DHS W968 1/2/3

The 968 is a different blade compared to the HL5.  According to Sergio of SDC the HL5 only has carbon + composite fibers in one direction, while in the other direction it's just composite fibers (aramid), with no carbon fibers.  The 968 has carbon/composite both vertically and horizontally.  The layers above the carbon/composite layer is also thicker, while the ayous core is denser with less pores on the 968.  Lastly, the national 968 has a larger head size at 161mm, while the provincial and regular HL5 are at I believe 159mm, which makes the national 968 more head heavy.

Edited by dingyibvs - 03/24/2023 at 10:33pm

dingyibvs wrote: The 968 is a different blade compared to the HL5.  According to Sergio of SDC the HL5 only has carbon + composite fibers in one direction, while in the other direction it's just composite fibers (aramid), with no carbon fibers.  The 968 has carbon/composite both vertically and horizontally.  The layers above the carbon/composite layer is also thicker, while the ayous core is denser with less pores on the 968.  Lastly, the national 968 has a larger head size at 161mm, while the provincial and regular HL5 are at I believe 159mm, which makes the national 968 more head heavy. In gameplay, the 968 is a lot stiffer, much more crisp which is especially noticeable on the BH side, but has a softer feel.  This is both my personal experience and as described by Sergio.  It's still a rather flexy blade, but you really need excellent technique and a lot of power to access the flex of the 968, whereas it's a lot easier to access with the HL5.  The HL5 really feels like a fast 5-ply wood blade, while the 968 feels like a flexy carbon blade. To give you a comparison of how different the HL5 is compared to the 968, I played with the Yasaka Sweden Extra for 3 months, then HL5 for 3 months, and now the 968 for almost 2 months.  I'm a FH dominant player, and it took me about two weeks to comfortably transition my FH from the YSE to the HL5.  It's been almost 2 months and I'm finally starting to feel comfortable with my FH with the 968. As for the 1, 2, 3 blades, the lower single digit numbers are usually ones made for specific players.  They're "player" blades, but for whatever reason weren't selected by the players to actually play with.  The higher numbers are not made for specific players, they're the ones all CNT members have access to if they want to use the 968. While there's no evidence that the numbers have any correlation with quality, in general the lower the number, the higher the price.  When I bought my national 968 I just picked by weight and thickness.  The lowest number I was offered was in the high teens, but at that point I felt weight and thickness mattered more to me so I ended up picking one that was 92gm and 6mm which happened to be the highest number #33.

I communicated with the owner of prott to ask him about the significance of the W968 pro versions.  He said all of those w968s uses innerforce like composition, where the composite fibers are closer to the core than the typical blades like Viscaria and such, whose fibers are close to the outer ply.