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DHS Plastic Ball |
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AndySmith
Premier Member Joined: 11/12/2008 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 4378 |
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I'm surprised about the Stag balls too, but it could be that later batches aren't up to the same quality levels as the earlier, or the earlier batches are getting old and brittle in some way.
I caught up with an official from the Blackpool GP last week and asked about the final analysis on the Stiga 40+ they used. It was the worst weekend event they have had with plastic so far. They went through 2 boxes of 100 balls, ran out totally on the sunday and had to switch to some spare Joola 40+. This was a bigger event than wturber's, but pretty awful numbers nonetheless.
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This was a great signature until I realised it was overrated.
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AcudaDave
Gold Member Joined: 11/02/2010 Location: Indiana Status: Offline Points: 1858 |
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Played my 1st match with the Xushaofa ball last night against a 1900 left-handed chopper/looper. Now I see why several people have said they prefer these balls over most of the seamed balls as it played pretty well. I normally win 3-0 against him, but struggled with it at first and ended up winning in 5. First thing I noticed right from the start was my bh loop wasn't as much of a weapon. I can usually loop winners off of my bh, but he was able to get back easily and chop all of them back as the spin was much less than celluloid. The other thing is that if you back up too far you will struggle as the balls flight path will drop off very quickly. Overall the ball really wasn't that bad, but if the manufacturers can keep making improvements then these balls probably will be ok. I would also point out however that he had a new ball that he practiced with that cracked pretty quickly.
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Joola Zhou Qihao 90 blade
Joola Dynaryz Inferno max - BH Nittaku Moristo SP 2.0 - FH |
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Baal
Forum Moderator Joined: 01/21/2010 Location: unknown Status: Offline Points: 14335 |
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I can state with a very large statistical sample as a fact -- not speculation -- that there is simply no durability problem with XSF ITTF approved balls made in March or April of 2014. I have had so many of these balls that I can say that with 100% confidence. They do occasionally shatter when struck with edges, but on average they last longer than any other ball, celluloid included.
However, I cannot guarantee that XSF-made seamless balls made more recently have the same quality. I simply haven't had a chance to try any that I know of. Nexy balls were fine, and may have been newer, but I don't know for sure because in violation of ITTF rules, they did not put a date of manufacture stamp on their box. And as they say, past performance does not guarantee future performance. |
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wturber
Premier Member Joined: 10/28/2008 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 3899 |
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Yes. I also was unable to find a date of manufacture on the box. And while I can't say it with the certainty that you state, seeing only one ball break in over 200 played in two days seems pretty good to me.
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Jay Turberville
www.jayandwanda.com Hardbat: Nittaku Resist w/ Dr. Evil or Friendship 802-40 OX |
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Mastermind
Silver Member Joined: 09/16/2009 Status: Offline Points: 948 |
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I read a report on this site where a user complained about XSF durability calling them "fragile" e.g. . The user "sssandy" then replied that it might me true for 1* balls. Well, then it must be true for 3*** as well, since 3*** balls are just rounder than 1*, it is definitely not a separate production line. Anyway, even if the balls just "shatter when struck with edges", this sounds like a serious durability problem. If you hit an edge once a game, you will need a new ball once a game. A very expensive fun to me. Edited by Mastermind - 05/05/2015 at 8:02pm |
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wturber
Premier Member Joined: 10/28/2008 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 3899 |
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But you don't hit an edge hard enough or often enough to need a new ball once a game. As I reported, after 215 matches, we had two balls break. One was stepped on. The other failed during play. We lost four times as many balls due to non-return from matches as we did from breakage. The reality is nowhere close to one failure per game. The reality is more like playing for two or more weeks and ten or more hours with one ball and then getting a random failure out of the blue.
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Jay Turberville
www.jayandwanda.com Hardbat: Nittaku Resist w/ Dr. Evil or Friendship 802-40 OX |
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Baal
Forum Moderator Joined: 01/21/2010 Location: unknown Status: Offline Points: 14335 |
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Mastermind read a report on this site saying they were fragile, but the other ten saying they aren't probably passed him by. Confirmation bias at work.
Jay, having 1 ball break in over 200 played is a pretty good data set too. I actually haven't had that many balls, but I have been using them over a longer time. Anyway, durability is not a problem with seamless balls I have tried. It just isn't -- which isn't to say they don't ever break because they do. |
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Mastermind
Silver Member Joined: 09/16/2009 Status: Offline Points: 948 |
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Well, there are some conflicting reports, this is a fact. By the way, "two balls gone after 215 matches" statement does not make any sense to me, because it does not say anything about durability. E.g. whether those matches were played with the same one ball (as long as it lived) or with many balls randomly taken out of a large box with 144 balls are 2 very different things. |
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wturber
Premier Member Joined: 10/28/2008 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 3899 |
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Sure. But the vast majority of reports and the ones with the highest sample rates are the ones that show high durability.
I described in my original post the approximate number of balls put into use as being two dozen. In fact, it was twenty new balls. Of those twenty, we lost one to breakage in during, one to getting stepped on, and six that simply were not returned - presumed under the bleachers or in someone's pocket or gear bag. We started with 3 dozen balls because that has been what we've needed historically and that includes re-using balls used in the previous tournament in the opening round robin events. We had no re-use balls available for this event since it was our first event to use 40+ balls yet we still have 16 unused balls left over. Now this event is one of our smaller events with ony 57 players as opposed to 80 in our larger ones. But even if we played 50% more matches in our larger event, at the rate experienced in this event, and considerding that we will have re-use balls available, we should need two dozen balls or less for our upcoming events - which is clearly less than what we needed with the celluloid balls. BTW, while I never bothered to count breakage in the past, it was quite common to have players toss in a broken ball to exchange for an unbroken ball. The majority of our ball loss seemed to be from breakage and not from loss to the bleachers or people's pockets. Things appear to have reversed significantly and breakage is almost non-existent. Edited by wturber - 05/06/2015 at 6:08pm |
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Jay Turberville
www.jayandwanda.com Hardbat: Nittaku Resist w/ Dr. Evil or Friendship 802-40 OX |
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Baal
Forum Moderator Joined: 01/21/2010 Location: unknown Status: Offline Points: 14335 |
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Yes, but the ratio of reports is about 10:1 for people saying seamless balls are durable vs. about 1 for people who have had maybe one box of the balls and discovered they broke one when it hit an edge. You have to consider the quality of the reports, which is primarily based on time and number of balls experienced. Mastermind, we know you have an agenda, you will criticize all plastic balls, and you have no credibility on this issue because of your obvious confirmation bias, and other things you have written in the past. The only question in my mind is whether seamless balls will maintain this quality into the future. And I frankly have no information about that. I am not too happy about their price increases, and it bothers me some that I have not seen any made (to my knowledge) more recently than April of 2014. |
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Hans Regenkurt
Silver Member Joined: 08/12/2005 Location: Germany Status: Offline Points: 826 |
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I am sure that the reason behind that is the players' and the AC's proposals to modify the ball's characteristics. We will find out soon enough.
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Mastermind
Silver Member Joined: 09/16/2009 Status: Offline Points: 948 |
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Back to the "shatter when struck with edges" problem, I had a session with a guy recently who managed 4 powerful edge strokes within the first 10 minutes, after that I stopped counting. With plastic balls it would have meant transferring 6 euros into the deep pockets of some people just for 10 minutes fun. Unfortunately for them and luckily for us we used celluloid balls, none of them shattered.
Edited by Mastermind - 05/06/2015 at 7:23pm |
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wturber
Premier Member Joined: 10/28/2008 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 3899 |
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The balls do not always shatter when struck by an edge. They are merely more likely to do so then. Do you really think that we played 215 matches this weekend with only one edge ball? I suppose that if you are a powerful looper who misses and hits the edge a LOT, who cuts his rubber slightly smaller than the blade rather than slightly larger and who doesn't use edge tape that you might experience marginally less overall ball durability with these seamless balls than with celluloid. But you'd be the exception. Most people will find the balls more durable than celluloid, not less. |
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Jay Turberville
www.jayandwanda.com Hardbat: Nittaku Resist w/ Dr. Evil or Friendship 802-40 OX |
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