Nexy Arirang review thread

I didn't realize that Arirang was shipping for $150 with a free Evolution rubber:

Just before I left Korea, on my final visit to Nexy HQ, General Manager Lee told me he was making many specials on the Nexy website, this could be one of them.

I have solved my BH blocking issue with this blade with Bluefire M1. Harder, faster, firmer than Omega IV, it counter balances the relative slowness and flexiness I suffered in that game part. There is nothing I like more, when testing a very good blade, than solving problems. I have tried Bluefire JP01 on FH on this blade and it rocks too ! But why ESN can't produce anything lighter than 48gr for a 150 x 157mm cut rubber these days ?

I did . Please see previous page where I compare it to rossi Emotion and Nexy Oscar.

Thanks to Nexy for providing me an Arirang test blade. I think I finally had enough playing time with Arirang to be able to review it.

I tested the blade with XIOM Vega Pro on FH and Nexy Demian II on BH.
First, I should say that I'm not in the best position to review a composite blade, my personal preference goes to all wood blades. However, I've been testing quite a few composite blades, recently, so I hope I can still give a honest review.

I'll start by saing that Arirang is a very beautifully designed and carefully crafted blade. Its composition mixes many different factors: hinoki outer plies, and a burnt wood core that is surrounded by aramid-carbon layers.
The ball-bounce test reveals a medium pitch sound, which would suggest that the blade stiffness is comparable to, say, Nittaku Acoustic, Nexy Peterpan, or OSP Virtuoso, and well below typical aramid-carbon blades like Bty Boll Spirit and M. Maze.
And yet, Arirang does not play like any of the above.

The balance is rather neutral, which is common with Nexy blades. I'd say it feels even more centre-balanced than my Lissom, so not head-heavy at all. This favours the short game: snapping the wrist in serves and flicks can be done almost effortlessly. And short game is indeed one aspect in which Arirang shines. The throw is medium and the blade is not very bouncy, which is surprising given it's hinoki outer, so it's easy to keep the ball short, at least as long as the pace of the game stays reasonable. For the slow game, I'd rate Arirang as OFF-.

But, as the pace gets higher and the ball impacts the blade harder, the composite layers start having a greater influence and Arirang gets considerably faster, also, the bounce gets lower. For the fast game, Arirang is a solid OFF. In hard rallies I had to adapt to the fact that initially most of my balls went too long. From further away, it gets much more controllable, although some may feel it lacks power from very far away.  Also, my loops were more consistent further away rather than close to the table. The ideal distance for looping is about 1m from the table, I'd say.
Arirang has very good dwell time for slow, spinny, shots. However, on fast topspin rallies I got the impression that the dwell time was less than I'd liked. I suppose that a softer FH rubber would have been a better choice.

Chopping is possible: although the throw is rather low and some care is necessary to avoid sending the ball too long. But then again the rubbers I have tested it with are not a chopper's rubbers.

The blade has very little vibration and blocks are crisp and direct. Again, there is a certain increase in power that makes hard blocks much faster than you'd expect from the behaviour when blocking slower balls. This may be a bit difficult to control in the beginning, but is certainly very effective. I was tempted to call it a non-linear blade, but then, thinking about it, it's probably more correct to say that my reference blade, Nexy Lissom, is very non-linear (in the captive sense), and Arirang is just the opposite: now, whether Arirang is linear or slightly repulsive is difficult for me to judge.

I think that Arirang is suited for an offensive player with a good touch that likes playing close to the table with much spin and to loop-kill from medium distance.

In future, I'll try finding the time to compare Arirang to Calix II.

arg0 wrote: I think that Arirang is suited for an offensive player with a good touch that likes playing close to the table with much spin and to loop-kill from medium distance.

  ... 

BH-Man wrote: arg0 wrote: I think that Arirang is suited for an offensive player with a good touch that likes playing close to the table with much spin and to loop-kill from medium distance. I have said a lot of superlatives about Arirang, but Arg0 just concisely summarized what I do well with Arirang. PP-Holic should vouch for that one, it was about all I tried to do on offense. I was either close to the table opening, or trying to counter at distance vs PP-Holic's strong RBB counter-attacks. Dude was Count Dracula his friggin' self that day.. he was HARD to kill... and you had to do it in a special way or he BIT you hard with that sudden RBS slap-attack haha.

Indeed, I think I have to give Arirang another go when I'm done with reviewing the Tamar VII blade. Arirang has some potential that I did not have the time to fully discover before writing my first review.

whats the thickness of arirang? under 6.00 mm?

if I remember correctly Kong Linhui Special was 6.00

do they play similar ? Anybody tried both blades?

Thank you Jolan

I don't have a Spirit/ALC to compare, but the handle size of Arirang is average (a bit larger than Nittaku Acoustic/Violin and Bty Boll Spark/Bazelart) and the cross section rather square-ish.

Thanks, that sounds great. There is still another thing, I´m not sure about.
Is there a big difference between Tibhar Inca and Nexy Arirang. I can easier get a Tibhar Inca, besides this seems to be a bit less bouncy compared to the Arirang. On the other hand I´m afraid the Inca could be too hard.

TommyZai posted one more excellent review of Arirang here:
http://mytabletennis.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=67875

I know this thread is old