My new setup - Xiom Axelo

Xiom Axelo with DHS H3-50 (fh) and KTL Red Diamond Mechanical (bh).

I had a few hits with my pops earlier. It was an interesting experience. :)

I will post my first impression shortly.


Edited by Machine_Head - 08/17/2015 at 7:16am

IanMcg wrote: Why did you put the H3 on what's supposed to be the backhand side?

I just thought the emblem would be a good tactic to distract my opponent. :) Kidding aside, I was in a hurry to set it up to play with my father I did not notice I glued it wrong. My bad..

This is a bad idea.

Axelo on my tries was brisk, fast and sharp on M1 and IV Pro. 

Galaxy T11+ fast? but with a solid control fast?

Yes it is very fast. Even faster than Adidas Accelum Carbon. But the thing with using fast blades is I have developed a good touch because of that. I have learned to be precise with my strokes.

Here is my initial impression based on playing with my father for a couple of hours:

Xiom boxes are one of the nicest designed boxes I have seen so far. It adds to the excitement whenever you open the box for the first time. My blade comes in straight handle. I would have chosen to get the flared handle but the store ran out of stock. This is my first blade to have a straight handle. My blade weighs 84g.




The fit and finish of the blade is very good. The handle, blade face, the prints on the blade face are done perfectly. The blade is not sanded out of the box. So I went ahead and sanded the bottom edge of the head to my liking. As I was sanding I could smell the very "pine-y" smell of kiso hinoki. It was very pleasant. After sanding, I applied a thin layer of sanding sealer on the head and a couple of medium layers on the handle then I sanded them again with fine sanding paper.



I have been using DHS H3-50 on my Adidas Accelum Carbon and it played very well on that blade so I chose H3-50 for this blade as well. For bh I got a sheet of KTL Red Diamond Mechanical. Even with the 2 rubbers the blade is well balanced, I do not find the setup head heavy. As this was my first time using a straight handle, I find the grip to be very big and chunky. I could not tell if I like it or not at this point.

During my fh drill with my father I could immediately feel the speed and power of the blade. This blade feels like one or two levels faster than the Adidas Accelum Carbon (ACC). The ball impact on the blade feels very solid and crisp. With the same rubber and same stroke during drills, I noticed the ball traveled a tiny tiny bit lower compared to the ACC. When I tightened my grip the speed increased right away. I found that I can control the speed a great deal by just altering my grip pressure.

I understand people would think this is more of a hitting blade, but I can loop fine with it. My loops are very very spiny with a pronounced dip at the other end of the table. The looping technique is different when using the Axelo though. I have to have a more relaxed and compact stroke. I think this will work for me since  less effort is required to get the ball over the net. Looping underspin ball from long pips was also very good. Not much effort is needed to get the ball over the other side.

Blocking, as expected was very solid and precise. The ball rebounded very fast from the blade. Again, the speed can be adjusted with grip pressure.

During one of the rallies, my father returned a ball short and very high near the net. I flicked the ball down with just wrist motion and oh my, I thought I cracked the ball! The potential power of the Axelo is very high. Smashing is really deadly.

This is just my initial impression. Normally, I would get a better feel of how the setup plays during my training session but I will not be able to do any training in about 2 weeks. Until then, my father will only be my playing partner.

Hope you find this helpful.

asifgunz wrote: With the way you describe your axelo, It sounds more of a Hayabusa zxi lol. Most people hate it, i love it. I might have to save up and end up buying an Axelo after the next NCTTA. Thank you for your review btw.

In my personal opinion; the koto outer on the zxi isn't as hard as it had been proclaimed.
It's not stiff, at least not for me. I have had it for a minute now, I guess I got used to it.

I have used tg3 neo on my zxi for about 2.5-3 months. I had stopped tt for a while and wanted to fix my form before jumping back onto xiom. Once form issue was out of the way; I switched to xiom FH just today.

imo I get 0 vibration from my zxi. I get 100% feedback. I have used my friends Yinhe NR-50 (yinhe's priciest blade right after the v4 (zlc or what not)) and that thing had vibration! He had h3 on his. and at that time I had tg3 neo. I compared it back to back. The feel I get from my zxi, is second to none.
I guess I am a creature of habit. If you guy's gave the zxi some time, you would perhaps love it too ;D

I actually found it plenty fast on table. But when you go past 4-5 ft off table, with tuning worn out, you better use your whole body. I believe dhs hurricane and tg3 happen to be the best rubbers around to fix technique. I was away from tt since I moved here in 07 . Im 22 now. I feel like my 11 year old fh is back!
I didnt miss a single flick on my fh with it. Its fast as hell in this aspect. I mean bullet.
Word of advice, if you dont already, do pushups and curls. I try to do 100 of each every night and noticed a hugee difference in playing speed.

Now if you have a lazy style like 80% of the people in this forum, stay away.

Asifgunz,

For someone who has a physical style, do you have a USATT rating that displays the benefits of this style vs. the supposedly lazy 80% of mytt members?

Asif, lol no the Axelo does not play like the ZXi.

ahsq wrote: OP, its not head heavy because of the blade design, notice that it is not a round shape. Its a diaphragm shape.  84g is kinda light on a Axelo standard where 90g is the average. I'd prefer 87-90g.

So there is science behind the unusual head shape. Thanks for the info.

The first Axelo the owner brought out was 93g. It was too heavy. And the last piece they have in their inventory is 84g. So I had to choose between the two.

When Xiom first started selling blades on a large scale internationally (around 2008???) part of their marketing scheme was designed to look "scientific" with lots of graphs on blade performance that looked intimidating but which didn't really make a lot of sense when you looked more closely.  Also, they were touting their new head shape, which was magically supposed to make you play better for this or that reason.  It was quite egg-shaped, as with some earlier Joola blades. Xiom has always had pretty expensive and glitzy looking marketing graphics by table tennis standards.  Later, Xiom stopped talking about their scientifically superior head shapes, and they actually went back to a more conventional head shape, for example between the first and later versions of the Stradivarius.  Is there actual science behind it?  Who knows? 

I was able to play for a few minutes today but I see myself not going near a table for a week because of viral conjunctivitis aka pink eye.

With the limited time today, I compared it with the Adidas Accelum Carbon. The Axelo feels more linear compared to the ACC. With ACC, you get a turbo like kick when you hit the threshold of its slow gear. I did not notice this kick with the Axelo.

I also switched the rubber around and played the Red Diamond Mechanical (RDM) on my forehand. It felt great looping with it. The dwell time feels a lot more but I notice it does not have the spin of the H3-50. The overall feel was also softer. This blade really does not feel that hard at all. The Clipper CR feels a lot harder than this.

I hope I'll get better soon so I can train with it.

ahsq wrote: GL on the eyes, hope you feel better soon. RDM sounds like a typical chinese rubber and has the typical attributes of a chinese rubber: tacky, no bounce, slow and dense non-porous sponge and hard topsheet.   I used a XP2008 on my VP, its the same attributes as your RDM. I dont prefer chinese rubbers. Your description of the gameplay tells me exactly that. If you switch to an ESN rubber say, O5T, you will be impressed.

I don't think we are referring to the same rubber. The KTL Red Diamond Golden Cake Mechanical is completely non-tacky, good fair amount of bounce, very porous sponge and very soft topsheet. It plays well actually. It does not feel like a classic Chinese rubber such as H2/3 or TG2/3. I believe the top sheet is a bit tensioned because right out of the box the rubber has a significant reverse dome. Here are some photos:








ESN rubbers may be better but they cost a lot so I don't want to be spoiled by them.  Rubbers wear out eventually and sometimes it gets damaged when accidentally hit on the table. So I prefer Chinese rubbers for economic reason.

H3-50 and my version of the RDM plays really well actually. They don't play like classic Chinese.