Nittaku Premium 40+ balls (Japan)

mts388 wrote: I think we will find that there will be very little difference in the poly balls, just about the same as the celluloid balls.

Hopefully, this will occur in the future.  It's just not true today.  While I do believe that all the plastic balls are more similar to each other than to a celluloid ball, the bounce heights and hardness and the results of such differences are significant enough to have different results between 2 players within 100 pts of each other if they both practice exclusively with different balls (say one with Nittaku Premium and the other with DHS 3*).  The adjustments in defensive play to the incoming ball for close to the table players is pretty significant, and even loopers find some balls feel significantly heavier than others.

cole_ely wrote: Well, the galaxy samples are ittf approved, but I can't find anybody who doesn't hate them.

Which are the same as XSF balls, as far as I understand, right?

NextLevel wrote: mts388 wrote: I think we will find that there will be very little difference in the poly balls, just about the same as the celluloid balls. Hopefully, this will occur in the future.  It's just not true today.  While I do believe that all the plastic balls are more similar to each other than to a celluloid ball, the bounce heights and hardness and the results of such differences are significant enough to have different results between 2 players within 100 pts of each other if they both practice exclusively with different balls (say one with Nittaku Premium and the other with DHS 3*).  The adjustments in defensive play to the incoming ball for close to the table players is pretty significant, and even loopers find some balls feel significantly heavier than others.

lineup32 wrote: NextLevel wrote: mts388 wrote: I think we will find that there will be very little difference in the poly balls, just about the same as the celluloid balls. Hopefully, this will occur in the future.  It's just not true today.  While I do believe that all the plastic balls are more similar to each other than to a celluloid ball, the bounce heights and hardness and the results of such differences are significant enough to have different results between 2 players within 100 pts of each other if they both practice exclusively with different balls (say one with Nittaku Premium and the other with DHS 3*).  The adjustments in defensive play to the incoming ball for close to the table players is pretty significant, and even loopers find some balls feel significantly heavier than others. who knows but with 5 different patented balls chances are differences will be evident.  Its very early in the cycle and several players like Baal are early adoptee's but the vast number of players have  no or little connection with these balls nor do they have the time to practice and adapt to various spins and bounces which is why most club players will focus on one ball or at least one type.

Yes, that is true.  Having this much variation at present is a very bad thing.  ITTF argues that the balls are very similar to celluloid, but they are enough different that it takes some time to get a feel. (Adham Sharara says different things about why this change was needed depending on what day of the week and what crap he is peddling, the latest thing he said was that they made the ball larger to make it easier to see on TV .  There is am ITTF document out there where Thomas Kueneth argues that the variability of different types of polyballs is already comparable to what we have had with different brands of celluloid in the past.  I respectfully disagree with that strongly.  I became  a 'devotee' of the plastic ball initially because a lot of people at my club started playing with them, and the first few that I tried were so bad that it was just depressing.  So I decided to keep trying different kinds until I found one that was better.  The two that I like best are (a) the one that I totally expected to be the best, the Nittaku Japan version, and (b) the last type of ball I expected to like, which is the seamless XSF.  Given availability and a halfway reasonable price, I would only use the Nittakus and relegate my XSF to multiballs and serving.  

If it turns out that celluloid remains the standard ball in the future I will not cry any tears about it, I still like them better, but I am pretty sure sooner rather than later the plastic balls are going to be  all you can buy.  Hopefully by then the uniformity between brands will be greater than now.  Right now my guess is that the material being used by DHS and DF is not optimal and will require adjustment.  I have no idea if they will ever fix it. 

I take a major hit in the spin of my serves.  They bite into the table and slow up incredibly.

On the bright side, now it's a lot easier to do the ma-lin back over the net in one bounce serve.

Haggis, the reduced speed and spin of XSF was immediately obvious to me, from the very first rally.  But you are right, with the bounce being closer to celluloid, they are also easier to use, which was also almost immediately apparent, and even more so once I started playing matches with them.  I can feel the reduced spin on all of the 40+ balls I have tried.  But again, the Nittaku Premium 40+ is in every way closer to celluloid.  Closer but not identical.  I hope they get thier production back up very soon. 

Cole, for sure, getting used to serving is suprisingly the single biggest challenge of all the polyballs, maybe even more with XSF.  With a little practice you figure out how to make use of some of the properties. 

I am certainly able to get enough spin with XSF balls and other plastic balls to win plenty of points outright with spin and power. It's not that different from before but I am able to get to a few more balls, rallies are a little longer, you do need to be fitter. But if the entire sport returns to celluloid next year, that is fine with me too. I very much doubt that will happen but I am not clairvoyant.

With XSF the bounce behavior is a little different from celluloid--as others have noticed, pushes stand up, sidespin balls jump more, there is less spin retained on the ball after the bounce, but it is most assuredly consistent.  Different is not the same thing as inconsistent.  It is quite easy to get used to.  I have played with these balls a lot and have no particular vested interest in saying good things about them.  I hate an inconsistent bounce more than just about anything.  The other thing I can't stand is a low bounce.  Given the choice between high and low bounce, it is much harder to play with a very low bounce.  Chinese seamed balls bounce lower and in my experience they seem more inconsistent. 

I have just looked up what the highest German league TTBL teams use. No team uses a seamless ball, neither XSF nor any other.

To check that go to http://dttb.click-tt.de/cgi-bin/WebObjects/nuLigaTTDE.woa/wa/groupPage?championship=DTTB+14%2F15&group=223192 and click on "Verwendete Materialien (pdf)".

 


Edited by Mastermind - 10/22/2014 at 9:29pm

Baal wrote: You were also saying at one point that nobody in Europe would use plastic either

This is not true, I never said that.

What I did say was that French leagues did not use plastic and in Germany apart from in 2 highest devisions (where many people play also internationally with plastic) plastic was used extremely rarely and that according to my estimation 99,9% used celluloid there.


Edited by Mastermind - 10/22/2014 at 9:55pm

Baal wrote: lineup32 wrote: NextLevel wrote: mts388 wrote: I think we will find that there will be very little difference in the poly balls, just about the same as the celluloid balls. Hopefully, this will occur in the future.  It's just not true today.  While I do believe that all the plastic balls are more similar to each other than to a celluloid ball, the bounce heights and hardness and the results of such differences are significant enough to have different results between 2 players within 100 pts of each other if they both practice exclusively with different balls (say one with Nittaku Premium and the other with DHS 3*).  The adjustments in defensive play to the incoming ball for close to the table players is pretty significant, and even loopers find some balls feel significantly heavier than others. who knows but with 5 different patented balls chances are differences will be evident.  Its very early in the cycle and several players like Baal are early adoptee's but the vast number of players have  no or little connection with these balls nor do they have the time to practice and adapt to various spins and bounces which is why most club players will focus on one ball or at least one type. Yes, that is true.  Having this much variation at present is a very bad thing.  ITTF argues that the balls are very similar to celluloid, but they are enough different that it takes some time to get a feel. (Adham Sharara says different things about why this change was needed depending on what day of the week and what crap he is peddling, the latest thing he said was that they made the ball larger to make it easier to see on TV .  There is am ITTF document out there where Thomas Kueneth argues that the variability of different types of polyballs is already comparable to what we have had with different brands of celluloid in the past.  I respectfully disagree with that strongly.  I became  a 'devotee' of the plastic ball initially because a lot of people at my club started playing with them, and the first few that I tried were so bad that it was just depressing.  So I decided to keep trying different kinds until I found one that was better.  The two that I like best are (a) the one that I totally expected to be the best, the Nittaku Japan version, and (b) the last type of ball I expected to like, which is the seamless XSF.  Given availability and a halfway reasonable price, I would only use the Nittakus and relegate my XSF to multiballs and serving.   If it turns out that celluloid remains the standard ball in the future I will not cry any tears about it, I still like them better, but I am pretty sure sooner rather than later the plastic balls are going to be  all you can buy.  Hopefully by then the uniformity between brands will be greater than now.  Right now my guess is that the material being used by DHS and DF is not optimal and will require adjustment.  I have no idea if they will ever fix it.

Just so it's clear where I'm coming from and in one last attempt to address Mastermind's points (which he has managed to express a little more clearly elsewhere), I prefer celluloid balls but have reached the point playing with plastic where I can have as much fun playing as I did before.  Well, with some of them anyway. 

My best guess from past behavior is that the people who run ITTF are never going to admit that the change to new balls was against the players' interests. The larger size and the resulting effects on speed and spin were a feature not a bug. That was one of the goals all along. Sharara now admits it (claiming most recently that they wanted to do it so the ball would be easier to see on TV, which is just staggeringly stupid).

So  if that was one of the goals all along, they may at some point take the step of banning celluloid, or if they don't do that, they may change size specifications such that even if we have celluloid balls, they will be the same 0.3-4 mm larger as current plastic. And if they do that, we will be dealing with many of the same issues since one part of what makes these new balls different is the size. (At least then, though, the balls would bounce the right height and might be less fragile but that is academic at this point).

So that is the value I see in reporting my experiences with various kinds of plastic balls, so people will be able to choose among the various versions of polyball that do the least damage to the sport as we know it. That's why I am testing a lot of balls and reporting what I find. 

You could take the position that all plastic balls suck and therefore decide you will troll every single thread that discusses them. 

To prevent that, I am going to make the following very honest admission and stipulation:

All plastic balls suck.  I repeat, all plastic balls suck.*  Mastermind is correct about that.

With that said, I will also make the point that some suck even more than others. Some are more fragile.  Some have even more messed up bounce behavior.  Some have more outrageous pricing.  I will do my best test every plastic ball that comes out and that I can get my hands on to try to figure out which ones suck least, and to decide over time if they are getting any better at all.

The value in this is I don't think we will be going back to the way things were before, unfortunately. Maybe I am wrong about that.  Either way, I'm not going to quit playing.

* Even the Nittaku Premium Japan, which has pretty decent playing properties sucks.  By definition, a ball that sells for $3 each sucks.

Baal wrote: to address Mastermind's points (which he has managed to express a little more clearly elsewhere),

I guess you mean this one and this one.

Baal wrote: cole_ely wrote: Well, we agree on something.  The spin part of the game is the part that attracts most of us older players.  It allows a 70 year old to compete with a 30.  It's the thinking part of the game.   If I had to play only with the seamless plastic balls, I would very possibly quit the sport. I like the bit of extra time which bigger balls provide.  I am not young either, and I am certainly pretty standard spin based offensive player.  I was playing a young guy last week who in the last year or two has surpassed my level.  He is just too athletic, and he has been improving lately (he is hovering around 2200).  Last week, though, with XSF balls, I won.  First time in a really long time. A practice match so mostly meaningless.  Maybe a fluke result and may never happen again.  But I think the ball had something to do with it.  Arguably that is a bad thing, though, because I know he is better than I am.  The point being that I don't think you should immediately jump to the conclusion that these new balls are bad for older players.  I suspect once people are all accustomed to the balls, if that happens, then I think not much will change in terms of your ability to hang with younger players.  You would really quit the sport because of these balls???  I admit that the thought crossed my mind the first time I played with a Joola 40+.  Now, three months later,  I personally don't think it's that huge of a change, especially given that I have found some balls that suck less than that.

cole_ely wrote: Well, we agree on something.  The spin part of the game is the part that attracts most of us older players.  It allows a 70 year old to compete with a 30.  It's the thinking part of the game.   If I had to play only with the seamless plastic balls, I would very possibly quit the sport.

THANKFULLY, WE HAVE NOW GOT THIS LOVELY PLASTIC ...

Actually, the elder would try to escape of spinny/looping play. The elder do disfavour spinny balls, for those will give you a lot of troubles In play being far too difficult to control.

   The best part of our domestic seniors willingly took to the plastic DF right away, in place of celluloid. This is how the matter stands with my own folk.. Yes.    

Long live to Mr, Sharara, our beloved benefactor on the aging, ordinar players worldwide. It is YOU, you, you who inducted the timed plastic balls into the game and you darling Adham have made the game more playable for us,   the ordinars.

VIVA President Sharara, VIVA China chemical industry !!!

I have to say that I have not used new balls against anybody with LP  (there is only one LP player in my club). So I have no idea how it might affect them.  One thing I would caution is to not get too riled up one way or another until you have used them for at least a couple of weeks, including several matches with some different players.  It seems to me it takes at least that long to get secure enough in the timing to separate out the different things going on.  This is especially true of seamed Chinese balls, where you have to simultaneously deal with reduced spin and low bounce.