Review: Galaxy Mars II Tuned Provincial (41 deg)

First impressions:

basically my main feeling on hardness - feels like 39 not like 41. Meaning that 41 TP due to all the tuner feels and plays more like 39 deg than the 41 I had before - and mind you, they are all Black, so there is no this Red-Black difference issue.

So I will go and compare TP version with Regular 2.3 mm

Pros (TP)

Generally a bit more control than Regular
A little less speed than Regular
A slightly lower throw angle than Regular
Better short game and spin in short loops than Regular
Plays great in FH blocking, places the ball low and with good precision
Passive game is at least as good with TP than with Regular
Better at opening loops

Cons (TP)

Counter-looping is noticeably worse than 41 Regular
Flat game is a bit worse than 41 Regular, a touch less power
Less confidence when playing far off the table, bottoms out sooner than Regular
Less power in kill loops and fast hard drives

Miscellaneous

Spin - didn't feel a lot of difference
Chop, general defense - more or less same when close to the table
Thickness - TP passes thickness control, 41 Regular 2.3 is questionable

it just says which provincial team this rubber is provided for.

dalamchops wrote: it just says which provincial team this rubber is provided for.

wow, so many hieroglyphs and it's just the name of the team?

Mike7381 wrote: Any difference between the untuned one compare to this?

I have updated the review- see my impressions in post #2.

My general conclusion - this is a great rubber for

a) players using hard surface OFF blades like Stiga Clipper and similar Stiga-like blades with harder outer layers

b) players who stay close to the table and need better control over the table, good FH block even against hard fast balls from the opponent

c) players who like softer, more controlled opening loops than 41 Regular or PME 47.5 or Xiom Omega 4 Asia

The black rubber. The red one this time feels harder by 1-2 degrees than the regular rubber, but still there are comparative deviations from the general observation. Yesterday, I opened a red 33 that was 35, and a black 37 that was 40 when measured with Shore C durometer. In this case, the black one was by 1 degree relatively harder than the red one.

JimT, what is the blade you are testing the rubber on?

JimT wrote: dalamchops wrote: it just says which provincial team this rubber is provided for. wow, so many hieroglyphs and it's just the name of the team?

It not only does feel softer, it is measured to be softer by 2 degrees - both from the topsheet and from the sponge. I ply the rubber to achieve 8 mm thickness.

It's vice versa in 33 and 35 degrees, the black one is softer there.

Honestly I didn't feel much diff between Tuned and Regular version - like 41 Tuned 2.1 mm was playing similar to Reg 39-40 2.3 mm, imho. But I cannot claim this as an absolute truth, ya know?

debraj wrote: galaxy seem to be playing a tactic of coming up with a new name and a new color ....for every new batch of rubber. And we are buying into that game.  truth be said.. while i find galaxy blades pretty good... i didn;t find a single galaxy rubber(with or without tuning) that has feel or consistency of even the worst tensor that came out in last 3 years.

I dunno - I found Mars II pretty consistent. Honest. Venus (old one) was also pretty reliable - not fully teh rubber to my liking but consistent.