. that affects and provides contradictory results. it is very difficult to
comprehend everything and say this is better that that. 

I am strongly against the school that thinks that certain rubbers suit certain
level of players. I rather think for any player who has gone through formal
training ... and not 'invented' his strokes, the equipment is decided by his
style... and not his level. 

In BH i tried: Xiom Omega 4 asia, Xiom Vega europe, Galaxy Moon, donic acuda
S2, donic acuda s1, donic jo gold x1, andro hexer, andro hexer+, Palio Blitz,
Palio Macro Era 42.5, lkt red diamond, DHS NEO H3, tenergy 05, Tenergy 64,
Tenergy 05 FX, Tenergy 25, Hammond pro Beta, roundel, roundel soft, lkt rapid
series, Dawei Saviga and IQ series, LKT Torrent, 729 focus and higher rubbers,
and Sriver and Mark V; .... other than Renanos Hold and Palio Thors   [all in max, t05 in max and 1.9]

The viable rubbers for me were: Palio Thors, Renanos hold, Vega Europe,
Tenegry 25, Tenergy 64, Tenergy 05, Andro Hexer, Palio Blitz, Acuda S2, Hammond
Pro Beta. Others either didn;t work at al, or were majorly deficient in any
one aspect, or lost properties too soon.

Vega Europe:    didn't allow good push and drop shots,
and lacked spin on power loops. and i stopped liking soft sponge rubber.
although among soft sponged rubbers this was the best

Andro Hexer:     was mostly great but slow in
finishing, and not that great in blocking. 

Palio Blitz:      was very nice, but loses some grip and
then doesn't open loops as good.

Tenergy 25:     was great and i should have played
more... opening loops not as easy

Hammond pro beta:    was great but lost grip and had some
issues with opening loops not significant

Tenergy 05:   didn't block too well, and didn't allow precision
(passive) pushing with low backspin. plus i was playing faster blade

Tenergy 64:   too fast on my then 7mm blade, and delayed
response, resulting in opening loops not having enough spin and going long

Acuda s2:   Lost grip too soon, with horrible results

Among the viable rubbers, the ones i would want to compare are these Nittaku Renanos
Hold (Black) and Palio Thors (RED), because... of course they were the best or
among so close that i don't care... and i can't compare since i didn't have all
these rubbers at the same time.

Sponge hardness:
While apparently both seem to have very close sponge hardness by finger
pressing, Renanos Hold (RH) feels much harder in the game than Thors. The
exact  hardness of these rubbers are 5054
in ESN scale as claimed, and 37 in YinHe scale… (RH exactly same as Mercury 2 -
37 degree).

Topsheet grip:
Renanos hold topsheet is the grippiest  topsheet
to touch.  Grippier than all tenergy. Not
tacky though, but as grippy as it can be. However, while in the game it doesn’t
feel like the grippiest rubber I am playing. The grip feels less than tenergy
05 in the game. Which probably is because of the sponge being harder than Tenergy
05. 

Grip Durability:
My renanos hold is 2 weeks old, already lost a little grip, but not as drastic
as older ESN rubbers. 2 month old Palio Thors on contrary is more grippy than
it was at the beginning. It actually gets spinier as the tack goes down. 

Responsiveness/pop/bounciness:
Palio Thors sponge is much more responsive than Renanos Sponge. While both a
fast rubbers, Thors has a little bounciness  after you cross a speed thresh hold, RH doesn’t
have any but okay fast as you continue hitting harder. 

Serves: Palio
Thors Serves better than RH, allows for a bigger range of spin variation from
topspin to bottom-spin. I win points  with lower players, and gain control of point
with higher players using by BH Thor’s to serve.

Short game pushing:
Both rubbers are excellent in short pushing, RH being a harder feel allows more
precision and even less reactive to incoming than Thors.  Thors still allows much more precision than
Tenergy 05, but in addition it allows for wicked underspin if  you use a little jerk. Sometimes in serve
return situation against a 3^rd ball attacker, it saves me from a
massive attack when I use that jerk with heavy underspin and place it close to
his body. With less room, he doesn’t generate enough upthrust and nets the
ball. (But if he can loop that ball the resulting loop is also very spinny for
me to block.)

Serve return: RH
is better when you don’t read the spin well. But I like Thors because it allows
me to be more active and innovative with every return. 

Opening loops: Palio
Thors is the best BH rubber I ever used when it comes to opening with a slow/
mid spinny loop. It imparts an incredible amount of spin, while allowing for
more open racket angle. RH works better with 
a little closed angle, and makes your openings look more professional,
but nowhere near as precise and as punishing as Thors opening loops. The spin
on these loops is same or more as opening loops of tenergy 05 on BH. But it is
easier , due to harder sponge than tenergy 05. 

Flicks: none of
these rubbers are great for flicks (when you are not countering the spin, but
just positioning the ball quickly with a short contact, so that the spin doesn’t
react much on your rubber). I almost never flick … but go for short loops from
over the table with very short hand movement, even from the net. 

Blocks: This is very
important in BH, and RH definitely has a significant edge over Palio
Thors.  Both better than tenergy 05, but
RH as good as Tenergy 64, while Thors is probably also between tenergy 05 and
tenergy 64. RH also allows you to position your blocks better than Thors. With
Thor’s being more reactive, you need a little more margin of error to make sure
that you don’t miss the table totally.

Over the table Counters:
I would choose RH for counters, if someone told me “you have to counter and not
do anything else”. But no I like Thors, because during counter I can punch
block down the line (not as good as blitz), counter drive, guide the ball
slowly and place it to a corner, chop-block (thors is the only rubber I can
chop block wit… within a game situation).  

Away from table counters: Both rubbers are good, but
the lack of pop in RH has a risk of stalling if if haven’t made a perfect
contact. With Thor’s that rarely happens, but happens. 

Smash: RH has an
upperhand being harder feel. Thor’s is not bad, but you have to adjust to the
throw angle. When you have a shorter hand movement, Thor’s pop helps in still
generating reasonable speed, which is a place. When it is a high ball and you
need precision in not missing it, RH has an edge compared to relatively softer
feel Thors. 

Lobs: When you
are pushed back, and opponent is attacking, you may have marginal advantage
with thors, because we all know the advantage of dwell time away-from-table. 

Among all the above rubber I played, I am probably liking
thors and getting back to it again and again. But I lose points on block
against a very strong lefty looper when I use thors, but not when I use RH. My
point is if blocking is that important, I would rather get a more specialized
blocker like nianmore or something more. I need the points I win with thors in
serves, active serve returns, opening loops, and sporadic deep-backspin pushes.

Hope this comparison helps people who like firm rubbers for
BH. 

Edited by debraj - 05/03/2011 at 3:41pm