Few links about it below

http://www.pingpongboard.com/showdetail.asp?boardid=21628 - http://www.pingpongboard.com/showdetail.asp?boardid=21628

http://www.ebest2008.com/goods-1933.html - http://www.ebest2008.com/goods-1933.html

http://ttarmory.com/palio-thors-tacky-tensor-p-106.html - http://ttarmory.com/palio-thors-tacky-tensor-p-106.html

I can play euro type loops and chinese loops over the table with ease, that is the only rubber that i tried thats good with both styles. Very good spinn on serves and serve returns.

 I have had a hard time finding the best chinese tacky rubber for some years now, I've tried Beijing 2/3, Blue whale 2, Hurricane 2/3 no 19 20 blue provincial and neo sponge, Reactor Tornado 44 deg, 729 -5 -08 -2, My favorites has been Beijing 2, Reactor Tornado and 729 -08. And the have had some good aspects but not as good as Palio Thor's  is overall.

And some wobbly translation from a Japanese review about it having mad rotation so it all sounds good so far

how long had you been playing ith the thor? i would want to know if you see any difference in properties (and how significant is that) after a week or 2?

 

Good to have you back.   by next month it'll be fulltime.

in practical manufacturing scenario things like this can happen:

esn to palio: "just sent you a small batch of of the rubber for test marketing as per your spec of sponge and topsheet....hope you like the color" :)

palio to esn: "hey received th batch will test and revert... thx"

esn: "waiting for your feedback"

palio: "tried by a few players and they like it... i am sending you the first production order of 100 sheets. guess what... some people liked it tad harder ..could you possibly reduce the pores by a tiny bit?"

esn: "sure will do it in next batch... so now that thor is regular product, we will create a product code ending with T."

palio: "sounds good!! how soon can i expect the lot...? orders pending and launch date already deferred quite a few times. "

esn: "lots of pressure... prolly not before end of next week."

palio: "oops!!...okay... meanwhile we will supply from the test batch. make sure the color doesn't change."

esn: "you got it baby.."

palio: "sweet !! dude. :) "

[if my theory is right... all subsequent Thors you guys buy, would come with 'T', than not]

Seems like I'll be able to play on it on Sunday, I'll add one more thing, this rubber has effectively no fumes! very unusual for me because I normally nearly pass out when I open a new packet of tacky rubber :P

More pictars

I tried to wipe the dust off but it just keeps on sticking

topsheet tennis style (no flash photography)

On Sunday I can compare Thor's against either BW2 or H2 (other side of the same blade), which do you think I should test it against?. H2 makes more spin than BW2 so I'll probably test it against H2. I haven't tried Apollo or Reactor thunder but I think I will try Apollo at some stage next year. Anyway I can't tell you if Thors is better for me than H2 yet but hopefully on Sunday I can tell you how it compares. What I think will happen is that Thors will be much easier to play with, that doesn't mean it will be easier for me because I'm used to the very hard and stiff topsheet of H2 but maybe it will give me a wider range of speed variation on my shots and I'm sure that can be an advantage. Hopefully it will be also be able to make outright more spin and that's mostly what I'm always looking to find, I already am 100% sure it will be faster but I hope it can make more spin. So far I really don't know, I will have to wait and see. But I hope this really elastic topsheet means it will make more spin :)

I don't know the weight of Thors but I have a sheet of H2 here and it's obvious that Thors is heavier just picking them up you can tell it's heavier. I only use balsa blade though so for me, weight is not an issue I have 10-20 spare grams that I can put into a more powerful rubber just to get the combo to a "normal" weight.

I can compare H2 to BW2. BW2 is faster, harder, heavier and I feel a better attacking and blocking backhand rubber than H2 is (H2 chops better) but for forehand play because H2 just makes that bit extra spin and a lower throw and just nicer really, for play close to the table it's better. BW2 maybe a little better from further away but for me close to the table play is more important

edit: I've found a near new sheet of H2 blue sponge, I've now put that on the blade to give a comparison to something more similar to what you can easily buy. The topsheet on these if identical to the commercial H2 only the sponge is slightly softer then the average but most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference so I'm going to use that to compare, I'll also compare these against whale ii and red diamond on a similar blade

This being my first tensor rubber I was expecting it to be fast and springy and "modern" feeling but the actual truth is that it's pretty much just as dead as any Chinese rubber and I would say less lively than Red Diamond. 

So now what does it do well and what doesn't it.

Firstly for anyone concerned about weight it is a fairly heavy rubber, not like whale but more than average. 

Serving, it serves well, better than H2 or any of the other Chinese Rubbers I had with me today Whale II/Red Diamond/H2/H2 Provincial.

Looping, it's not a low throw rubber when hitting at an average speed but becomes as low as H2 when you really get stuck in and if you can hit really really hard then it probably becomes lower than H2. I don't feel like I was man enough today to extract everything this rubber has to offer because it keeps on giving more and more the harder you can hit and I hadn't played for a while. But it's a rubber that likes to be smacked around and rewards you for doing so.

But I was still able to get more spin from it than I was from H2 today at the same time it is faster not much better in spin but certainly a little bit at the same time as being quite a bit faster. 

This rubber is MUCH better for mid range looping than H2 just because of the throw on it which flys straighter for longer and then drops sharply, I hit many more balls long than I normally would. Normally I land H2 mid table with Thor's I was quite often catching the line. But playing a somewhat serious game against a good player I was at the same level I normally am dropping one game of the 6 we played. I found the more attacking the other play was then the better Thors was to play with. When you were attacking a more defensive player with no incoming speed it wasn't really much more useful than H2.

Looping from over the table is still probably just as good as H2 but I need to adjust that shot slightly to make it as constant as H2 in the mean time I was still able to land the table if I took the long angle and again the harder you can manage to hit the ball the lower the throw so you really get rewarded if you can maintain your intensity. I used other rubbers today but Whale wasn't really in the same league as H2 let alone Thors. Red Diamond however I continue to be impressed by and it does loop close to the table better than Thors and counter loops at least equally as well, however it's not making quite as much spin as Thors when you can hit Thors really hard. Still Red Diamond is a very impressive rubber I believe it's also maybe a touch faster than Thors.

Another good thing about Thors was that it still played well when dusty something H2 doesn't do well at all. I didn't do much Smashing but Thors didn't seem to be a very good smashing rubber, I felt not as good as Red Diamond or H2 or Whale for that matter but again I didn't smash much since I was mostly concerned with how much spin and how consistant it was.

I got the idea a harder blade than mine would be better for Thors since I wasn't able to max out the rubber today, I think something like the black devil balsa would be an ideal blade for this rubber since something light to compensate for the rubber and something fast is what you want.

All around I don't think it's the best a rubber can be (this would be a better rubber for me and would smash better with wider pimple spacing) but it's probably good for most people just how it is. Still it is a very good rubber and probably overall the best tacky rubber I've used so at this stage I'll commit to using it next season and I'll probably use Red Diamond on the backhand so I have what I consider the best two tacky rubbers at the moment on the blade at the same time :) and if I don't use Red Diamond I'll be using Reflectiod in 2.0mm

So in summary it's not omg brillant / different to any other tacky rubber but it's just a very good one, I'll wait and see what other people think about it compared to Red Diamond for me they are both great but both do some things better than the other, so putting Thors on the FH and RD on the BH is probably sensible :)

edit: I forgot one thing, Thor's is not very sensitive to incoming spin compared to other tacky rubbers, I think this is because it only really gets mean when actively hitting hard, the real question everyone is going to have to ask themselves is can they give that kind of power because you really do need to put in a lot of effort.

Now Palio, how about a Hercules, the same thing but wider apart pimples :) 

haggisv, I think it will get faster once the tack wears off, (if it does) and yes it comes with a plastic sheet on the rubber and holds a plastic sheet very firmly once you are done playing. It was picking up a ball just as well as the other tackys no problem so it's quite tacky. Update: I came home and cleaned the rubber really good, had to give it a bit of a rub to get most of the remaining layer of initial tack mostly off and it still just as tacky as before, maybe even more tacky now

I don't know if you will like it more than TG3 but I think it's good enough to give it a try for a while, few weeks or a month and see how you like it then. There's quite a good layer of sticky stuff that will wear off eventually, it's still just as sticky under that but I think it might continue to improve as that layer wears off. 

It's not a revolution of the tacky rubber but a good small evolution :) 

 

I was searching for Thor reviews and came across deb's comment.  LMAO  

 

As for Thor, I probabably won't try it because I didn't even like Neo H3 Comm.  I was hoping Thor would be a cheaper SpinArt but I guess not.

I've had some people ask me what rubber I'm using because they felt I was making extraordinary amount of spin but those were guys I don't normally play. My usual playing partners all think it's the hardest rubber to return of all the ones I've been hitting with lately, I myself don't think it's because it has much more spin than anything else, but it is a little faster and something they aren't used to, I still think it would be really good on a light stiff hard blade, it has heaps of control and low speed touch so I think you could use it on a straight up OFF blade no problem but then again I haven't used it on a bendy all wood blade yet either so you never know :) maybe that will work too. It is a good rubber, you just have to decide if it's worth the money compared to some of the other fancy tensors that don't cost so much more

It's the off season now but 80% of my practice is serious games, mostly against guys not at my level but I try to put a cap on the points they score, like keep them under 5 points for example. So that way I'm trying hard. I did have some games with a guy at a higher level than me and I lost, it was close though and not the rubbers fault :)

oh shh8..!!! you got a new sheet from the older batch ... 

I haven't used black power long term but do you have a sheet of Red Diamond? I can compare it to that, they have the same sponge anyway. Red Diamond has a lower throw and feels more crisp and sporting. Thor's is a bit more "doughy/dead" feeling but probably still almost as fast as Red Diamond, Thor's I would say does everything better than Red Diamond other than loop low over the table and counter loop, which Red Diamond is veeery good at. I'm really a big Red Diamond fan, it's my favorite el cheapo rubber  so it's still in the number one spot to get a place on the backhand of my blade, I also want to try LKT rapid speed which should be pretty awesome I think. I'm happy with Thors on the FH for now

you will be surprised ... and you wont like that surprise  

Did you like it?, it's kinda lonely in the Thor using camp for some reason :p

rawrtje, It's not twice as good as Red Diamond, but it's probably 20 dollars better depending on how important 20 dollars is to you and how long it's going to last. I can play pretty much just as well with Red Diamond as Thors, Red Diamond more suits the game I was playing with H2, but the game I can play with Thors is going to be a more high level game and that's the direction I want to go in. I feel like a bit of a knob being the only person talking about it :p but as far as I see, it's worth talking about

Well, hopefully we'll get your verdict on Thors' durability by then!

i had been trying to move from tenergy... and found acuda pretty nice for everything else except durability and spin on serves. 

then i am now on h3 NEO... i don't know if it is because i took the neo off one blade and pasted on another...(losing the tuning layer)...neo H3 feels incredibly slow and dead after acuda or tenergy. 

i do love the smashes and other short fishing strokes and out-of-position recoveries ..with NEO. but miss the sheer finishing power of acuda or tenergy in loop-loop encounters. 

thors seem to have ignited my ej spirit once more.. thinking this has the dead chinese rubber DNA in short game and alive power looper rubber in power game. i want to know if that is correct?

i also want to know how thor blocks?...because tackies usually are not known for their blocking prowess.

and how it serves after so many days of playing? because tensors lose some surface grip over time.

Thors absolutely has that dead feel in the short game, it has basically no speed in that role like any dead non tuned chinese rubber, in fact I think it feels more dead than the neo rubbers, That's because it's a very tacky rubber, even with a plastic cover on the rubber it feels kinda dead but when you do that it's fairly fast while feeling dead lol. It's just got a different feeling to a rock hard sponge, if you can imagine that the sponge is "dense" rather than "hard" then you can kind of imagine how it feels.

I haven't taken much notice of how it blocks I guess that's a sign that it's ok, plus I've always used tacky rubber on both sides and can block well with them so I probably wouldn't notice anyway.

It serves really well, I don't think this rubber can be compared to a grippy tensor that may loose it's surface grip because Thors is very tacky and made from this rubber that's kind of.... almost permanently not quite dry stuff but it's also got like rough particles in the rubber. I think if it stays covered it will stay tacky and grippy forever.

But yes the main thing is that it has endless control in the touch game but can attack very well from mid distance, I don't think it's comparable to the NEO's it's a better rubber than that

BAD FROGGY .....AFTER MY MONEY..!!

IF ONLY I CAN CONTROL MY DESIRE TILL MIKE RUNS OUT OF STOCK....!!!

that's fact...!! but i find it funny. neo h3 is $20 and lasts about 2 months in peak.

ESN rubbers sponge lasts way longer in their glue feel. only topsheets suffer griploss.

Thor being a tacky rubber, surface grip doesn't deteriorate.

which means at least 8 months before the sponge is unusable. 

so 1 Thor = (4+1)5 H3 NEOs (given that with DHS, 1 of the NEO sheets will be unplayable), with better performance.

Thors should be costing about $90 to be competitive...if nicefrog is right. 

If the sponge on DHS rubbers didn't degrade with hitting them you could use them forever. I've used H2 sometimes before and on some sheets you cant even tell they have been used at all after a year, totally flawless. Thors isn't a pretty topsheet it gets a mark on it every time you hit the ball but, at least you know it's constantly getting off the outside layer of dead rubber :P the actual texture of the rubber has not changed at all so I'm sure that goes all the way through the rubber and it wont change as it wears. Here's a picture of it after 10-12 hours play. I'll update the picture again after 20 hours :). It actually still looks dark black and almost flawless inside, but with the sun outside reflecting on it since it's kind of a shiny rubber, well it's just hard to take a picture of it where it doesn't look bad, I have no idea why and don't really care since it plays so well

 

In the past, I used Palio Macro Pro and Era, and I'm guessing Thor feels nothing like those in terms of pop (good for blocking), but once broken in, does it still feel dead?

dare you touch it !!!