Nexy Arche reviews

I've had the test Arche for a few weeks now during its Euro tour (sent on via kevo - many thanks for the fast shipping).  I've had 5 sessions with it with a variety of rubbers.  Here's what I think.

Physicals

Build quality is very high, as usual for Nexy.  I find Nexy to be the absolute best in terms of comfort - the shape of the wings always seems to fit me perfectly.  Your mileage (and hands) may vary of course.  I'm not a massive fan of square-ST handle shapes (the Rubicon's WST handle option was great) but if it was my own personal blade then I'd sand the edges down a bit to make it more round.  The gem doesn't bother me, but I'm not twiddling.

In Play

The basic speed of the blade feels towards the upper end of OFF-.  Slower than the true 7 ply powerhouses (Clipper) or popular 5+2 composites, faster than classic 5 ply all woods.  The feel is sharp and definite in low-effort situations, but when applying any sort of power the hardness gives way to more dwell, so it avoids becoming too bouncy or runaway.  Nexy seem to have a habit of producing blades that slot somewhere in a vague area between 5 and 7 ply behaviour (Lissom, Rubicon etc), and this is another case.

Looping gives a relatively surprising (considering the harder outers) impression of dwell and the blade has a solid, reassuring linear nature.  This makes it easy to generate arc safely and consistently.  I really enjoyed how Arche lends itself to "pressure" looping - you can generate enough spin to force the opponent to block, and then looping against block is very effective to continue to build pressure during the point.  The blade lacks raw top speed though and IMO needs fast, hard rubbers if you want to hit massive winners all the time or if you spend your time looping from distance.

The short game is precise and the lack of too much bounciness helps a lot with handling incoming spin.  It's definitely a tad harder/bouncier in very passive situations when compared to, say, a 5-ply all-wood with limba outers, but we're not talking about the aggressive bounciness of hardwood over spruce by any means.

After the first few sessions with a variety of Rasanters, I tried Hype KR on the BH and Aurus Prime on the FH and it made a world of difference.  For me, Arche makes more sense with harder, lively rubbers.  The additional punch and catapult helps when transitioning from close to mid distance.  The Rasanters feel too inert on it.

Combo Properties

I've experimented with combination blades in the past and unless you consider the more extreme defensive constructions (using really asymmetrical ply constructions), the results tend to be quite subtle.  I find Arche quite interesting because the difference between the two sides seems more obvious depending on the shot context you find yourself in.  On hard hits, or very passive situations, I can't feel much different at all.  The middle ground feels special though - opening up against backspin, controlled counterlooping, "relaxed" active blocking (i.e. not punch blocking at max strength).  In these situations, the ash side offers more dwell and a slight drop in speed, so the arc increases.  This really helps me when using it on the BH wing when I can't get enough wrist action on the ball - the result is safer and the pressure of reading incoming spin/speed is a touch lower.  The harder wenge (or whatever) side needs a more aggressive approach in comparison, but the mechanical possibilities of the FH stroke mean you're generally getting more action on the ball naturally anyway.  This seems to be a very clever design for a blade considering how the BH receive game has evolved in recent years.

To try to get a feel for the difference in the two wings I put new sheets of R47, black, ultramax on both sides in my second session with the blade and twiddled each hour or so.  What stood out to me when doing this was how the ash side made BH flicks, flips, banana receives quite a lot easier and more reliable, while the wenge side gave more speed and penetration when I was in those "generic" looping exchanges we all find ourselves in.

Overall

Putting the combo properties aside for a bit, Arche is an excellently made thin-ish 7 ply all wood with solid feel, nice feedback (without a lot of vibration), and real-world usable upper OFF- speed.  I really enjoyed using Rubicon, but Arche fixes the issues that stopped me from adopting that fully by being slightly faster overall, but more linear at the same time.  Controlled looping from close to mid distance, linear response, easy-to-handle speed - this ticks a lot of boxes for a player like me.

The negatives would be the lack of raw speed and flex - if you need that, you'll be needing fast rubbers on Arche (switching from R47 to Aurus Prime helped me a lot during later sessions).  The combo configuration is only useful if it makes sense to your individual game - I liked it, but it's not a make-or-break feature for me.  I did miss having a bigger sweet spot at times (my recent blades have made me a little lazy in this respect I fear).  And it's expensive.

As much as I liked Arche, I feel that the combination construction is a little wasted on me.  This has made me very interested to check out the Tibhar Akkad when it hits the market.

Many thanks to arg0 for arranging the tour - I really enjoyed spending time with this one.

As noted in previous reviews, thanks to Nexy for providing the test blade and ArGo for organising the test rota.

I received the blade two weeks ago and have been using it since, totaling about 6 hours play. 

I’ll skip the composition details as they’ve been covered in other reviews and skip straight to the review of the playing characteristics.

Firstly, a word about my style and current setup. I have returned to using—after using the Dr. N Matador for 2 yrs—a Nexy Labyrinthos Combo blade with Tibhar Grass DTecs OX on the BH and Tenergy 05 max on the FH. I play a close to the table long pips blocking, FH attacking game. I play in the 1^st Div. of the Dublin regional league where I win roughly 50% of my matches. This sounds better, likely, than it is as we rotate our team’s players based on who we’re playing etc. and I’ve had the same drop in form when using the ABS balls as every other pips/anti user but hey, them’s the breaks…  

So, with that out of the way, I was eager to give the Arche a try as a combo blade user and a lover of Nexy blades generally. I also thought that my perspective might be somewhat unique in that I would be testing the blade with LPs on the BH side.

The FH:

Pros: The FH side of the Arche is a close-to-the-table looper’s dream and reminded me very much of my memories of the Stiga Offensive Classic I used for many years though with maybe a bit faster, bigger, truer, sweetspot. The throw angle with Tenergy is medium high/high—T05 having a high throw itself—and the dwell is lovely and long. There is a real sense of high spin-control about this set-up and a real feeling of ‘this is a top end all-wood blade’ about the Arche FH. The speed is in the All+/Off- level, I would say, but the FH of the Arche is noteworthy for its linear control. You feel you can put the ball exactly where you want no matter how hard you swing, provided you’re relatively close to the table. You get loads of control and spin on serves, much more than with something as hard and crisp and carbony as the Labyrinthos I use now. It’s no speed demon but if you win the bulk of your points with spin, Arche is ideal.

Cons: No real cons, though you won’t be playing massive counter loops from 20 feet off the table with the Arche. It has decent power close up and from medium distance but after that, you’re gonna want something heavier or with carbon. This ain’t no con, man, it just is what it is! The headsize is somewhat smaller than I’m used to, and might do with being a tad bigger if Nexy intends to tap into the LP/anti user market—which I highly recommend, more anon—but that’s probably just me, used to the Labyrinthos.

Oh yeah, there is a major con, to do with the handle—and the ST handle is brilliant in the hand as you’d expect of a Nexy which makes this all the more…connish!  What is up with that stupid, plastic, pale blue diamond thingy on the bottom of the FH side of the handle just under the lens? I mean really… It’s bothersome when you feel it—which is not often, admittedly—when you are playing standard FH shots etc. but when you do feel it, twiddling or on certain serves? Totally annoying. Like a bad tooth. It also looks like someone robbed it from a Barbie vajazzle set and stuck it on with Gorilla glue for laughs. If the blade was mine and not a tester, it’d be plucked out like an unopened mussel from a plate of pasta pescatore!

And now back to the love-in that this review is meant to be…

The BH:

Pros: This is where the Arche really shined for me. The backhand had a lovely soft yet stiff, crisp—you get me?—feeling under the OX LPs, giving blocks a nice, linear trajectory. Again, the DTecs is known for this but the blade has a bearing on it too, and the Arche delivers really good backspin off incoming loops. But what’s more, and what makes this the ideal blade for LP users, is how, despite the crisp feel, there is a dampening effect to the Arche BH which I normally associate with balsa. Now, the Arche does not feel like a balsa blocking blade at all. It has far more control and lacks the punch balsa gives when it is engaged offensively. But I would really recommend this blade to the LP user who does not like balsa and prefers controlled blocking and pushing over offensive pip use. I would imagine it would be great under frictionless antispin as well which does not work at all under balsa. It is a light-ish/mid-weight blade—around 80-85 grams—so again, perfect for close to the table blocking. Some other reviews have mentioned the Arche feeling head-heavy but with the LPs it was not the case at all and felt perfectly balanced.

Cons: Can’t really come up with any. Again, if you’re used to balsa, as I am, it won’t feel/be quite as dangerous as a snappy/full-blown-balsa-blocker-blade but you will land a hell of a lot more of your blocks.  

Overall: The Arche works really well as a Combo blade. The FH loops lovely and the BH blocks with great control and feeling. Topnotch construction and performance. Highly recommended for LP/Antispin users who also attack with their FHs and for those needing a tiny blue plastic diamond for...something? Anything?

And now for some of that pasta pescatera… 

First of all, I would like to thank Nexy for giving me an opportunity to test Arche, and for providing it to me for free. Also, my apologies for taking so long to write a review - I don't want to give excuses, because they would be lame, or I'd have to lie :^)

Background on me:

I’m a “decent-level” all-round two-wing attacking player (slightly biased towards backhand), who relies mostly on ball placement and spin variation, rather than on power or heavy spin to win points. Since December 2017, my primary blade is Xiom Vega Euro, and I have Nexy Oscar as a backup blade (perhaps because my dog's name is Oscar, LOL).  Prior to switching to Vega Euro, I played with Nexy Calix II for almost two years, until I broke it last fall.  My primary BH rubber for the past two years has been Nexy Karis M. I’ve been experimenting a little bit with FH rubbers – currently using Tibhar Aurus Prime.

Specs and general characteristics:

Flared handle, 82 grams, 7-ply (outer ply on FH and BH are different)

Speed: OFF-/OFF

Flex: Average – Even though it’s a 7-ply blade, it’s relatively thin, so it has more flex than many prototypical 7-ply blades, e.g. Stiga Clipper

Superficial impression:

The blade looks nice to me, but I won’t elaborate on the look, since it’s very subjective and anyone can see it in the picture, or on the packaging, as it doesn’t matter to me that much, and it’s irrelevant to how the blade plays. The blade appears to be very well made, as is the case with all the Nexy blades I’ve had direct contact with.

FL handle is very comfortable, probably the most comfortable FL handle I’ve ever used out of the box, which is helped by the fact that the wigs are slightly rounded and don’t have sharp edges.  Please note that I prefer above average thickness of handles, so people who like very thin handles might not like it as much as I do.

Playing impressions:

I used the blade for several practice sessions with, and in practice matches against, players in 2000-2350 USATT range. Using Arche didn't noticeably improve or worsen my game and practice performance. 

The feeling of BH and FH side is distinctly different, even with the same rubber on both sides.  FH feels harder, faster, and has more rebound, especially on harder shots.  BH feels softer and more absorbing, but still plenty fast for most players, IMO.  To me, the overall feel of the blade was more like a 5-ply (on a harder side) all-wood blade, or a thin carbon/composite blade (e.g. Calix II), than a typical 7-ply blade I’ve used in the past (e.g. Clipper, Kong Linghui Euro)

Stroke adjustments were easy for me, as the blade gave me great feedback and “feel” of the ball.

Short game -  Very predictable - easy to push, drop or flick.  BH banana flick was especially easy, perhaps because it’s a light blade with decent flex. 

Spin generation – Very easy on both sides, but especially on BH, since ball appears to “stick” to the blade a little longer.  Slower spinny shots close to the table were especially easy, as was mid-distance looping. Faster/harder loops obviously required much more effort (body rotation and weight transfer), since this blade isn’t designed to be a power/speed monster.

Blocking – FH block was slightly easier for me, probably because of the harder surface.  BH required more active blocking with some more forward motion, but once executed well it was very consistent and allowed for accurate placement, as the ball sits on the blade a little longer due to softer surface.

Power game – Looping away from the table and smashing are more than adequate for most players (assuming at least some body rotation and weight transfer), but these are not the key attributes of this blade, plus it’s a relatively light blade, so it's more suitable for mid-distance and at the table game.  If you are spending most of the time ripping the ball, it’s probably not a blade for you.

Control – Since it’s a moderately fast and predictable blade with very good feedback, most players will find it very controllable - perhaps except “short-pips hitters”.  I observed that I was able to noticeably extend the length of my rallies when using Arche.

Overall, I think that it’s a very nice blade that could be appreciated by a wide variety of offensive and all-round players at all skill levels, except those who have strong preference for very fast, powerful, heavy, or relatively stiff blades.

I apologize for the tardiness of my review. Work has been exceptionally busy, and the regional tournament schedule has rendered testing somewhat challenging. This week, I got (yet another) injury. The Arche is next on my testing schedule.