Comparing 8 New Generation Rubbers!

Updates on Tibhar Genius and Grip-S:

Tibhar Grip-S:- Black Max

I had an opportunity to test Grip-S thoroughly on two blades, Galaxy K-5 and Nexy Hannibal. In my opinion, it paired better with Nexy Hannibal. I think it would pair even better with Nexy Color. The ( tending towards ) hard feeling on K-5 does not really complement the feeling of Grip-S and hence i feel that Grip-S is best to go with medium hard feeling blades. Imagine a blade that would feel good a tacky chinese rubber, pick the same kind of blade for Grip-S.

First, the interesting part: Grip-S does feel a lot like BW2! I had the pleasure of owning a BW2 in 39 deg hardness (Factory Tuned). The only subtle difference that i could make out was the Topsheet's quality. It seems that BW2 is inferior in quality as compared to Grip-S. My Grip-S did not have any laser etching for hardness but it did have a blue permanent marker note reading 37. It really forces me to believe that the sponge was 37 deg hard. I am not surprised at that because the rubber did feel quite a lot softer as compared to the 39 BW2 i possessed some time back.
The control on Grip-S is far far better than BW2. BW2 does not have this level of control at all. It is amazing to be able to have so much control at the loss of some top end speed. BW2 is able to generate insane top end speed when used correctly, this happens mostly because of the immense amount of spin added to the shots. Though, even Grip-S adds hell loads of spin into the shot, the top speed is definitely short of BW2.
Spin on serves is amazing. At par, infact you can consider it even better, than H3 Neo.
Counter hitting is not all that easy as it is with most of the tensors. This happens because it is not a tensor obviously.
Throw angle is pretty high and is really good for looping by all standards. Though Grip-S behaves a fair bit more than BW2, it still has that very familiar

non linear response. This comes to open light more so when you remove the glue layer that comes on the sponge. I did the mistake of doing that on my BW2 and lost all the good things about BW2 and the same happened with Grip-S as well. I removed the glue layer which was very thick indeed and voila i was left with a much harder rubber in hand. The rubber started feeling very very hard all of a sudden. I would recommend everyone to keep the glue layer on Grip-S till they suck the life out of it. The topsheet formula is definitely different from the regular BW2. The topsheet feels softer than BW2's topsheet.
It feels and plays quite like a chinese rubber itself. In the beginning, the tack was not very high. However, off late, because i have been keeping it very well, the tack seems to have improved quite a fair bit. Chinese strokes will be rewarded with very good amounts of spin. European loops will also be doable with Grip-S. This is one thing which definitely differentiates it from BW2. With BW2, 39 deg, FT, it was almost impossible to do european style of looping.

The ball just would not carry and you would get that odd cracking sound that BW2 was famous for. However, with Grip-S, this does not seem to be a problem.

This is perhaps because Grip-S is softer than BW2 39. But then, i would also attribute this to the heavy amount of tuning that the factory does to Grip-S.

The glue layer is very even and very thick. This gives the rubber that cushiony effect and hence makes it easy for one to loop with european technique.
This rubber is no speed demon, so beware! This is more of a control attack oriented rubber from a european player's point of view. The amount of control you get is really very good. Not even the hardest ripped loops can pose a threat against Grip-S.
It is not quite insensitive to incoming spin but i would say that it is still better than BW2 in this department. Not that BW2 sucked at handling incoming spin but that Grip-S is a fair bit better than BW2 in this.
The sponge also seems to be of a better quality than BW2.
Overall, i would say that Grip-S is like an enhanced version of BW2 FT. It has better control and has equal amount of spin. The topsheet is tacky and is really helpful in generating spin on serves.
The only drawback that i noticed was that once the glue layer is removed from the sponge, the sponge starts feeling hard again. The rubber has shrunk a bit as well (very little though). This might be because of the fact that the glue layer was removed. Price does seem a bit too high for this kind of a rubber. I am sure that this is not what Palio's Thor's is going to be like. This rubber feels like made in china and it should have been priced in the same price band itself. I do reckon, however, that Grip-S migh be what Haifu plans to release as