Tenergy Rubber for Backhand?

Hello everyone,For some added context, I started with the old Srivers and then used Sriver G3 and Xiom Vega Europe on my bh.  G3 was good but it's hard to get a hold of for me and fairly close to Tenergy in price anyway.  Didn't like Vega Europe.  I don't have either of these rubbers anymore so I went back to an old Sriver FX to play with. 

Edited by iamj8 - 09/24/2016 at 10:42pm

From your list of characteristics T64/64x or Tenergy 80, Tenergy 80x might be too soft for your preference.

I would avoid the FX ones, especially now that most people play with the plastic ball. I tried 05FX for a month, but it is just too soft. 

Baal if Nl is so right then this forum would just die

The Canadian Bacon wrote: Baal if Nl is so right then this forum would just die

How about not going all the way to Tenergies? I mean, I played Sriver FX for quite some time and that rubber really"lacks power". 

Edited by JacekGM - 09/24/2016 at 2:19pm

The Canadian Bacon wrote: Baal if Nl is so right then this forum would just die

Not quite sure what you mean but there is a certain sort of EJ thread that invites people to waste money and which is actually pretty pointless.  At the end of the day, the only way to know if you like something is to try it. 

One way to try something is to buy it.  It is actually fun to try new stuff,  but there is no point spending money stupidly. 

At a point I figured out that most of the stuff I have ever tried that I really really liked was stuff I discovered by hitting with a clubmate's blade.  It is how I discovered the Viscaria blade a long time ago.  It is how I figured out what Tenergy was like, shortly after it first came out (and I definitely did not fall in love with it immediately, the high throw was pretty off-putting coming from first-generation Tensors.  I learned that MX-P is easy to use if you are used to Tenergy 05 and is in every way an acceptable alternative -- because a clubmate had it on his blade.  It is also how I discovered that there is a lot of stuff I could never use. 

I now rarely buy stuff  just stuff to try it.  Once in awhile.  I got lucky with my Ovtcharov True Carbon that way (but I already knew how Donic shapes their ST handles and I also knew that the blade composition would be almost identical to a Viscaria, so it was not a huge leap, and as it turns out, I got lucky). 

Tenergy is the most expensive rubber sold today. It is very very good -- at least some of the versions -- but insanely over-priced.  The OP asks a bunch of people he doesn't know of unknown level who may or may not play like he does and who may or may not have actually spent much time with these rubbers whether to buy a Tenergy and which one to buy (and there are now eight versions for each thickness).  Not surprisingly he gets a bunch of answers that are in many ways contradictory.

NL points out that a lot of this is a matter of taste anyway and we don't know what the OP likes.  Or how he plays.  I don't like Tenergy 05 FX at all on my BH.  But Kreanga does.  I'd say Kreanga has a gazillion times more authority to talk about BH then I do --- except for one thing, who on this forum actually hits a BH the way Kreanga does?  How many people in the world? 

And  you think a comment that kills a forum?    I mean, really, you think that?

No.

What kills a forum (or at least slows it down) is when it turns almost entirely into a place for people to discuss their EJing.  Some people who EJ a lot start to delude themselves into thinking they can see or feel things that are frankly impossible.  I have to think about whether or not to elaborate on that.  I probably won't because it would anger a couple of very active forum members who I like a lot even though I have discerned this trait in some of their comments.   

The statement is harsher than my intention but I am pretty much saying that if his concernso about T80FX or T80 are driven by online reviews, he should dismiss them.

I understand privacy concerns but they are no reason why people should not be able to make their playing level known when rating equipment. Some people do and this makes the equipment discussions more meaningful. Some others develop a history of posts that can let people get an idea of how objective they are. I am just warning anyone who is new to this review business not to take reviews at face value. Some people reviewing equipment have really bad technique but you would never know from the reviews. Some even lie about their level of play.

Equipment reviews are not as objective as some people think they are. Level of player and quality of strokes make a big difference. Because of where I sit across the forums, I am in a position where I know many of the people reviewing equipment and I shake my head sometimes at the things people say and wonder whether they would say the same thing if they posted a review with video of their stroke.

I remember a review a while back from someone who posted video and the most common comment was that he lacked a real forehand so people could not assess the rubber from his review. We can only be grateful that he was honest.

I like and read all my favorite EJS and I am one too. I wouldn't like any of them if I have no insight into their level of play.

Now i see lot of chinese use h3 for backhand they stop tenergy :)

Baal wrote: The Canadian Bacon wrote: That's very negative and down *******  accusing everyone who doesn't show themselves mostly because they care about their privacy...why bother using  the forums then? The fact that you heard or read something on the internet does not make it true.  These are words to live by, and it is not limited to forums on ping pong.  I invite you to go and look at any of the hundreds of threads here and elsewhere where a poster asks for advice about "what rubber to get for their backhand".  It is a popular question.  Then read the comments and ask yourself, how can their be so many different answers and how can so many of them be more or less mutually exclusive? So all NL has done is point that out. (And I will note that a lot of people have suggested T80 and T80 FX.  Both are really good on a lot player's backhands; but  I again suggest that the OP not take my word for it and see if someone he knows has a blade with Tenergy on it he can try.  If not, maybe someone has some Tibhar Evolution or Donic Bluefire or Andro Rassant or something along those lines he can try.  If coming from Shriver FX he finds one of those somewhat "Tenergy-like" ESN rubbers to be too difficult to use effectively, he will also find most Tenergy rubbers difficult to use. He may also find one of those to be really good, in which case he can buy it from TT11 for half the price of Tenergy).

Please don't quote me out of context, thank you.

The Canadian Bacon wrote: NextLevel wrote: Don't waste your time with reviews or comments from people you have never played or seen play.  It's not a question we can answer without seeing you play.  I have seen every single Tenergy rubber, including T25 and T25FX, used by people with great backhands.  I recently tried all the Tenergies in regular sponge on my FH in a quick test and I realized that while there were clear differences, given time, I could adapt to any of them. MY BH is my better wing so I can pretty much use anything there. T80FX is a great rubber if that is what you want - I have seen people use it on both their backhand and forehand and I would not blame the rubber for anything that was off with their play. All the Tenergies have high throw but relative to each other, T64 has the lowest.  I currently use T80 on both sides but I could just as well use any of them, including the FXs. That's very negative and down *******  accusing everyone who doesn't show themselves mostly because they care about their privacy...why bother using  the forums then?

my last reply to this thread out of respect to the OP



Edited by The Canadian Bacon - 09/24/2016 at 11:24pm

With all honesty, for one, JimT has provided a very good and succinct summary of the Tenergy field - thank you again - that somehow escaped this discussion. 

I have actually played with T05, T05FX, T64, T80, T25, and T25Fx.  Many years with T05.  A lot of time with T64 (at least 9 months), which was my "entry" into Tenergy when the first time I tried T05 I found it too different from what I had used before.  T80, and T25FX each spent months on my BH.  I did not spend much time with T05FX because I disliked it immediately.  And yet, I would hesitate to recommend any of these to the OP, because I have no idea what he might find most suitable. 

Anyway, OP has bought some T80, which is certainly very usable on BH. 

BUT.     To the OP.  This is going to be very different from what you have used before, so give it some time before deciding if you will stick with it. 

At the time I bought my first sheet of Tenergy 05 (a few weeks after they first started selling it in the US), I had been using Donic F1 Desto and Donic JO Gold, which were pretty much first generation "speed glue" effect rubbers introduced in anticipation of the speed glue ban.  I think very few people would care for them much these days, they feel kind of plastic and their durability was a joke, but even those would be faster and probably spinnier than any version of Sriver.  They would be considered very "low throw" rubbers now, with a speed/spin ratio that few players here would accept now.  So on my first attempt with Tenergy 05, well it felt incredibly, weird, like I kept hitting these moonballs, and I was simply unable to hit the top of the ball enough.  After a week or so I gave it away.  Probably a mistake.

T64 was a much easier adjustment, and a nice "transition" rubber, with a lot of Tenergy characteristics, but not the full effect you get with 05.  After several months with 64, the next time I tried 05, it felt great.  I immediately could see what it was for and how much better it was than EVERYTHING else at that time for modern spin and power based TT.  T64 made it possible for me to use T05 and understand it. 

I tell you that to prepare you for the fact that the transition from something like Sriver -- any version of it I have ever tried -- to something like Tenergy 80 (which is in most respects somewhat midway between 05 and 64) MAY not be something that feels comfortable for awhile.  

Jim T

TT11 sells MX-P for a little more than half the price of Tenergy in the US at the moment.  It is probably the closest thing to Tenergy 05 in existence in terms of the amount of adjustment you need to switch from one to another.  They feel different but somehow play fairly close. 

Any of those modern ESN tensors with thick pored sponges will give you some feeling for what Tenergy might be like if you have never used a modern rubber.  The ones you listed are all pretty reasonable (not all are thick pored) and will feel really different from any Sriver.  (Except I have never tried a Palio rubber).

Personally I like a bit of weight to my blade, so maybe I am not the right person to comment on that, but among the ones on your list I have tried, none seemed markedly different from Tenergy.

2. A lot of T5 users in my area, including myself, switch to MXP when, as at the moment, T5 prices reach absurd levels. I adjust with no effect on the way I play in one session. I really was never able to do that with anything else I had tried earlier. Is it exactly the same? No. And the feel is a bit more direct with MXP. But no question that is a reasonable alternative for a lot of people.